A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM 169Moreover, the habit of working with a Definite Chief Aim will help
you to concentrate all your attention on any given task until you have
mastered it.
Concentration of effort and the habit of working with a Definite
Chief Aim are two of the essential factors in success which are always
found together. One leads to the other.
The best-known, most successful business leaders were all people of
prompt decision who always worked with one main, outstanding purpose
as a chief aim.
The following are some notable examples:
F. W. Woolworth chose as his Definite Chief Aim the belting of
America with a chain of stores, and concentrated his mind on this one
task until "he made it and it made him:'
William Wrigley concentrated on the production and sale of a five-
cent package of chewing gum and turned this one idea into millions of
dollars.
Thomas Edison concentrated his efforts on the understanding of
physical laws and he created more useful inventions than any other man
who ever lived.
R. H. Ingersoll concentrated on a one-dollar watch and girdled the
earth with them.
E. M. Statler concentrated on "homelike hotel service" and made
himself wealthy and useful to millions of people.
Woodrow Wilson concentrated on the White House for twenty-
five years and became its chief tenant, because he knew the value of
sticking to a Definite Chief Aim.
Abraham Lincoln concentrated his mind on freeing the slaves and
became our greatest American president while doing it.
John D. Rockefeller concentrated on oil and he became the richest
man of his generation.
Henty Ford concentrated on inexpensive transportation for ordinary
people and made himself the richest and most powerful man alive.