(Joyce Koupal’s “Dear Ones” letters to her children. Joyce shares some of the secrets of their successes and passes her loving thoughts on to her children.)
April 28, 1983
Dear Ones:
I know this is unsolicited, but I have thought for a long time that the following material was worth talking about.
This will be, of course, a rough draft. I know you have heard most of this from time to time, but probably never in a structured way .
I hope it works for you if you decide it is worth you effort. I will continue to work on the other parts as I can and send those parts along to you. Please feel free to comment, I want to hear from you.
FIFTEEN LAWS OF SUCCESS
- Definite Chief Aim
- Self-Confidence
- Habit of Saving
- Initiative & Leadership
- Imagination
- Enthusiasm
- Self-Control
- Habit of Doing More Than Paid For
- Pleasing Personality
- Accurate Thinking
- Concentration
- Cooperation
- Profiting by Failure
- Tolerance
- Practicing the Golden Rule
THE MASTER MIND
A Master Mind may be created through the bringing together or blending, in a spirit of perfect harmony, of two or more minds. Out of this harmonious blending the chemistry of the mind creates a third mind WHICH MAY BE APPROPRIATED AND USED BY ONE OR ALL OF THE INDIVIDUAL MINDS. The Master Mind remains available as long as the friendly, harmonious alliance between the individual minds exists. It will disintegrate and all evidence of its former existence will disappear the moment the friendly alliance is broken. (Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill)
These simple words were the keys to the success of People’s Lobby. Ed’s death broke the Master Mind that we were operating with.
Faith, Carol and I put one together for the printing business but Faith’s negativity never allowed us to realize the full potential of the Master Mind. Anyone can work on their personal development and strive to create a Master Mind group. It takes a lot of discipline.
HISTORY
When Ed and I met, his energy, enthusiasm and drive, carried me into his plans and goals. We went together for a year and then were engaged for another year. During that time we bought ten acres of land and started building our home. We started developing a chicken ranch. When we married, we held down five jobs between us. I worked for the state days and evenings. Ed worked on a chicken ranch days, worked as a stationary engineer at the brick yard nights and late afternoons we packed eggs on my father’s ranch together. We bought a little donut shop and then traded our ten acres for a full line bakery. We worked twenty hours a day, allowing only one hour for sleep in the morning and one hour for sleep at night. We ended up in bankruptcy. We went out to my father’s ranch and lived in the hired man’s quarters. Ed worked on the ranch and we gradually regained our perspective. The attorney that handled our bankruptcy became a partner in our new business venture – a beer bar, and we bought a new house. I stayed home and looked after the kids and Ed worked long hours in the bar. Our fine new partner swindled us out of the business. We were again broke and on the street, having lost our home along with the business. We had always worked with enthusiasm, drive, determination tenacity and very hard work – and we always failed.
This was the lowest point in our lives. We had no money, the heat had been turned off in the house and we were being foreclosed. There was no food and we were too proud to ask for help from our relatives. Ed got a job selling pots and pans door-to-door. I went with him on his first call and he made the sale and got a small deposit. We used that deposit money to buy some food and take it home to feed the kids. Ed had to make that sale because we would not have had enough gas in the car to even get home. We didn’t realize it. but this was the turning point in our lives. We were never to fail again.
Wing Torn was the district manager for Presto Pride, the company that Ed went to work for that fateful day. Door-to-door sales, and pots and pans, are the hardest training ground that any salesman can go through. It was, and probably still is, the bottom of the barrel. But Wing Tom believed in the power of positive thinking and he took that several steps further. His sales meetings were study groups and we were encouraged to read a number of books having to do with the powers of the mind and discuss these books at our meetings. You see, Ed dragged me into this process with him kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to knock on doors, I didn’t want to sell pots and pans. And, I didn’t do much selling, probably because I hated it so. But I did learn Wing Tom’s secrets and Ed and I began to put these secret into practice in our own lives.
MEDITATION
We must start at the beginning and that means that one must put the mind into a receptive place. Meditation, at least two times a day, calms the mind. refreshes the body and generates an inner strength.
Find a quiet comfortable place. That might mean that you lock your office door and turn off the light. Try to find a chair that is comfortable if you can’t find a couch. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and then deliberately, work on slowing your breathing by design. Mentally tell yourself to relax. Then, starting with some part of the body, usually your toes, think about relaxing until you feel that part slowly letting go. Move on to the ankle and go through the same process until you feel the ankles letting go and then move on to the leg. Slowly go through every part of your body until you feel soft and floating. You should feel yourself slipping into an almost sleep. You are slow and clumsy at first, but if you go through this process twice a day you can become very competent and put yourself into a relaxed state and out in about five minutes. You will feel refreshed and ready for action. The five minute relaxation process will replace two hours of nap time.
DOING TO OTHERS
Essential to the discipline of success is the ability to train yourself in many new skills. Power of positive thinking, self esteem, leadership and many other parts of success follow from eliminating all the negatives in your own selves.
One way to start -training yourself to think positively is to begin to think only in a positive way about everyone and everything around you. Write a list of your associates and friends. Write down all of the good things you can think of about these people. In your present negative/positive mind it may be hard to find good things to say. But even if it is only one line, write it down. Do the same thing with the things and locations around you.
Now for the hard part. From today forward, every time you think about these people, or talk to them, you must put away the negative thoughts and only say or think positive things. You must do the same thing for the things and locations around you. You will find yourself slipping into a negative reply or negative comment. You must listen to yourself, stop yourself, and change right there into the positive. This is difficult and takes a while. But the rewards are immense. You are retraining yourself for success. What you put out comes back to you a hundred fold.
After a while, you will begin to- notice that there is a response to what you are doing. I remember that Ed and I eventually realized that we were in perfect harmony – that we tried to describe as “peace of mind. “ We were still in some difficulty – work rig our way out of our financial problems – but somehow it didn’t seem important anymore. I went to work for Aerojet and Ed was selling cars. We bought another house, a little house by the Sacramento airport. We started moving up.
MORE LATER
Well this is the beginning. I hope you like it. I will appreciate your comments. This is the first rough draft of what I hope will be a full paper worthy of someone’s attention.
Love and kisses to you. Hope to see you very soon.
Mom
Ma 7, 1983
Dear Ones:
Chapter two of my advice to you. I hope that you have thought about what I said in my previous letter. I have already found some problems. I hope that you will let me know what you have found in putting this information to use.
This material is in rough draft form. I know that I do not write very well. I am open to how you feel about this material. I will probably be making my career out of this process, so it is important to you and me.
I hope it works for you. Whether you decide it is worth you personal effort, I will continue to work on the other parts as I can and send those parts along to you.
FIFTEEN LAWS OF SUCCESS
- Definite Chief Aim
- Self-Confidence
- Habit of Saving
- Initiative & Leadership
- Imagination
- Enthusiasm
- Self-Control
- Habit of Doing More Than Paid For
- Pleasing Personality
- Accurate Thinking
- Concentration
- Cooperation
- Profiting by Failure
- Tolerance
- Practicing the Golden Rule
THE MASTER MIND
A Master Mind may be created through the bringing together or blending, in a spirit of perfect harmony, of two or more minds. Out of this harmonious blending the chemistry of the mind creates a third mind WHICH MAY BE APPROPRIATED AND USED BY ONE OR ALL OF THE INDIVIDUAL MINDS. The Master Mind remains available as long as the friendly, harmonious alliance between the individual minds exists. It will disintegrate and all evidence of its former existence will disappear the moment the friendly alliance is broken. (Laws of Success b Napoleon Hill)
RELAXATION (Incorrectly labeled meditation)
A more correct definition of this process is relaxation. Moderation in all things is a by word for this entire process. You don’t have to become a Yogi to start working on your mind to receive my information. Two five or ten minute relaxation periods per day over several weeks or months will do wonders for your concentration. See number 11 law. You will also be able to use this relaxation to rejuvenate yourself when you are stressed, or have to work long hours. So this process serves a two-fold purpose. Let me know how you are doing on this.
DEFINITE CHIEF AIM
You may already have this securely cemented in your mind. If you do, you are one lucky person. What do you want from life? Where are you going to be and what are you going to be doing 10 years from now, 15 years, or 20? Or do you even know what you want from life 5 years ahead or even one year? Only you can decide.
You may have guessed, your father did know exactly where he was going. His definite chief aim? “To be a leader of many people.” The story of how he arrived at that aim may not have been something you have heard about. He only talked of it a few times with me. It was so crazy that most of the time he didn’t quite believe it all happened to him. But I remember his buddies talking about it really happening, and his army discharge was unusual (but real). I’ll try to remember the story as he told it.
Ed was a musician. He started out playing the trombone and late changed to the bass. He had a “black” beat, so described to me by many black musicians. He played with black groups. Highly unusual during the forties as most of the country was segregated and of course very prejudiced. But that didn’t stop your dad. He always did what he wanted and never cared or thought about what other people thought of what he did. This is an important difference. One that you must cultivate and nurture in your own lives. If you are ever to become a leader and develop initiative in your lives, you must give up the curbing of your decisions because of what others might think about that. If you have accurate thinking (see 10 law), a definite chief aim (#l), you will be making decisions and moving toward that aim and it will be correct for you.
At any rate, back to the story. Ed was drafted into the army and, because he was a musician, was classified critically essential to the war effort. Ed didn’t like the Army, he wanted to play music and play at having a great time in life. Stationed finally in Texas, he was doing his duty daytimes, and playing jazz in the local town at night with a small combo made up of his Army buddies. Most of these musicians were black. In this town there was a small black church. According to Ed’s buddies, miracles were known to happen in this church. The congregation was made of a black sect known as The Seven Sisters. Don’t ask me any more about this, it is just what I remember Ed telling me. At any rate, a member of this group was supposed to be able to heal people, foretell ones future, and do other kinds of things. Somehow, Ed met this person and told him that his chief aim in life was “to get out of the Army as quickly as possible.” This person said that it was possible. But that Ed would have to follow exact instructions. Ed could not remember exactly what he had to do, but remembered that at a certain time of day he had to recite a passage out of the bible. When a superior officer gave him an order, he was to clutch a “root” in his pocket, and quietly but firmly, refuse to obey. He remembered that he was scared to death the first time he tried it, because he could have been court martialed or worse. But, try it he did. And, according to him, NOTHING HAPPENED. He was not brought up on charges, simply nothing happened.
This went on for several days or weeks. Ed was getting impatient and went to see this person, and asked when all of this was going t o pay off with his discharge. At this time in history, it took at least six weeks for someone to be “mustered out” of the Army. That is, for someone who was NOT critically essential as Ed was, and someone who had served out his entire commitment of two or three years, these people could get out in six weeks. Ed was told that if this was Friday night, he could expect to be completely discharged from the service by five pm the following Monday afternoon. And, according to your dad, that is exactly what happened. Early Monday morning the Sergeant called him in and said, “You are critically essential, this is impossible, you can’t get out for six weeks at least, but go see the doctor, you are being discharged.” All through the day, each person he had to see told him the same thing. And, at 5 pm that day, your father walked off the base a free man. His discharge (and this is true) was a 501(c)(3) meaning that it was honorable, with all benefits due him, but if he ever wanted to get BACK into the Army, the Adjutant General of the United States had to give him the permission to do so.
Imagine if you will what our political enemies would have done with that story if they had known.
At any rate, Ed was a free man. He went to see the person from the church to thank him, and while he was there, that person told him that he foresaw that Ed would “be a leader of many people” during his life. Ed really struggled with this experience for many years. He had had such a strong mind that it was difficult for him to accept the fact that he had not only seen but been part of an occult type of thing. He said many times that he didn’t believe in this experience, but he really held in the back of his mind those words “you will be a leader of many people.” I didn’t realize it but I bought into his goal in life and we set out. That is, we set out once we acquired the skills to do so through this process that I am relating to you.
And, didn’t he realize his secret goal? I now know that it is true. And I think that is why he could die so peacefully. He had attained his goal in life. He “had it made”.
Well, you may not find your goal in life as easily or unusually as your father did, but find your goal you must. One of the real and terrible problems of young people today is that you don’t have a goal in life. People who lived through hard times rise up with definite ideas about what they don’t want and many times a clear goal of what they do want. They get the honing of purpose from a hard experience. Times have been too good. But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer to set goals. But you must sit down and do some very serious thinking about it. You must find out what you want and it must be real. Then you will be able to work out the steps you must take to get to your goal.
A word of warning. That doesn’t mean that you will have a clear path to your goal. There may be sidetracks and unusual paths you will have to take to get to where you want to go. But go you will!
IMAGERY
It might help to get a big piece of paper and put it on you wall. Add some pictures of those things you want. Money? A car? A house? A family? A friend? A telephone call? A letter? Whatever it is, paste it on the paper. A picture in front of every, will help you imagine that it is a real part of your life. Sit down and look at this picture. Play your relaxation game. Then imagine yourself with this “thing” that you have in your goal picture. See yourself holding it, touching it, putting it in your pocket, living it, whatever. Do this at least once a day. It does help to put it in your life, then you will not rest until you really have it in hand.
YOU ARE THE ONLY THING BETWEEN YOURSELF AND THE THINGS YOU WANT
This means exactly that. How many time have you said to yourself, “I would do, it but . . . “. “I would do it but . . .” The “but” is your way of excusing yourself out of success and attainment. You but yourself and then you don’t have to take a chance or stick your neck out where others can see you fail. I know this is true because when your father and I finally “went for it,” we stripped ourselves of all “worldly” goods and put ourselves in position where we had “-nothing to lose.” That was our way of handling our own “buts.” Arid it worked for us. That is because we viewed “viewed “worldly goods” as important. In order to “go for it” you do not have to give up worldly goods. You simply have to stop letting the “buts” have their way with you. Free yourself systematically from the “buts” in your life. Do this consciously. Now you know. Now you can deal with it.
Want to be rich in money? You have to let go of the “but” if I get rich ‘L won’t know what to do with my money? Or “but” others will want to take it away from me, or “but” I really don’t deserve to be rich. Or “but” I’ll have to, give up all my friends who really like me because they can feel sorry for me. Etc. Etc. Etc. You fill in the blanks.
Perhaps the biggest one of all is “But” if I am rich I’ll have to take charge of my own life and be responsible for me. It is easier -to be a failure with all of those connotations.
Yes, I am guilty of all of this too. But, I am taking steps to do something about it again.
HABIT OF DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR
Let’s talk about this one a bit. The extra inch (or foot) in your work is very important. It makes the important difference between “doing your job and collecting your money” and “doing you job and developing your opportunities.” When you hear someone say, “People don’t know how to work,” doing the job and collecting the money is usually the problem. When someone has put everything they have into developing a business, they want to rely on staff that cares about what happens to that business. One way you can graphically demonstrate your concern is to go the extra step. The person who shows up on time, or is early for his jobs is the person who gets noticed by the boss. Developing your job, by giving it extra time and care, is rewarded by climbing the ladder of success. Sometimes that is not true. But because this process does not work with everyone you come into contact with, does not mean you should stop. The truth is that if you are working toward your own life goal, you are really going the extra step for yourself. And, by and large, you will see enormous benefits come back to you for your efforts.
Your dad and I used to say that we succeeded because we were willing and able to, work 24 hours a day to gain our ends. The political community we were battling went home at five. I know that part of that is true, but another element went into our success that meant we could not fail – The Master Mind. At any rate, we always did put in that extra work, be it for an, employer or for ourselves. The habit stuck because we had made it a habit in our lives.
Well, so much for a second round in my narrative. I wish you well in your quest for knowledge. I hope that this will help you on the road to your goal in life. Let me know if it helps. I love you.
Mom