(1) _your own mental energies_, (2) _the mental energies of others._

The course of the average man through life is an aimless zigzag. It
has neither direction nor purpose. It represents wasted energy
capriciously expended.

Mental energy is like water: it has a tendency to scatter. It is
diffusive. It seeks release in a thousand different directions at the
same time.

As a boy, first learning to write, you were unable to prevent the
simultaneous squirming of tongue and legs, all ludicrously irrelevant
to your purpose of writing. So now, as a business man, unless you have
learned the secret of self-mastery, you are unable to concentrate your
efforts, your attention is easily distracted, you exhaust yourself in
displays of passion, you are forever doing things during business
hours that have no relation to your business, you are forever doing
things in connection with your business that do not contribute to its
progress, you expend just as much energy as the accomplished executive
or the successful "hustler," but you fritter it away in unprofitable
activities.

[Sidenote: _The Successful Promoter_]

To correct this is to gain mastery and power.

Concentrate your mental energies on one thing at a time. Stop
spreading them around. The promoter may have a dozen big enterprises
under way at once, but he takes them up one at a time. He transfers
his whole mind and thought from one to the next. You cannot of course