164 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-MASTERYUntil you select a difinite purpose in life you dissipate your energies
and spread your thoughts over so many subjects and in so many different
directions that they lead not to power but to indecision and weakness.
With the aid of a magnifYing glass you can teach yourself a great
lesson on the value of organized iffort. Through the use of such a glass you
can focus the sun's rays on a difinite spot so strongly that they will burn
a hole through a plank. Remove the glass (which represents the difinite
purpose) and the same rays of sun may shine on that same plank for a
million years without burning it.
One thousand electric dry batteries, when properly organized and
connected together with wires, will produce enough power to run a good-
sized piece of machinery for several hours. But take those same battery
cells singly, disconnected, and not one of them would exert enough en-
ergy to turn the machinery over once. The faculties of your mind might
properly be likened to those dry cells. When you organize your faculties,
according to the plan laid down in the seventeen lessons of this course
on the laws of success, and then direct them toward the attainment of
a difinite purpose in life, you will be taking advantage of the cooperative or
accumulative principle out of which power is developed, which is called
organized if{ort.
Andrew Carnegie's advice was: "Place all your eggs in one basket
and then watch the basket to see that no one kicks it over:' By that he
meant, of course, that we should not dissipate any of our energies by
engaging in sidelines. Carnegie was a sound economist and he knew that
most people would do well if they harnessed and directed their energies
so that some one thing would be done well.
When the plan behind this course was initially developed, I had
taken the first manuscript to a professor at the University of Texas. In
a spirit of Enthusiasm I suggested to him that I had discovered a prin-
ciple that would be of aid to me in every public speech I delivered in
future, because I would be better prepared to organize and marshal my
thoughts.