If you’ve been on this Master Key Journey with me, you’ll know that the first few weeks are about excavation. We’re digging up the old, compacted soil of our subconscious, pulling out the weeds of past defeats and limiting beliefs. It’s necessary work, but let’s be honest—it can feel like a grind.

Then came Week 4. And with it, the first scroll from Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World.

This week, everything shifted. The central theme? The elimination of “will.”

Wait, what? Eliminate will? Isn’t willpower the very engine of success? Isn’t it the force we use to drag ourselves out of bed, to resist temptation, to push through the hard things?

For years, I thought so too. I believed achievement was a brutal tug-of-war between my lazy, comfort-seeking self and my iron-willed, disciplined self. And my will, like a muscle, was often tired, sore, and ready to give up. Sound familiar?

Then I read Scroll I: “I will form good habits and become their slave.”

The key isn’t to use willpower, but to conserve it for true emergencies. The genius of this scroll, and the core lesson of Week 4, is that we are not meant to constantly force ourselves to be better. We are meant to program ourselves for success, so that being better becomes as natural as breathing.

The Bridge from “I Should” to “I Am”

Think of your conscious mind as the captain of a ship. Using “will” is like the captain standing at the wheel, white-knuckled, fighting a storm 24/7. It’s exhausting, unsustainable, and eventually, the storm wins.

The Master Key System teaches us that the captain’s real job is to give clear, repeated orders to the crew—the subconscious mind. The crew runs the engine, adjusts the sails, and steers the ship automatically. The captain is free to navigate and plan the course.

This is what we practiced this week. We aren’t just reading the scroll three times a day. We are impressing it upon our subconscious crew. We are not trying to “will” ourselves into being persistent or loving or enthusiastic. We are installing the very habits of persistence, love, and enthusiasm.

The Alchemy of “I Will”

The phrase “I will” in the scroll is not a statement of future tense or grim determination. It is a command of creation. It’s the captain giving the order.

· “I will greet this day with love in my heart.” (Not “I will try to be loving.”)
· “I will persist until I succeed.” (Not “I hope I don’t give up.”)

By repeating these commands with emotion and feeling, we are not begging the universe to change us. We are commanding our own inner world to align with these truths. We are moving the behaviors from the hard, conscious level of “doing” to the effortless, subconscious level of “being.”

My Week 4 “Aha!” Moment

The biggest shift for me this week was around my sit. Instead of the internal battle—”Ugh, I have to go do my sit. I need to focus. Why is this so hard?”—I simply observed the command: “I will form the habit of meditation.”

The pressure vanished. The struggle dissolved. It was no longer about my performance in that moment, but about the cumulative process of impressing a new habit upon my subconscious. Some sits were deep, some were scattered. It didn’t matter. The act of doing it was the success. The habit was being woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of who I am.

The Greatest Salesman Isn’t Selling Products; He’s Selling a New Self

Og Mandino’s scroll isn’t about sales techniques. It’s about the fundamental laws of personal transformation. We are not here to fight ourselves into a better life. We are here to lovingly, persistently, and methodically reprogram ourselves.

Week 4 has taught me that the path to my Definite Major Purpose isn’t a steep cliff I must painfully scale through sheer force of will. It is a path I am building, brick by brick, habit by habit, scroll by scroll. And with each brick laid, the walking becomes easier, until one day, I realize I am not walking the path at all—I have become the path.

The struggle is over. The building has begun.

Onward.

“I will form good habits and become their slave.”