Two great forces are working in the minds of all men to make them what they are. One is social heredity, and the other is physical heredity.
Physical heredity is the law of nature through which the sum and substance of all characteristics, traits and physical aspects of your ancestors, through the ages, have been handed on to you. You are unavoidably a product of all your ancestors.
Social heredity consists of every influence with which you will come in contact, from the time you reach a state of consciousness until you die. Your mother’s and father’s influence, your education, the conversations you listen to, religious influences, political ideas, the newspapers you read, the shows you see – they all have and will help to make you what you are. They are your social inheritance. Very few persons have what it takes to pull away from these and do some independent, accurate thinking for themselves. A few cast off their social inheritance and dare to be different and individualistic. When this happens, the world has an Edison, a Ford, a Thomas Paine, an Ingersoll or a Jonas Salk. But the vast majority of people allow themselves to become victims of social heredity. This is why straight thinking is such a rarity.
It’s a great moment in your life when you break away from your social heredity and start doing your own thinking. Both social and physical heredity are under the direction of cosmic habitforce. You can break the grip of cosmic habitforce in the case of your social heredity simply by changing your environment and your thinking. But it is somewhat more difficult to change your physical heredity.
There are men who became outstanding because of their subconscious application of this law of cosmic habitforce. Subconscious application is emphasized because they never consciously knew of this principle or what it was that literally swept them up the stairway to eminent success.
Henry Ford was such a man. He was without extensive formal education, without financial backing, and with very little opportunity to become anything but a farmer, which his father probably wanted him to do. At an early age he conceived an idea, and developed such a burning desire to turn this idea into a reality that he devoted his entire life to its development and marketing.
When he started out you would have said that he hadn’t a ghost of a chance to make good. Mr. Ford built his entire industrial empire with the thought pattern that kept him on the beam. He had the knowledge – call it intuition, inspiration, or what you will – but he did have the knowledge that there was a law which, if you placed your mind on something definite and kept it there, would aid you in attaining whatever your objective might be.
In the beginning he experienced every form of discouragement, public criticism and humiliation. A police ordinance was even passed, making it unlawful to operate his self-propelled vehicle on many streets because it scared the horses. The worst thing he had to fight was the great public doubt that his horseless carriage would ever be a success.
But Henry Ford kept his mind fixed on his idea and eventually the law of cosmic habitforce made it possible for him to carry his idea to reality: Then what had been stumbling blocks became stepping stones. His disadvantages became opportunities. People all but stood in line to lend him money, when he didn’t need it.
It is a strange fact, but many students of this philosophy find it difficult to adopt a definite major purpose and keep their minds fixed upon that purpose with the intensity necessary for cosmic habitforce to take it up and lead the way to its achievement.
The reason for writing out your purpose and your plan is to help you be definite and specific, and to get into your subconscious mind an unmistakably clear picture of what it is you want. The writing on paper is just an aid to your thinking. It is not a substitute for the use of your mind. It is your mind that is going to guide the work of your hands. Your purpose, plan and all other elements required to achieve your purpose must be clearly outlined in your mind so that you can concentrate all your faculties on your major objective. This philosophy is to train you, step by step, to take possession of your mind and develop a burning desire to accomplish the major definite purpose which you set up as your ultimate goal.
Source: PMA: Science of Success by Napoleon Hill