Just as there are naturally successful people, so also are there habitual failures. My friend and student, John, was a born failure. He was young, intelligent, diligent, and painstaking in his pursuit of financial success, but he failed at whatever job he held. Harassed and penniless, he sought my advice.
I questioned John as to the cause of his troubles. He replied: “Sir, I am a great failure. For some mysterious reason, not only do I lose my job, but my employer usually loses his business after hiring me. I hate to seek a job for fear of destroying the business of my new employer.”
Through my influence John got a job in a small business concern. I advised him to affirm daily, before going to bed and upon waking: “Day by day, in every way, I am succeeding more and more in my job.”
A month passed and John warned me: “Honored Sir, the business concern you got me into is going downhill. Perhaps my resignation will save the business from destruction.”
I told him to keep up his affirmation of success. After a fortnight John came to me and exclaimed: “It happened. The business collapsed!”
I said to John: “Every night and morning, when you have been mentally parroting the affirmation, ‘Day by day I am getting better and better,’ in the back of your mind a little octopus of negativity has been saying: ‘You little simpleton, you know that day by day, in every way you are getting worse and worse.’”
John admitted this was true. I advised him to cast out all negative thoughts as soon as they visited his mind.
I managed to get John into a bigger business concern and after six months (the longest period he ever held a job) he said: “Sir, get me out quick. Business is getting pretty bad.”
I ignored John’s misgivings and told him to keep on with his job. After a few weeks, he announced: “Sir, the second business you got me into has evaporated.” Calmly I said: “John, never mind, I will get you another job.”
It was at this point that I explained certain timeless truths to John. I told him that through affirmation, he could release a subconscious mental barrier to success, but that only by contacting the all-powerful superconscious mind in meditation would he be able to create a new cause for success.
By continuous effort, I at last secured for John a very good job in a big concern. A year passed and nothing happened. Then, I asked John to invest his money in a business of his own, assuring him that he would succeed.
In a few years, John owned a few chain stores and possessed a large capital. Now, thoroughly convinced of his success, he found himself succeeding in everything.
One day he laughingly said: “You and God and have changed me from a great failure to a great success. I now understand why I failed, but I don’t understand why I caused other peoples’ business to fail.
I replied: “You did not cause the collapse of those businesses. The law of attraction, which governs people of like vibrations, was operating. Your being a failure attracted a business about to fail, and vice versa. So by the law of inner affinity, you and the businesses went down the hill of failure side by side.”
