Background

I had some kind of mini-project and while working on it I thought it might be a nice sample of how I applied the Principles of Success or how the Principles of Success were applied.

And at first I wanted to make it a post, but then I thought it would be better to make it a page as it is probably a very good sample of how the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill work.

So what was I working on? Well, very simple. Our house has its own water supply that gets water from a source, or actually a small river through around two kilometers of PE hose. And recently that system somehow seemed to have collapsed, as the flow and pressure was very erratic.

Thoughts

When starting this article I did not really have any comments on ‘thoughts’, but after having finished the final draft I realize that the project started with thoughts. First I had the experience of a water system that was not working properly and based on that I did a lot of thinking related to how the system was working and how it could be repaired and improved. Next to this I did a lot of thinking related to planning and how to organize it. And finally during the actual project a lot of thoughts were involved in the final decisions and actions to fix the system.

Part of the hose

So yes, a lot of thoughts involved and indeed, everything starts with a thought.

Desire

So my desire was very simple: have a properly working water system. Or actually I just want our shower on the second floor to work as that one has hot water and is located in the bathroom next to our bedroom. So actually my real desire was to be able to take a hot shower in the morning, after waking up and doing some other things as this hot shower kind of marks the beginning of my (working) day.

Faith

Well, the faith is very simple here as the water system has worked properly most of the time, so of course I was and am quite sure it can work in the end. However, as of today, October 14, 2013 we don’t have the funds to fully replace the whole system, more like the opposite, so at certain points, like today when we finally had the full pressure and flow back in the house, I was not sure the system could be fixed.

And also today I just kind of left the house ‘up the hose’ to see how far I could get. And I’m quite sure, looking back, some Infinite Intelligence was involved today, next to some persistence.

Autosuggestion

Well, weird to encounter the issue of autosuggestion (I am just following the chapters in Think and Grow Rich while writing), as kind of starting today or yesterday I started visualizing a full flow of water coming out of the shower and not earlier than yesterday. So yes, this is kind of weird, writing about autosuggestion right now on this subject.

But of course over the last days and weeks I saw myself walking ‘up the line’ or towards the tank (we have a large water tank near the house) and those were also mostly the things I did. I mean the things I suggested to myself. And as you may know recently I have also been reading a lot about the Law of Attraction and that was also something that kind of came back to me today. As I kind of felt my slippers were not good enough to do what I wanted to do, so guess what happened: one of my slippers broke and of course at the farthest point, my biggest fear.

So yes, a lot of autosuggestion, positive and negative, involved in my mini project. But indeed what stunned me most was that just recently I started ‘auto-suggesting’ a full flow out of the shower, which was indeed what happened, even earlier than I expected.

Specialized knowledge

Wow, I didn’t think about this Principle of Success, but indeed, there is and was a lot of Specialized Knowledge involved in this project.

A lot of specialized knowledge in a PE-coupler

Maybe the first thing to mention is that our water system is quite a complicated system, even though it looks very simple: a hose from a water source, a river, to a large water tank and a hose from the water tank to our house (and another house). And being quite technical and with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering I often wondered what was really going on as the pressure and flow fluctuated in a way I couldn’t make any sense off. But after quite some analysis today the final pieces of the working of the whole system kind of fell into place.

Next to my more theoretical knowledge, which I always considered superior, I must admit that also a lot of local specialized knowledge is being used and has to be used in order to keep the system running, especially to match the (non) available budget.

And next to the ‘water’ type knowledge I see more and more what an enormous amount of knowledge is involved in the fixing of the system today (and anything we use and have in the world today). And especially my broken slipper was and is a good sample of that. As I guess everybody would say a (tropical) slipper is a very simple thing: just a foot bed and a few strings that go over the foot. But just thinking that, even though they were around half a year old or something, which I consider quite new, they have been serving me I’m quite sure on a lot of kilometers walking inside and out. And looking at how it broke it’s amazing how the design and the glue somehow keep the thing together. And looking at how much force I have put to it, especially on the mountain slopes around the house, it’s amazing they didn’t break sooner.

So that’s just the slipper that happened to break and attracted my attention. But what of all the other things I had with me (and I really didn’t carry a lot to my feeling), like a knife, some simple pieces of rubber, my clothes and some very carefully engineered connectors with which it is very easy to connect two pieces of PE hose together.

So yes, an awful lot of knowledge involved, of me, of the people from this area and of all the people involved in designing and making the things I was using, whether clothes or tools or stuff to connect or fix a PE hose. And not to forget even the ‘throw away’ item that has been used to improvise the entrance of the water system.

Imagination

Well, yes, also imagination played a very important role in this water system fixing project. The main thing maybe me imagining how it all fits together in an engineering type  of way. But that’s maybe the easy part as I am trained for that. I had a very expensive and elaborate education focused on engineering type problem solving. As I guess the people being sent out before or maybe even the people building it would probably have not the education to build a system like that. But looking at the whole and as I know the system now it is pretty well designed and engineered and built, especially with all kinds of very clever improvised fixes or designs. So yes, there is a lot of imagination needed to build a system like our water system and keep it working, especially if you keep in mind that the people who mostly fixed it for us are not highly educated people, more of the opposite.

Imagination…

But also for me quite some imagination was needed to understand and analyze the system as it is, as there were quite some inexplicable things happening, like water (or actually air) being sucked into the system, which didn’t make any sense to me. Something like ‘this cannot be’ but it still happens, and I’m quite sure the laws of physics still apply. So somehow I also needed to imagine something like I was not crazy, that there must be some explanation why the system was acting as it did.

Organized planning

Well, one of the first things mentioned in the chapter on Organized Planning is to ally yourself with as many people as you may need for the creation and carrying out of my plan to fix the water system. So I decided to team up with the neighbor who is also making use of the same water system. And I decided that what I could offer was my specialized technical knowledge about physics, like how the water moves through the system and how the pressure would vary going down and up hill. And my analytic skills in order to identify what the exact problem was or what the exact problems were. And my neighbor is a local Filipino who knows a lot about how to improvise all kinds of solutions, like putting rubber band solutions instead of proper tube connectors. It appeared later on also that he had quite some knowledge about the whole system, like where the weak spots are and were. In return of course we both would have proper flowing water again, so that’s what we both could ‘give’.

Next item in the planning was preparation and I found both of us prepared with necessary tools and repair materials.

Next in the chapter on organized planning a lot of issues related to leadership are discussed and to my amazement I found that in this case leadership kind of alternated between the two of us, e.g. as my neighbor knows a lot about the whole system he knew what were and are the best places to check the water flow. And in the end I found out that he was pretty convinced that the origin of the problem was with the water source, the location where a ‘water inlet’ has been put in the system. So he headed pretty quickly towards the water source first, which I did at a later stage, about two weeks after, when the water supply had gone down to a minimal level again.

So we both had kind of a definite plan, as I intended this time to really analyze how the whole system works and what were the problems that apparently had built up over time. And his plan was apparently just to clean up some things to make the water flow again as in the weeks before we had done quite some proper repairs in the whole system.

Persistence

Well, my persistence test started right at the beginning of the project, as my neighbor did not show up at the time I expected him. And as Master Mind and team were my main issues here I decided to wait, but it took quite some patience and some follow up. But in the end he showed up and appeared to be ready. And it appeared that he also had been waiting for another neighbor to show up, although I did not fully figure out what was behind that.

Persistence was needed in several ways during our mini project. At first to decide to fully climb up to the source, which I had not done in years, but it paid off as the main problem started there: the inlet was clogged with leaves and other materials floating in the river water.

Persistence was also needed in me insisting on proper repairs and making sure every next part of the hose we checked delivered the full water flow in order to make sure that there were no inadequate repairs, who seem to have been the main problem, anywhere in the line.

And the (almost) final persistence test came when it was getting dark and we still needed some time to finish the project properly. And my persistence to prepare for the next phase of the repair: recover some connectors from a non pressurized part of the system to be used a next time for repairs of the more pressurized parts of the system or to fix some still existing improper repairs.

So yes, we experienced all things related to persistence, including some stubbornness from my side and some patience from both sides. And in the end the continuing when we were both tired and it was getting dark.

But the persistence paid off as in the end the water flow to the water tank was better than it had been in months, even though it took still some patience for the system to fill up, which made me feel kind of desperate when, looking backward, it took much more time for the water system in the house to fill up than I had expected.

Sex transmutation

I’m not sure how the principle of sex transmutation applied to this project. Maybe it was mainly the driving force to really fix the water system so I could take a shower again (desire) or just that I also wanted to please my partner. Or maybe I wanted to impress him that I could fix the water system as he doubted it, putting my ‘manhood’ at stake.

And maybe I used the ‘highly sexed’ thing to convince our helper to go and get our neighbor when he didn’t show up at the expected time.

Not easy to related the principle of sex transmutation to this project. Maybe the ‘wanting to impress my partner’ comes closest.

The subconscious mind

Not sure where subconscious mind comes in related to this project, but I remember a few days earlier I started visualizing taking a hot shower again, yes including the proper water pressure and water flow. So maybe that was indeed part of the drive to have the system finally fixed again and push through with it.

The brain and the Sixth Sense

Well, apparently I sent out the right vibrations as the neighbor was willing to help and in the end we just finished in time to really have the water flow working again. And yes, we both brought the right tools and repair materials, without both of us knowing what the other would bring, so somehow things were coordinated through Infinite Intelligence.

Summary and conclusion

Looking back at the project I think many of the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich were applicable to this mini project where I desired to have a proper working water system. And indeed, reading carefully, there was more involved than just preparing some ‘fixing project’ and fixing a water system. As it all started with desire and the whole thing was definitely not a project that one could have planned in detail by just setting a time, preparing the right tools and bringing the right repair materials.