At some time or other, when faced with a knotty problem, you have said the equivalent of "let me sleep on it." And if you actually did sleep on it, feeling strongly that you would have the solution by morning, the chances are good that you woke up with the answer. Your conscious mind, before losing itself in sleep, had transferred the problem to the sleepless subconscious mind, commanding it to produce. Of course, if the facts on which to base a conclusion are not stored in your memory, no solution can be forthcoming, but if the facts are there and need only correlating, your subconscious can and will produce, sometimes with such startling suddenness as to wake you out of a sound sleep.
It is this mysterious obedience of the subconscious to the commands of the conscious mind that only recently has come to be appreciated. Now we know that if the conscious mind "thinks poor," the subconscious responds in the same low key. If you think you don't have time to do all that must be done, if you feel that you are a hard-luck victim for whom things always turn out badly, your subconscious will influence your conscious mind to waste time on projects that are bound to turn out badly. Conversely, if you "think rich," this same subconscious will go to work with enthusiasm, slaving away for you even while you sleep.
The readiness of your subconscious to go to work for you is one of the great discoveries of recent years. The subconscious has been so long cloaked in Freudian words and symbols that a belief exists that it has some immutable identity of its own, probably bad, and the least said about it in polite society, the better. According to that belief, your "think poor" thoughts are dictated by your subconscious, with your conscious mind being the unwilling victim. Recent tests have not only disproved this belief, but they have demonstrated quite the opposite. You can change your subconscious mind as easily as you can change your conscious mind, and once changed and put on the right course, it will work tirelessly to follow through. So subservient is it, in fact, that it will even learn a foreign language for you while you sleep. With an earphone planted beneath your pillow, and a tape recorder repeating the lesson over and over, you dream your way through Spanish, French or whatever, your conscious mind pleasantly soothed by the words your subconscious ear is absorbing, and the lessons learned by the subconscious are there for the conscious mind to command as surely as the lessons learned in a classroom.
What this means to you is that when your conscious mind makes a habit of success, your subconscious mind will also make a habit of success, awakening you every morning with "think rich" ideas and answers. When it is conditioned by "think poor" thoughts, your subconscious drags you out of bed to go "back to the salt mines," already defeated before the day begins.
What this boils down to is that either you put your subconscious to work with "think rich" ambitions, or it will enslave you with "think poor" goals. It has no ambition of its own. It is lazy, and will seek the path of least resistance. Only your conscious mind can determine what you want out of life, and guide your subconscious accordingly. And once it has been mastered, it becomes the obedient servant that works day and night to help you achieve your objectives.
One other point. Your subconscious mind can be commanded, but it cannot be deceived. When you set unrealistic goals, as John Carleton did with his $50,000 job that he wanted "right now," the subconscious recognizes the futility of trying, and either gives up or replaces practical work with wishful daydreams. Then you freeze, or have fantasies, and become powerless. When you do know what your achievements are, and know how they relate to your future, and when you plant seed successes that lead to quickly attainable goals, your subconscious will back you all the way, and help you make a habit of success.
