so successfully that Edison gave him a contract to
distribute and market it all over the nation. Out of that business
association grew the slogan, "Made by Edison and installed
by Barnes."
The business alliance has been in operation for more than thirty
years. Out of it Barnes has made himself rich in money, but he has
done something infinitely greater, he has proved that one really
may "Think and Grow Rich."
How much actual cash that original DESIRE of Barnes' has been worth
to him, I have no way of knowing. Perhaps it has brought him two
or three million dollars, but the amount, whatever it is, becomes
insignificant when compared with the greater asset he acquired in
the form of definite knowledge that an intangible impulse of thought
can be transmuted into its physical counterpart by the application
of known principles.
Barnes literally thought himself into a partnership with the great
Edison! He thought himself into a fortune. He had nothing to start
with, except the capacity to KNOW WHAT HE WANTED, AND THE DETERMINATION
TO STAND BY THAT DESIRE UNTIL HE REALIZED IT.
He had no money to begin with. He had but little education. He had
no influence. But he did have initiative, faith, and the will to
win. With these intangible forces he made himself number one man
with the greatest inventor who ever lived.
Now, let us look at a different situation, and study a man who had
plenty of tangible evidence of riches, but lost it, because he stopped
three feet short of the goal he was seeking.