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will multiply your moneyl"
By M. R. KOPMEYER AMERICA'S SUCCESS COUNSELOR
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HOW YOU CAN
GET RICHER ••• QUICKER!
x+ When You Bought This Book, You Bought Stock In Yourself! The best investment you can make is in YOU. You can make more money or acquire more of whatever you want-by investing in YOU than in any other investment. When you bought this book, you bought stock in YOURSELF, Nobody buys stock in anything unless he or she has confidence in it. Because, in buying' this book, you really bought stock in YOURSELF, you have proved that you have confidence in YOURSELF, Now that you have bought stock in YOURSELF and proved that you have confidence in YOURSELF, you have taken the first step in getting whatever you want in life. This book now will tell you how to do it.
x+
YOURSELF STOCK CERTIFICATE This certifies that
you
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of
STOCK liN YOURSELF This is your certificate of confidence in your"" sellf and yom.' agll"eell1l.1lent
to begin. at once and
constandy use lpllI'oven success m.ethods to get whatever you want as a worthy
Hife goat
~...()-.J
HOW YOU CAN GET RICHER ... QUICKER! Contents 101 chapters of PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS Chapter 1.
Title
Page
SUCCESS, Itself, Is A Specific Study-Subject ..........................
For You To Get Richer QuickerYou Need Do Only Two Simple Things . . . . . 3. You Must Use General Motors' PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD! Here It Is! .........
1
2.
4.
The Sure Way You Can Attract Favorable Attention To GET AHEAD! .....
4 7 13
5. How To Become SUPER-RICH In Five Years. 17 6. You Can Get Richer Quicker In Hundreds of Various Occupations! ........ 20 7. "General Education" Is Not Adequate. You Need Skills Based On Proven Success Methods . . .. 23 8. Where Employment Opportunities Will Be In The Years Ahead ................. 25 9. The Most Valuable PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD You Will Ever Learn. . . . . . . . . .. 27 v
Chapter 10.
Page
Title
You Can Begin Now To Get Richer Quicker By Making Yourself MORE USEFUL! .....
30
11. Here's How You Can Get Richer Quicker By IMPROVING Products, Methods •.•
Anything! ..............................
33
You Can SPARK IDEAS Through The 61 Magic Questions ..................
35
IDEA SPARKERS! These 61 Magic Questions Will Stimulate IDEAS For Improving Anything ... Everything!
............................
39
You Can Create Profitable Ideas By Using These Three Master Methods ........
47
Your Idea Is The BEGINNING Of A Reality ...........................
50
Three Sure Ways You Can Get Richer Quicker! Improve! ... Improve! ... Improve!
.......
52
How You Can Get The Biggest Rewards For Your IDEAS ................
56
Here Is The Proper And Respectful Way To Suggest Your Ideas To Your Boss ...
61
19.
Your Golden Road To Riches ... CREATIVITY!
64
20.
You Can Create Ideas By These YOGA Methods And By DISPERSED ATTENTION Methods
66
How You Can Maintain A Continuous Flow Of Ideas For Improving Things .......
69
12. 13.
14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
21. vi
Chapter 22. 23.
Title
Page
Learning Facts Is Not Enough! You Must Apply IDEA Power To Facts! .............
73
Don't Just Think About Your Ideas For Improvements-DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM! ............................... 76
24. Sharpen Your Ideas On The 25. 26. 27. 28.
Grindstone Of Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
79
How You Can Get Rich By Suggesting Ideas Which Are NOT Completely Perfected .....
82
GIVING AWAY Your Ideas Will Make You Richer ... Quicker! ..................
86
Your Only Job-Security Is To Make Yourself Indispensable .............
89
What This Nation Needs Is An IDEA EXPLOSION! ! ! ..................
96
29.
The Following Chapter.Lessons Are Selected From A Thousand Proven Success Methods .. 104
30.
How You Can Avoid Half Your Troubles! ..... 106
31.
"Be Yourself' Can Be The Worst Possible Advice! ........................ 109
How Would You Like To Have YOU As Your Boss? ..................... 111 33. How You Can Persuade Others To Do Whatever You Want Them To Do! ...... 113 34. You Get Richer Quicker When You Activate, Then Fulfill "Eager Wants" ...... 116
32.
vii
Chapter
Title
Page
35.
Be A Winner! ! ! ... In "The Pleasing Game Of Interchanging Praise!" . . . . . . . . . .. 118
36.
Living And Working In HARMONY Is The Easy, Happy Way To Succeed ........ 120
37.
How You Can Use Personal Slogans And Goal Commands To Get Richer Quicker ... 122
38.
Here's What You MUST Have To Succeed In Any Type Of Work .. . .. .. . .. . . . . .. . .. 126
39.
How You Can Focus Attention On Yourself At A Meeting Or Party ........... 128
40. How You Can Be A Leader ............. . .. 130 41. Learn To MAKE NEWS Because Favorable News Will Make You! ................... 134
42.
Success And Riches Are The Result Of Negotiating Agreements, Not Disagreements 138
43. Change The CLIMATE And You Change Attitudes And Situations! ......... 143
44. You Can Make Any Problem Harmless Simply By DE-CONFUSING It! .......... 145 45.
How You Can Use The "Law Of Increasing Abundance" To Get Everything You Want .. 148
46.
How You Can Multiply Your Telephoning Effectiveness By Becoming A "Telephone Personality" ............................ 153
47.
Here's How You Can Get A Lot Of People Involved In Helping You Succeed! .. 157
viii
Chapter 48.
Title
Page
Never Ask "IF" ... Always Ask "HOW" ...... 159
49. How Attractively And Impressively Do You ''PACKAGE'' Yourself? ........... 160 50. When You Have Crossed The RiverAbandon Your Boat! .................... 162 51. You Must Manage Life-Or Life Will Make You Its Slave! ................ 164 52.
Your JOB: Do You Hate It? Tolerate It? Or Improve In It? ................... 167
53.
The Secret Of Successful Work-Planning And Life-Planning ...................... 169
54.
PLAN BIG! You've Got 60 Trillion Cells Going For You! .................... 172
55.
Obstacles Are Power Generators! ............ 176
56. What Do You Want? Act AS IF You Already Have Received It And Give Thanks! ....... 183 57. Here Is The EASY Way For You To Get Richer ... Quicker! ............... 190 58.
ASK! ... And You Shall Succeed! Those Who FIND OUT Get Richer ... Quicker! ... 193
59.
Two "Magic" Words Which Will Make You Popular Everywhere ........... 197
60. Here's How You Can Use The Amazing "LAW OF INCREASE" ................. 201 61.
Be A GOOD NEWS Reporter And All ''Doors'' Will Open For You! .......... 204 ix
Chapter
Title
Page
62. The "Squeaking Wheel" No Longer "Gets The Grease" ...................... 207 63. Be A Spirit Lifter! ........................ 209 64. Do Unto Yourself What Your Competitor Will Do Unto You! But Do It First! ........ 215 65. Unless You Increasingly Do It BetterYou Will Not Be Asked To Do It Again! .... 219 66.
IDEAS Are What The United States Are Made Of ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 221
67. You Cannot Safely Speed Forward While Regretfully Looking Backward ... . .. 224 68.
The Magic Password To Success Is: FmST! ... 226
69. A Billionaire Gives You His Success Method For Getting Richer Quicker ....... 232 70.
Success Is COPING-Not Just HOPING! . . . .. 234
71. How You Can Become An Expert At PROBLEM SOLVING, The Most Needed Skill! ....... 236 72. Continue To Ask THIS Question And You will Get Richer ... Quicker! ...... 241 73. When You Form An Alliance You Multiply Your Power! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 244 74. Don't Frighten A Bird You Want To Catch! .................... 248 75. You Will Succeed To The Extent That You Help Others Get What They Want . . . .. 251 76. How To Manufacture Your Success .......... 253 x
Chapter
Title
Page
77. If Your Success Locomotive Is Not "On Track", Its Power Is Useless! .......... 257 78. Here Is STOCK MARKET ADVICE From A Very Wise And Wealthy Financier . . . . . .. 259 79.
Get Tough With Yourself! Cancel All Unnecessary Plans! Concentrate! ...... 260
80.
The Sure Way To Get Rich Is To Be An EXPERT In An Important Occupation .. 262
81.
You Must Be Willing To BEGIN! Then Your DOING Will Generate The Power! .... 266
82.
One Of The Greatest Achievers Said These Two Qualities Would Conquer All Things! ..................... 269
83. Emerson Said That Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without TIDS! ........ 273 84. "Contingency Planning" Will Ensure Your Success-Whatever Happens! ........ 278 85. If You Feel That Whatever You Do Is Natural And Easy-It Will Be! ............ 280 86.
The Principle Of DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH -The Sure Way To Amass Wealth! ........ 284
87.
Never Give Up! It Is A Law Of The Universe: "The Tide Always Turns" ........ 287
88. How You Can Use "The Principle Of The TIDRD Way" To Solve Your Problems ........................• 290 xi
Chapter
Title
Page
89. How Business Can Use The Success Psychology Of "Multiple Management" .... 293 90.
Cooperation Is POWER! Get Together! ••• Keep Together! •.. Act Together! ............ 297
91. Who Ought To Be BOSS? .................. 301 92. Always Offer INCENTIVES! Everybody Can Be Motivated By Irresistible Incentives! .... 304 93.
Problems Are Like Knives! Grasp The Handle-Not The Blade! ............ 308
94.
No One Stumbles Over A Mountain! We Stumble Only Over Molehills! ......... 310
95. Do Not STRUGGLE To Succeed! If You Have A "Struggle Complex", You Won't Live Long Enough To Succeed! ..... 311 96. Here Is The ONE Skill All Successful People Have-Without Any Exception! .... 314 97. How You Can Use The "MAGIC MINUTE" To Win Goodwill Needed For Success! ..... 317 98. How To Influence Multitudes: Stay On A ONE-To-ONE Basis! ........... 318 99.
Storage Earns Small Rent; Only Production Earns Great Fortunes! ......... 320
100. Your Success Will Depend Upon The Kind Of "Advice Seeker" You Are! ........ 321 101. It Required A Billion Years To Develop Your Brain! For What Purpose? .. 323 xii
Chapter 1
Get Richer ..• Quicker!
SUCCESS, Itself, Is A Specific Study-Subject You will begin to get richer quicker as soon as you learn and use the following fact: SUCCESS, itself, is a specific, separate and distinct study-subject. SUCCESS is as specific, separate and distinct a study-subject as is mathematics, physics, spelling, physiology, chemistry, or any study-subject taught in our schools and universities. The laws and principles of SUCCESS are just as real-and just as provable-as the Law of Gravity. The study of SUCCESS as a separate subject deals with as many different and identifiable factors as almost any other subject and more than most. I have devoted forty years to researching, testing and compiling PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. I have three private libraries and fifteen personal files which contain more than 1
a thousand different (but sometimes related) PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. There are few other subjects which are composed of that many different laws, principles, rules and identifiable factors. Surely, that fact alone (and there are many other reasons) justifies the classification and study of SUCCESS, itself, as a separate, specific and distinct subject. The reason people succeed slowly in their professions or occupations is that they concentrate on improving their job-skills. The fact is that becoming more skillful in one's profession or occupation is only ONE proven success method. Certainly, it is necessary and important that you become more knowledgeable and skillful in your work -but that still is only ONE proven success method. Since there are more than a thousand proven success methods, you can easily realize that you are handicapping yourself by concentrating on only ONE proven success method (job-skill) out of a thousand additional success methods. That is why it is necessary to obtain and constantly use as many proven success methods as possiblein addition to improving your job-skill. That is the only way you can get richer . .. quicker! You may succeed-slowly and with great difficulty-by becoming more knowledgeable and skillful in performing your work. But you cannot get richer qUicker that way! You must also use many other proven success
2
methods-in addition to improving your fob-skill-to GET RICHER . .. QUICKER!
There are more than a thousand proven success methods. I know-because I personally have them in my private libraries and personal files. These are specific, separate, distinct PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. They can be used-in addition to fob-skill-in ALL occupations ... and in every activity. As you study the following chapters, you will learn that improving your job-skill is just ONE success method which must be supplemented by many· other proven success methods in order to build the kind of success momentum which will make you richer ... qUicker! We shall begin our study of SUCCESS as a . specific, separate and distinct study-subject which applies to all occupations-by learning the two basic requirements for SUCCESS-in the next chapter.
8
Chapter 2
Get Richer . .. Quicker1
For You To Get Richer QuickerYou Need Do Only Two Simple, Easy, Elemental Things! Your success in getting richer quicker-or in achieving_ any life goal-requires, that you do only two simple, easy things: ( 1) You must know how ( 2) Then, you must do itl That's rightl And that's alll (1) KNOW HOW and (2) DOl That surely is so elemental that it seems like a waste of time to give further consideration to such obvious facts. Well, it is elemental. It is fundamental to succeeding at anything. It is obvious. So ... most people DON'T do it! Incredible as it seems, most people don't bother to learn even the most simple methods of getting richer
4
quicker. They have plenty of time for life's trivialities but no time to learn and use the proven success methods which would make them rich . . . or powerful . . . or famous . . . and enable them to get whatever they want in life. How many people do you know who devote even an hour every night to seriously studying how to be more successful in doing what they will do the next day ... and the next ... and the next? There is an old proverb: "Grumbling makes the loaf no larger." Yet people waste their time in grumbling because they have too little, when that same time could be used to learn how never to have too little-to constantly "make the loaf larger". You, as just one individual, have no control over high prices. Your only solution is to get richer qUicker so that you easily can afford to pay for whatever you want in life-whatever the price. You have to learn and then do what is required to "make your own loaf larger". It is a lot easier to get rich than to remain poor. People who are poor find everything difficult. And, for the poor, everything will continue to be difficult-as long as they will not learn and use the simple, easy, sure methods of succeeding-getting richer quicker. So, we come back to our first basic requirement for success: You have to learn how. To the uninformed a molehill is a mountain! But to the person who knows how, success is easy. Pasteur discovered vaccination more by accident than by the scientific research for which he trained himself. Yet, when his critics chided him, saying that he
5
stumbled on vaccination by mere chance, Pasteur replied, "True, but chance favors the trained mind." So does success! Only by your learning and using PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS can you actually succeed. Andrew Carnegie, the great steel tycoon who was the richest man in his time and who gave his millions to help others, used to say, "There is no use whatever in trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is 'YiJling to climb himself." The PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS in the following chapters provide you with easy steps up the ladder of success. But you, yourself, must climb those steps! I have provided the ladder. But I cannot make you climb it. And nobody can climb it for you. You must climb the ladder of success, yourself. You can start a project by studying it-but you cannot complete it that way. It has been said that "knowledge is power". That simply is not so! Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is only potential power. It is your use of knowledge which gives you power. Start using every PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD as soon as you learn it. Do not wait until you have read the entire book. Climb your success ladder one step at a time. Do not wait and then try to reach the top in one big leap. Remember ... one step at a time! And your first step is in the next chapter ...
6
ChapterS
Get Richer ... Quicker!
You Must Use General Motors' PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD! Here It Is! The surest way to succeed is to use the PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS of those who have proven the methods to be successful. The bigger their successes, the more dependable are their success methods. Which brings us to General Motors. General Motors is a big success. Bigger than any other manufacturing company. But General Motors has not always been that big. It just got bigger ... and bigger ... and biggest. Not by accident. Not by luck. But by using a very simple success method which you can use. Here is the PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD of General Motors. It probably started back in the days of Charles
7
Kettering who started so many successful things including the self-starter. General Motors put into effect the very simple PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD: (1) Give people more of what they want. (2) Give people less of what they don't want. Now, that seems like a very simple, elemental success method. It is ... until you try to apply it to everything you think, say, write and do. Until you try to build your career on it. Until you try to build your business on it, as did General Motors. Until you try to build your life and your future on it ... Then, suddenly, it isn't so simple after all. People don't naturally think that way. In fact, most people are not thinking about what others want. Most people want others to give them what they want, to do what they want. And they get so intent on getting what· they want that they forget that the way to get what they want must begin by first giving others what those others want. At least, more of what others want. Preferably, all of what others want. The more you give people what they want, the more you ultimately will get in return. The size and success of General Motors proves it. This is not to imply that General Motors is the only one using the PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD: (1) Give people more of what they want. The fact is that all of the really successful people, companies and organizations do precisely that. Or they
8
would not long succeed. And their degree of success is in exact proportion to their use of this PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD. The mediocrities and the failures are always too preoccupied with trying to get others to do what they want. So they find life filled with resistance. And success impossible. People are not interested in what you want. They are interested in what they want. So in order to get others to give you what you want, you first must give them what they want. You begin by finding out what each of the people who are important to you really wants. The easiest way is just to ask them what they want. You will find others eager to tell you what they want. Especially if you tell them that you will give it to them-or help them get it. Then, do exactly that. Give them what they want-or help them get it. But that's not all there is to it. It will make you rich, but it will not make you richer . . . qUicker-which is what this book is about. The way to get richer . .. qUicker-is to find out what people are going to want before they even know they want itl To re-state it Simply: ( a) Find out what people will want in the future even though they do not now realize it. (b) Produce it for them. ( c) Persuade them that they want it now. That's how the really big money is made. The fortunes. The millions. The billions. Ask General Motors. 9
Or any really big success in the multi-million class. The secret is to make improvements in advance of public demand. But first, you must learn an easy PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD of improving things. Well, how do you deliberately improve things? The key is «deliberately". You must deliberately improvenot aCcidentally, not luckily-but deliberately. On purpose. With a purpose. Deliberately. Later in this book, there is a chapter on how to SPARK IDEAS through 61 Magic Questions. Then you are given the 61 Magic Questions. All you do is ask yourself the 61 Magic Questions and new, profitable improvements will Hash into your mind like magic! Your mind will SPARK IDEAS I Ideas which will make you richer ... qUicker! But that's a later chapter. Let's complete the second half of General Motors PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD. You have learned the first part: ( 1) Give people more of what they want. Now, the second part: (2) Give people less of what they don't want. People are even more aggressive in avoiding what they don't want than they are in getting what they do want. The way to be a sure loser in elections, business, love and life is to give people what they don't want or even to be associated in people's minds with something they don't want. 10
I have devoted forty years to researching, testing and compiling PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS, and I intensely believe that this is one of the most important, most indispensible, most profitable of all-because it combines both fundamental methods of motivating all people ... under all circumstances ... all of the time. And you just can't do better than thatl But it will do you little good merely to read about it. START USING IT NOWI ( a) Make a written list of all of the people who are important to you, leaving sufficient space under each person's name so that you can ... (b) Write under each person's name: How you can give each person more of exactly what he or she wants. How you can give each person less of what he or she doesn't want. ( c) Even if you think you know what each person wants (which you can provide) and what each person does not want (which you can avoid or eliminate) ... ASKI Ask sincerely, frankly, forthrightly, boldly. The very fact of your asking will greatly improve your relationship. We shall take space for only one example. If you are an employee, ask your employer: «What can I do to make myself more useful?" "How can I do my job better?" "How can I learn more so that I can be more useful to the company? What books and trade magazines should I read? What training courses should I take? What additional fobs can I do to enable me to learn more about the business?" 11
"What on-the-job or off-the-job training can I get? What am I doing wrong or inefficiently which I can correct and improve?" I can positively assure you that asking those questions will work wonders-because, many years ago, I asked those very same questions of my boss when I was office boy in a big corporation. This is what happened: My boss immediately took a personal interest in me. Gave me books, magazines and the company's big catalog to study. Paid my tuition to special training courses. Promoted me from one department to another so that I could learn the business. Made me manager of one of the company's big showrooms-in three years! Later, I became president of eight corporations and this is how it looks from the employer's side of the desk: Any employee who asked those or similar questions received the same kind of special attention, training and promotions which I have just described as having received from my own first boss. So there you have a PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD in action-in real life. Go and do likewise! Apply it, not just to your employer, but to every person who is important to you. And this leads directly to the next PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD which will assure that you will get special attention, get promoted, get ahead, and get richer . ker., ... qutC In the next chapter ... 12
Chapter 4
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
The Sure Way Yon Can Attract Favorable Attention To GET AHEAD There is a sure way you can attract the favorable attention of those who can help you get promoted, get ahead in life, get richer . .. quicker! You can succeed in today's complex business world or achieve whatever you want as your life-goal ONLY with the goodwill, help and cooperation of others. As I have emphasized in my other books, no longer can even the strongest men climb to the top using only their own ability and power. Everyone who reaches success today is lifted to success by the willing hands of those who want to help him succeed! You have to deserve success, of course. But deserving success is not enough. As President Calvin Coolidge said, "Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. The world is full of educated derelicts."
13
Being educated, being talented and being deserving are valuable assets, of course. But neither advanced education nor exceptional talent nor being deserving will assure your success. Indeed, many of the most successful people have neither superior formal schooling nor gifted natural talent. They may be no more "deserving" than others with equal experience and job-skill. Successful people today know and use PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. That is the only way to succeed. And one of the most important proven success methods is to get other people to willingly lift you to success. Others must eagerly want to help you! How do you get other people to want to help you succeed? Always remember this: You first have to put money into the bank before you can draw it out. So you first have to give others what they want -or help them get it-before you can expect them to give you what you want. How do you start? You start by attracting the favorable attention of those who can lift you to-or toward-success. And you attract that favorable attention by expressing or demonstrating your willingness to help them first. There is no surer way to attract favorable attention than to offer cooperation and help. Don't be timid or embarassed about offering to cooperate in helping others accomplish what they are trying to do. Even if your assist-
14
ance is not accepted at once, you will have attracted favorable and remembered attention. That is doubly true in your employment. If you want to attract the favorable attention of top management (as you must!), then express and demonstrate your eagerness to do more, to do better, to make yourself more useful. Ask your employer the questions listed in the previous chapter: "What can I do to make myself more usefulr "How can I do my job better?" "How can I learn more so that I can be more useful to the company? What books and trade magazines should I read? What additional jobs can I do to enable me to learn more about the business?" "What additional on-the-job or off-the-job training can I get?" "What am I doing wrong or inefficiently which I can correct and improve?" In this way, you earnestly express your eagerness to: ( 1) Give your employer more of what he wants from you as an employee, and ... (2) Give your employer less (or nothing) of what he doesn't want from you as an employee. And that PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD will ( a) attract favorable attention, (b) get you promoted, (c) win the goodwill of those who can help lift you to success, ( d) make you richer . . . quicker! Of course, you have to use PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS in a highly profitable type of business if you are going to get richer . . . qUicker!
15
So, to enable you to select the kind of business -the specific business classification-in which to get richer qUicker, I have listed in the next chapter the 34 kinds of businesses in which individuals made personal fortunes of $1 billion to $50 million within a recent five year period. So if you want to make a personal fortune of $1 billion to $50 million within five years, the next chapter will list the 34 different kinds of businesses in which other people actually did it.
16
Chapter 5 Get Richer ... Quicker/
How To Become SUPER-RICH In Five Years Since this chapter is about how to become super-rich, let us first define what we mean by «super. h" . rw For the purposes of this chapter, we shall define the «new super-rich individualS' as those who amassed personal fortunes of $1 billion to $50 million in a recent five-year period. The purpose of this chapter is to assure you that you can become super-rich ($1 billion to $50 million) by using PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS in almost any kind of business and that you can become very rich by providing any service or product which many people want or which you can encourage them to want by using PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. The following is a list of the kinds of businesses, services or products which provided personal fortunes of from $1 billion to $50 million to individuals recently in the short span of five years. The largest personal fortunes are at the top of the following list and the size of
17
the personal fortunes amassed decreases (to $50 million) at the bottom of the list. Where more than one business classification is listed on the same line it shows diversification of business interests of the same individual. ( 1) Pet foods and accessories; real estate (2) Computer services; brokerage (3) Medical equipment ( 4) Tire re-treads and equipment (5) Low-cost insurance (6 ) Women's clothing stores (7) Real estate (8) Drug stores (9) Employee insurance ( 10) Medical products ( 11) Trucking ( 12) Trading stamps ( 13) Insurance by mail ( 14) Mobile homes ( 15) Faucets and other metal products ( 16) Insurance, primarily for mobile homes ( 17) Electric motors ( 18) Adhesives and sealing material ( 19) Office machines and office supplies (20) Industrial cleansers and paints (21) SeH-service drug stores (22) Oil and gas exploration; real estate (23) Agricultural seeds, oil exploration (24) Soft drink bottling and distribution (25) Printing inks (26) Discount and variety stores (27) Restaurants and ice cream
18
(28) Home building (29) Safety glass; photographic services ( 30) Mail order consumer products ( 31) General and farm insurance ( 32 ) Real estate and insurance ( 33) Cleaning and sanitation products ( 34 ) Fruit juices So that is how individuals amassed personal fortunes of from $1 billion to $50 million in a recent fiveyear period. (Note that these are individual personal fortunes, not corporation profits. ) Obviously, the wide diversification of kinds of businesses, services and products indicates that your important objective should be-not the discovery of some miracle business, service or product-but the constant, persistent, intensive use of PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. And, of course, since the preceding list stops at personal fortunes of $50 million amassed in five years, you can be sure that thousands of multi-millionaires and tens of thousands of millionaires made their personal fortunes in literally thousands of different kinds of businesses, services and products. Certainly, you will want personally to choose the ~d of business or profession in which to make your own personal fortune, but always remember that your success will depend, not on the kind of business you choose, but on your constant, persistent, intensive use of PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. That is the only sure way to succeed I
19
Chapter 6
Get Richer ... Quicker!
You Can Get Richer Quicker In Hundreds Of Various Occupations! In the last chapter you learned that people amassed personal fortunes of from $1 billion to $50 million within a recent five-year period-in 34 different, but very commonplace, kinds of businesses. As you look down the list of 34 businesses, you will realize that you are qualified to obtain employment, at some level, in everyone of those 84 businesses in which others became super-rich in five years. By looking at all of the business classifications in your telephone directory, you probably can find at least a hundred other kinds of businesses which offer equal or better profit opportunities. And by checking the net worth and profits of the corporations listed on the New York Stock Exchange, you will find many more (and different) business classifications in which other people are getting richer quicker. 20
The fact is that you don't have to discover gold or strike oil or invent an indispensible product to get richer qUicker. You merely have to do the following simple things-all of which are easily within your capabilities: ( 1) Start-at whatever level you presently are qualified-in any reliable company which is energetically devoted to: ( a) Providing products or services which give people more of what they want, or (b) Providing products or services which enable people to avoid or eliminate what they do not want. (2) Be sure to select a company which is a "growth" company-ready, eager and able to expand to whatever size is required to supply an increasing demand for its products or services. ( 3) Be sure to select a company which is not "frozen" into "seniority promotions" but which offers you instant promotions accompanied by earned wage increases based on your increasing usefulness and value to .the company so your every improvement is promptly rewarded. ( 4) Having thus assured yourself the unlimited opportunity to succeed, use the PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS in this book. Knowing how to succeed is much more important than your selecting a speCific company or occupation. Specialists in the forecasting of economic and technological changes predict that in the immediate future employment availabilities and requirements will change so rapidly and drastically that the average person will have seven different careers!
21
The only way you can prepare yourself for
seven different careers is to learn PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS which will enable you to succeed in any and every kind of career. The word "career" as used here includes each change to a new position which may be in the same company or the same type of business. It does not imply a complete change of vocation. Nevertheless, each new position becomes, in efiect, a new "career" with new and changing opportunities to which can be applied proven success methods. In the follOwing several chapters, we shall look at these rapidly changing employment opportunities and their occupational impact on your future. In the next chapter, you will learn about the kind of education you will need to capitalize on the rapidly changing employment opportunities in this rapidly changingworld. So that you can get richer ... qUicker!
.2.2
Chapter 7
Get Richer •.• Quicker!
"General Education" Is Not Adequate. You Need Skills Based On Proven Success Methods "A college diploma is no longer the golden key," says Athena Constantine, director of job-placement for graduates of Columbia University. And John D. Shingleton, director of placement at Michigan State University says, "Colleges are turning out more and more people in the areas that require fewer and fewer workers." He views with increasing concern the rising proportion of liberal-arts students without highlyspecialized marketable skills. He says that the increasing emphasis on "mass education" is not focused on marketable skills and rapidly changing job requirements. The U.S. Government Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 28% of today's college graduates are making less than the median income of those with only high school diplomas but with marketable skills. 28
The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that in 1985 only 20% of the non-professional fobs will require four years of college and only 25% of the work force will have a four-year college education. Because of the highly specialized skills required in to day's occupations, businesses are now taking an active part in education through cooperative college and university programs in which students alternate semesters between academic study and training in actual jobs in businesses related to their chosen careers. More than a third of these co-op students are employed upon graduation by the same companies which trained them. Also, while students are being trained through actual employment in business, the classrooms and school laboratories are being furnished with sophisticated scientific and technological equipment corresponding to that used by businesses and professions. Business leaders and technical experts are invited to give guest lectures. Educators and business leaders are becoming partners in career training. "General education" will greatly enrich the quality of your life but it no longer is adequate to enrich you financially in a business world geared to advanced, complex technology. Specific training based securely on proven success methods is the only way to obtain the personal skills necessary to succeed or even to survive financially in today's rapidly changing world.
Chapter 8
Get Richer ... Quicker!
Where Employment Opportunities Will Be In The Years Ahead A definite requirement for getting richer quicker is to work where the spendable money is. The most spendable money (<
25
By charting employment opportunities as they will be in the year 2000, you can see where the spendable money ("fluid income») will be increasing-and decreasing-during the intervening years. Here is the experts' forecast of employment for the year 2000: (1) The U.S. economy will be able to employ a labor force of 140 million. (2) Only 3% of that labor force will be employed in farming, as big corporate farming replaces the small single-family farms, combines them into vast cropfactories and totally mechanizes them, guided by computerized crop planning and world-wide marketing. (3) Only 16% of the total labor force will be employed in actual manufacturing, because blue-collar labor will be replaced by fully computerized automation, as we are beginning to see in many industries today. ( 4) The remaining 81 % of employment will be in professional and people-service jobs-DEALING WITH PEOPLE! That's where 81% of all future jobs will beDEALING WITH PEOPLE! That's where 81 % of the spendable money ('
26
Chapter 9
Get Richer ... Quicker!
The Most Valuable PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD You Will Ever Learn! Having evaluated every PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD which I could discover in forty years of research ( there are more than a thousand such methods you ~an use and each will make you more successful), I have concluded that there is one success method which you must use. If you do not use this one success method, you condemn yourself to a lifetime of indecision, frustration and failure. This one PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD will assure your personal motivation and will actually generate your power to put into effect all proven success methods! This make-or-break, win-or-Iose, succeed-orfail test of whether or not you have what it takes to succeed in business and in life was :first stated by Thomas Huxley, the great English scientist: 27
"The most valuable trait that you can acquire is the ability to: (1) Make yourself do the thing you should do (2) When it ought to be done ( 3) Whether you like it or not." That is the most valuable PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD you can learn. You will eliminate most of your problems just by doing everything you should do. And why not? If you will devote the rest of your life to doing everything you should do, your success is assured. And you will greatly increase your success by doing what you should do when it ought to be done. Not just "when you get around to it". Not just when (or if) it suits your convenience. But when it ought to be done. Whether you like it or not. A lot of things you should do will not necessarily be things you especially like to do. And there will be some things you should do which you dislike. Whether or not you like something is not the test of whether or not you should do it. The only test is if it should be done. Do it whether you like it or not. That is the rule. That rule cannot be evaded. That rule cannot be ignored. It is not optional. It is mandatory. To be sure you learn it, we shall repeat it just as it was first stated by the great English scientist, Thomas Huxley: "The most valuable trait you can acquire is the ability to: (1) Make yourself do the thing you should do
28
(2) When it ought to be done (3) Whether you like it or not.» If you will accept that as a way of life-beginning right now-your entire life will become an orderly succession of rewarding accomplishments. When you accept that rule as a way of lifeas your habitual way of doing things-you will do everything you should do without the frustration of a self-debate about it. You will not debate in your own mind whether you really are willing to do it. If you should do it-then you do it without indecisive consideration. The time you formerly devoted to indecision now will be devoted to doing. Because your new way of life is: if you should do it, you do it-without question, without indecision. You do it. And you do it when it ought to be done! What a time-saver that is! No frustrating indecision about when will be the "best" time to do it. There will be only one "best" time and that is when it ought to be done. And you do it whether you like it or not. Because if you should do something-whether you like it or not is totally irrelevant. You simply do it. There you have a new, simplified, immensely rewarding way of life: ( 1) Do everything you should do (2) When it ought to be done ( 3) Whether you like it or not. That is the most valuable PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD you will ever learn!
29
Chapter 10
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
You Can Begin Now To Get Richer Quicker Simply By Making Yourself MORE USEFULI The only way you can earn more is to deserve more. The only way you can deserve more is to be more useful. Horace Mann wrote, ceusefulness is the great aim of human life." I think usefulness is even more than that. Usefulness is the guage of your success in life. Yau will succeed in life in the exact degree of your usefulness. If you are not useful to anyone in any way, your life is a total waste, a total loss. If you are useful only in small things, the very most you can expect is very small success. Not deserving more, not serving more-you will not receive more. So don't expect more. And don't complain. You write your own pay check in life and its amount is determined by
80
your degree of usefulness-as taught by this book. The methods are here; it is up to you to use them. If you are useful in many things, you will receive many successes. And if you are useful in many important things, usefully serving many people, you will deserve and receive great success-and you will get richer . .. qUicker! It is just as simple as that. And there is no sense in trying to make success seem to be complicated and difficult. It isn~tl Success is just as simple as being useful. The more useful you are to more people, the more successful you will be. And the more indispensible you will be! Being indispensible is increasingly important in these rapidly changing times of automation and computerization. You are going to have to provide services which are so personally useful that they cannot be replaced by computerized automation. There are certain kinds of services which cannot be replaced by automation and computers. They are: (1) MANAGEMENT: Computers and automation cannot replace management, because it is management which decides what the computers will compute and what the automation will produce. And it is management which must evaluate the computer print-outs, decide what shall be done and issue plans and orders for doing it. (2) PEOPLE WITH IDEAS FOR IMPROVING THINGS: The important fact for you to realize (and never forget for a minute!) is that a computer cannot produce IDEAS! And, therein, may be your employment security-until and after you get into management.
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As long as you can produce practical, useful, profitable IDEAS FOR IMPROVING THINGS, you cannot be replaced by a computer because a computer cannot produce an IDEA. (You can! And this book will teach you how ... in the next several chapters.) The continuation of every business, in every field, depends upon a constant input of IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT. Computers can help determine the feaSibility of an IDEA, can evaluate it, can project its profit potential -but only people (like you) can create the IDEA in the first place. And the next several chapters in this book will teach you how you can constantly create useful, profitable IDEAS which, not only will make you indispensible, but will get you promoted and make you richer qUicker! (3) DEALING WITH PEOPLE: In Chapter 8 you learned that in the future, 81 % of all jobs will be in occupations DEALING WITH PEOPLE. If you are proViding professional or any other needed service which requires personal people-to-people relationships-you cannot be replaced by a computer, as shown by the projection that 81% of all future employment will be in DEALING WITH PEOPLE. Computers, of course, are widely used to assist and facilitate these people-to-people services-but computers cannot replace them. Later chapters in this book will teach you the proven success methods of DEALING WITH PEOPLE so that you will succeed rapidly in this biggest (81 %) and most certain way to GET RICHER ... QUICKER! But, first, in the next chapter ... 82
Chapter 11
Get Richer ... QuickerI
Here's How You Can Get Richer Quicker By Improving Products, Methods ... Anything t "Ideas control the world,» proclaimed James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States. Yes, ideas do control the world, but what is much more personal: Ideas-your own ideas-will determine your advancement in business, your rate of increasing income (how quicker you get richer) and your job security in a world of computers and automation. Big business spends billions in the search for ideas for improving products, methods, anything and everything which will increase sales, increase production, increase efficiency, reduce costs, increase profits. In fact, big business spends 90% of the research dollars. This is necessary because only big business has the billions for research. But money alone cannot produce ideas. Only people can produce ideas. So 70% of the IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT 88
come from individuals (iust like you), not from the professional researchers in the million-dollar laboratories. That is why business eagerly solicits IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT from its own employees at every level and from individuals outside the company. Tens of thousands of people (just "people", not "inventors" or "researchers") every year get promoted, get cash bonuses, and many get rich-by thinking up IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT. Everything can be improved-and everybody can think up some way to improve something. To think up IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT does not require genius. It merely requires the deliberate use of your creative imagination. There is a method which will guide you through this deliberate use of your creative imagination so that you will naturally and automatically SPARK IDEAS. I have devised a simple method for doing this and I shall give it to you-completely-in the next several chapters. My method is called IDEA SPARKERS and consists merely of a list of 61 Magic Questions (which are not "magic" at all, but are called that because their use produces results like magic). My 61 Magic Questions simply provide a check list of possibilities and alternatives which applied to anything you want to improve will SPARK IDEAS whenever the possibility for improvement is stimulated by a question on the list. The next chapter explains the method simply and completely .... 84
Chapter 12
Get Richer ... Quicker!
You Can SPARK IDEAS Through The 61 Magic Questions In the next chapter are IDEA SPARKERS consisting of a list of 61 Magic Questions which you must ask yourself about anything you want to improve. Why should you want to improve anything? Simply because the person who constantly improves things (or suggests how they can be improved) is the person who gets the credit, gets promoted, gets richer, perhaps even becomes famous. One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . . . quicker! Any person, in any position, who constantly suggests practical, profitable IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT can fill in the amount on his own pay check! IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT are the most valuable product you can produce. The person who constantly suggests IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT is indispensible. He or she never
85
will be replaced by automation or computers. Why? Because computers cannot create IDEAS. Computers can only compute the results of IDEAS. Without IDEAS, who needs computers? There soon would be nothing for computers to compute. Because without IDEAS, nothing would be created. The most valuable way you can possibly spend your time is in creating IDEAS, then suggesting them where they will do you the most good. The way to create IDEAS is simple. It consists of considering all possibilities and alternatives in every phase of whatever you decide to improve. To make it easy for you to consider every possibility for improving anything, the author is giving you his own list of IDEA SPARKERS in the form of 61 Magic Questions which the author uses personally to check and improve his own work as America's Success Counselor to millions which requires a constant How of practical, useful IDEAS to help others. The author's list of IDEA SPARKERS-in the form of 61 Magic Questions for you to ask yourself concerning anything you want to improve-is in the next chapter. But, first, here's how to SPARK IDEAS. Here's how to use these 61 Magic QuestiOns: ( 1) Ask yourself each question concerning whatever you want to improve. (2) Obviously, most questions will not apply. But some will-and they will SPARK IDEAS for improvement. Remember, it takes only one idea to hit the jackpotl One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . . . qUicker!
86
(3) Write down every IDEA FOR IMPROVEMENT which comes to you. Important: As soon as an IDEA comes to you, write it down at once. Do not stop to evaluate the idea; you should do that later. The method is to SPARK IDEAS and write them down. Do not be critical of your ideas. Criticism blocks the How of ideas. You can modify and perfect them later. Write down every IDEA at once! (4) As you read each Magic Question, consider every possibility relative to your IDEA. Consider every alternative. When an IDEA SPARKS, write it down at once! (5) As you ask yourself each Magic Question concerning your IDEA, let your mind "run wild". Imagine the impossible I Think the unthinkableI The object is to SPARK IDEAS-good, bad, mediocre. When an IDEA SPARKS-any IDEA-write it down at once! ( 6) When you are sure you have mined every idea from the Magic Questions-and have written down each idea as it came to you, then thoughtfully evaluate each idea. Accept it, adapt it, reVise it, improve it, perfect it; And, if you are sure an idea is totally useless, discard it. (7) It is unlikely that any idea sparked in this manner will be totally useless. Every idea sparked in this manner comes from your subconscious which is your personal channel to Infinite Intelligence. What is wrong is not the idea, but your interpretation of it. You may have misunderstood the real idea which was sparked. It may have a deeper meaning than you can now or ever will understand. But if you cannot use it as you now understand it, and if you can find no way to modify or improve it so
37
that you can use it-discard it and work only with ideas which you do understand and accept as practical and useful now. The next chapter gives you a sure way to SPARK IDEAS for improving anything you want to improve. Remember, the person who constantly improves things (or suggests how they can be improved) is the person who gets the credit, gets promoted, gets richer, and perhaps even becomes famous. One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . .. quicker! Other chapters in this book will teach you how to use, suggest and present your IDEAS for improvement so that you get the credit, you get promoted, you get richer, you become famous. Constantly SPARK IDEAS by applying the entire list of 61 Magic Questions in the next chapter to everything which you want to improve (and everything can be improved!) and you will get RICHER ... QUICKER!
88
Chapter 18
Get Richer •.• Quicker!
IDEA SPARKERS! These 61 Magic Questions Will Stimulate IDEAS For Improving Anything ... Everything! Anything can be improved. Anything! The person who improves things, products, organizations, plans, methods or anything-gets the credit, gets promoted, gets richer, perhaps even becomes famous! One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . . . qUickerl HERE'S HOW: Ask yourself each of the following 61 Magic Questions about whatever you want to improve. Obviously, all or even most of the following questions will not apply to everything. But consider each question thoughtfully. Because some, several, perhaps many of the following Magic Questions will apply to whatever you want to improve.
89
H you find only ONE question from this entire list which applies to whatever you want to improve and it SPARKS AN IDEA for improvement-you have hit the iackpot! You will get promoted, get richer, perhaps even become famous I One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . . . quicker! The order in which the Magic Questions are listed is not significant. The very last question may be the IDEA SPARKER you need. So consider each question thoroughly. H it does not apply, it may spark other ideas or stimulate other questions which will lead to valuable improvements. Thoughtfully consider every possibility. Im-
agine every alternative. IDEA SPARKERS! The 61 Magic Questions: ( 1) What do you want to improve? What thing, object, product, organization, plan, methodanything-do you want to improve? (2) What is the problem? Objective? Goal? (3) What is the present situation? Condition? (4) Who (or what) caused it? Why? When? Where? How? (5) What may, can, should or must be done about it? (6) Who should do it. You, alone? Or should you recruit others to join you, to help you? (7) Why is an improvement needed? When? ( 8) How do you think the object, product, plan, method, anything-should be improved? Write down your own ideas for improvement before considering the following questions for IDEA SPARKERS. (9) Can whatever you want to improve be made better or more desirable by making it bigger? Enlargement has 40
greatly improved many things from food packages ('1arge economy size"), to buildings, machinery, ships, and countless items. Think big! ( 10) Can whatever you want to improve be made better or more desirable by making it smaller? Compactness is increaSingly important as our world and our lives become more crowded. Miniaturization has made much of modem technology possible. Think small! ( 11) Can you make improvements by increasing numbers? Elections are won by increasing numbers of voters. Organizations expand and become more powerful by increasing the number of members. Six-packs increase beverage and food sales. Military superiority often depends upon increased numbers of men, weapons, war-heads, etc. Advertising depends upon increasing the number of readers who will buy. Increasing numbers is a sure way to improve in many fields. ( 12) Can you make improvements by decreasing numbers. By decreasing numbers, you often can improve quality, eliminate waste, improve efficiency, reduce costs. Consider simplifying things by decreasing numbers (numbers of parts, movements, packages, operations, replacements (example: "solid state" components). ( 13) Can what you want to improve benefit by being com.bined with something else? The opportunities are endless for improving by combining. The washer-drier laundry unit and the refrigerator-freezer are obvious combinations and there are thousands more. (14) What can you add which will improve value? ( 15) What can you eliminate to improve efficiency, decrease costs, simplify? 41
(16) Can you improve by increasing speed? Increasing speed increases productivity and usually reduces cost. (17) Can you improve quality, safety, and decrease rejects or employee stress by reducing speed? (18) Can you reduce boredom by rotating jobs? (19) How can you improve controls? Control technology offers unlimited opportunities. (20) Could you improve by increasing softness? Many fabrics have been made much more desirable by making them softer--and that is only one of the countless examples. (21) Could you improve by increasing hardness? Harder metal alloys, cutting tools, resistant finishes are only a few of many examples. (22) Could you make what you want to improve easier to obtain, use, apply, etc? The sure way to increased desirability is make it easier! (23) How can you simplify it? Make it less complicated? Therefore more desirable; less expensive. (24) What specific corrections should be made? Most improvements are made by correcting existing conditions. (25) Can you change and improve the color? Color not only can beautify but it has a powerful psychological effect. Color-psychology is a wide-open field with unlimited applications and opportunities. (26) Can you change and improve the material? Materials for every purpose are so varied and their uses so remarkable that they offer almost unlimited opportunities for improving virtually everything! Constantly search for new and improved materials. And search for new combinations of materials. (27) What changes in production would improve effi-
42
ciency, quality, output, etc.? Reduce costs, waste, labor? Production methods change constantly so you not only must suggest production improvements-but do it first! (28) What changes in personnel are needed? More? Fewer? More skilled? Training program? Motivation? (29) What improvements can be made in your plan? Check it against these Magic Questions. Almost every plan can be improved at least 10 ways by intensive reviews. ( 30) What time changes would improve efficiency and employee relations? Could time changes increase uses of facilities, fixed overhead? Only 24-hour use ( including maintenance) constitutes 100% efficient use of fixed overhead equipment and property. ( 31) How can you better divide time allocations, personnel functions, operations, work-load? ( 32 ) How can you multiply results? Additions are good, but multiplying will make you richer! ( 33) How cali you magnify desirable qualities to make them appear even more desirable? ( 34) Can what you want to improve be made better or more desirable by changing its shape. Thousands of products have used this simple method to achieve distinctiveness, efficiency, increased demand. ( 35) What qualities and characteristics should be retained. Often eagerness to make changes sacrifices qualities which should be retained. There is danger in being suddenly too new and too different. (36) What can be discarded advantageously? You will be surprised at the number of needless things and methods which you can get rid of and streamline your operation. (37) Should you set a definite limit? The imposed restric43
tions of a definite limit are a useful and often necessary control which should not be overlooked in managing many situations. (38) How can what you want to .improve be modified? Often drastic changes are neither necessary nor desirable, but some simple modification may produce sensational results. ( 39) How can you diminish danger and increase safety? And thus appeal to one of the most primitive and powerful human desires: security. ( 40) How can what you want to improve be related to and/or associated with something of established desirability? "Tie-in" offers and cooperative ventures can be arranged for mutual advantage, often with spectacular results. ( 41) How can you improve appearance? People, organizations, products and things are judged by appearance. Often appearance too greatly affects the judgment, but that's how it is and you disregard this fact to your disadvantage. ( 42) How can you activate? Increase activity? The old saying that "action speaks louder than words" is as true as ever. Action attracts attention, holds interest. Always has. Always will. So increase activity. ( 43) Can you offer or improve your guarantee, insure against defects or loss, eliminate or minimize liability? Can you emphasize your guarantee through testimonials? ( 44) Can what you want to improve benefit by increased purity and sanitation or by reduced harmful pollution? ( 45) Could any of the follOwing changes help? (a) elevate, (b) lower, (c) stiffen, (d) make more flexible, (e) 44
reinforce, (f) strengthen, (g) refine, (h) invert, ( i) reverse, (j) rotate, (k) recycle, (I) condense, (m) expand, (n) superimpose, (0) ocillate, (p) vibrate, (q) whirl, (r) swivel, ( s) insulate, (t ) tighten, (u ) loosen, (v) make more quiet, ( w) streamline, (x) automatic, (y ) seHregulate, (z) computerize. (46) Would what you want to improve be better by being made lighter? Or heavier? ( 47) Can you make it more convenient? Can you improve distribution, supply, location, simplicity? ( 48) Can you increase happiness, enjoyment, fun? Can you increase comfort, well-being, relaxation? ( 49) Are there possibilities in syndication, franchising, serialization? (50) Can service, maintenance, repairing be improved? Made easier, faster, less costly? ( 51) Can you make it more fashionable? Styles, fashions, designs change very frequently. Keep apace or ahead. ( 52) Can you make it more impressive? ( 53) Are there possibilities in easier terms, simpler financing? Discount for cash, quantity, related purchase, immediate purchase? ( 54) Can you identify what you want to improve with a favorable, easily remembered symbol? A major memory factor is association. (55) Can you make improvements in: (a) name, (b) label, (c) trademark, (d) package, (e) design of any of the foregoing? ( 56) Can what you want to improve be recommended by accredited testing and convincing testimonials? Backed by guarantee?
45
( 57) Can it be made more time saving? More labor saving? More money saving? ( 58) Could you more effectively use samples? A bonus? Action-incentive? Inducements? ( 59) Could you profitably add an extra value, extra feature, extra ingredient, "mystery" ingredient? (60) Will the improvements you suggest: Increase production? Reduce costs? Improve quality? Increase sales? Increase income? Increase profits? Provide security? ( 61) Will your improvement (a) give people more of what they want and/or (b) less of what they don't want. That is the ultimate test of any change. It determines success or failure. Anything can be improved. Anything! . The person who improves things, products, organizations, plans, methods, anything-gets the credit, gets promoted, gets richer, perhaps even becomes famous! One idea can make you rich! A dozen ideas will make you richer . ker., ... qmc First, decide what you want to improve and ask yourself all of the foregoing 61 Magic Questions as IDEA SPARKERS to stimulate your thinking. Thoughtfully consider every possibility. Imagine every conceivable alternative. As stated at the beginning of the preceding list of questions, obviously all (even most) of the questions will not apply to everything. But, if you find only one question from the entire list which applies to whatever 'you want to improve, and if it SPARKS AN IDEA for improvement-you have hit the iackpot! 46
Chapter 14
Get Richer ... Quicker!
You Can Create Profitable Ideas By Using These Three Master Methods There are three master methods you can use to create profitable ideas. Anyone of these three master methods will make you richer . .. qUicker! Here they are: (1) DISCOVER something which always has existed but the existence of which has not been known before. (Examples: Newton's discovery of the Law of Gravity. Or the discovery of new elements, new substances, new methods based on new principles). This is the most difficult of the three master methods. It will make you famous but it probably will not make you as rich as the following easier master methods. (2) INVENT something which did not exist before. An invention is simply a new arrangement of things (which already are known) into something which is new
47
and different. (Example: Alexander Graham Belfs invention of the telephone.) Of course, your invention need not be anything as revolutionary and complex as the telephone, or radio, or television, or gasoline engine, or any of the civilizationchanging inventions which first come to mind. lust look about you and you will realize that every product (and every method which produced that product) was an invention! Few, if any products remain in their original forms -without invented changes of some kind by some invented method. Everybody who will use his imagination and think creatively can invent many things! Edison, who was better at inventing than anyone, invented thousands of things. He only bothered to obtain patents on 1,093 of his many inventions. But you do not have to be an Edison, or a Franklin, or a Steinmetz. Almost every product you see or use was invented by someone (since few products are used in their original forms) . Remember, all you need to do to invent something is to imagine a new arrangement of things which already exist which changes them into something which is new and different. In the preceding chapter you were given the 61 Magic Questions which will enable you to SPARK IDEAS about anything ... everything . .. to which you apply the questions. And that brings us to the third and easiest master method for creating profitable ideas: (3) MODIFY something which already exists. 48
You need not change it entirely into a different product, material, method or whatever-but into an improved one. This is something you and everybody can and should do often! You always should have-alert in the "back of your mind"-the urge to modify, change and improve something ... everythingI Because everything can be improved! It is just waiting for someone (you?) to SPARK AN IDEA for some modification and change which will improve it. It is simple and easy. All you need do is apply all of the 61 Magic Questions to anything and everything which you want to improve until several or many IDEA SPARKS flash in your mind and set your creative imagination to building idea chains linking one exciting idea to another even more useful idea so that by multiplying your usefulness through the lessons of the following chapters ... you get richer ... quicker!
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Chapter 15
Get Richer •.. Quicker!
Your Idea Is The BEGINNING Of A Reality An idea is the beginning of a reality-or the idea could not have been conceived in the first place. It is Nature's Law that whatever can be conceived, can be achieved. There is no such thing as an idea without the means-somehow-of somebody accomplishing it! An idea is the beginning. It may be modified and changed in the process of development and pedection. But, in the beginning of anything, there first must be an idea! Knowing that your idea is the beginning of a reality should give you the boldness to begin to develop it, because as the great German philosopher, Gothe, wrote: «What you can do, or dream you can, BEGIN it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." There is an infallible Law of Cause and Effect.
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An idea is a cause; what it produces is the effect ... reality. Know that your idea can become a reality. Infinite Intelligence did not plant an idea in your imagination just to lead you on a «fool's chase". You may not recognize the potential of the idea but it is there, nevertheless. So never reject an idea until you have sought its potential in the 61 Magic Questions. Every idea is the beginning of a reality. It is greatly to your advantage to develop every idea which comes to you-even though it may require modification and change before it becomes a reality. Let's face it! Without a constant flow of ideas, you are stuck! Because ideas are the spark plugs of success. Without the constant ignition of ideas, your success motor will not operate, no matter how much fuel (money) you have. Without the constant sparks of ideas, the fuel (money) produces no power. So you see how vital a constant How of useful ideas is to a business or any project. If you produce that constant How of useful ideas, you are indispensible! You can fill in the amount of your own pay check! One idea can make you rich. A dozen ideas will make you RICHER . .. QUICKER!
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Chapter 16
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Three Sure W ays You Can Get
RICHER ... QUICKERI Improve! Improve! Improvel Three sure ways to get richer qUicker: ( 1) IMPROVE PRODUCTS: By "products" I mean every tangible thing. Obviously, you are more likely to spark ideas for the improvement of products which you use, or make, or with which you are familiar. Also, it is more likely that you will receive greater and more immediate benefits from your improvement of products in your own area of activity. But since every product can be improved in some way-usually in many ways-you also can spark ideas for the improvement of products with which you are not personally involved. The French mathematician, Jules Henri Poincare, pointed out, "This subconscious work (inspiration or "sparking ideas") is not possible, or in any case not fruitful,
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unless it is first preceded and then followed by a period of conscious work." Personally, I think that sparking ideas for less familiar products is possible and could be fruitful-but, certainly it is more unlikely because when you are using or making a product, you are implanting in your subconscious (idea producing) mind familiar information which can be rearranged, modified or changed to improve that product. Then by continuing to develop the improved product-actually or in your imagination-you test and verify your new idea. That is how most products have been invented and developed to their present state. And that is how they will continue to be improved by you and by people like you. Remember, as stated in Chapter 11: seventy percent of all IDEAS FOR IMPROVEMENT come from individuals (iust like you), not from professional researchers I (2) IMPROVE METHODS: Methods of doing almost everything are changing so rapidly and so drastically that your opportunities to spark ideas for improving methods are unlimited. The same principles apply to improving methods as apply to improving p1'Oducts, so instead of my repeating them here, I suggest that you tum back to the beginning of this chapter and substitute "methods" for "products" . Please be sure to do this because improving methods is one of the easiest and surest ways to make yourself more useful and thereby get richer .. .quicker! So be sure to re-read the first part of this chapter, substituting "methods" for "products".
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Then, beginning right now, always think: IMPROVE I ... IMPROVE! ... IMPROVEI Form the habit of consciously-and) later) subconsciously-always asking yourself: How can this product or method be improved? How can this plan, activity) or organization be improved? Most people never know what to think about . -creatively, constructively) excitedly. Of course, they think the usual routine thoughts about the work they have to do and their other daily activities but they seldom get beyond thinking about routine) usually dull, daily events. No morelll At least) not for you, because you now have entered the stimulating and exciting world of unlimited creative thinking! From now on, you have everything to think about in the most stimulating and exciting way-how can it be improved? And there is no limit on your thinking when you think creatively with deliberate imagination! You do not accept any idea as "best", but you continue thinking about how to improve your improvement! You check it against each of the 61 Magic Questions and thereby consider every possible alternative for further improvement. So you have a lifetime of stimulating, exciting, creative) constructive thinking ahead of you! You will spark ideas for improving products, methods, plans, activities) organizations!
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You will make yourself more useful! And, thereby, get richer . . . qUicker! But we have yet to explore the surest and most rewarding way to use improvements to get richer . .. quicker: (3) IMPROVE YOURSELF: When you improve yourself, you instantly make yourseH more useful. And, being more useful is the golden key to getting richer . .. qUicker! IMPROVING YOURSELF so that you will be more useful and therefore more valuable-which assures that you will get richer qUicker-is so important that the many proven success methods for improving yourself cannot even begin to be taught in the brief remainder of this chapter. In fact, IMPROVING YOURSELF is so important that we shall devote many of the later chapters of this book specifically to proven success methods which will make you more useful and more valuable. You will learn the many ways to IMPROVE YOURSELF so that you will be more useful and therefore more valuable-because that is the golden key to your getting richer . . . qUicker! But, first, learn how you also can get richer qUicker by: (1) IMPROVING PRODUCTS, and (2) IMPROVING METHODS. There are three easy-but absolutely necessary-actions which you must use to get the biggest rewards for your IDEAS for IMPROVING PRODUCTS and IMPROVING METHODS. You willieam all three in the next chapter . . .
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Chapter 17
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
How You Can Get The Biggest Rewards For Your IDEAS A concealed idea has no value. The only way you can get the credit, promotions, increased wages, bonus payments, and all the other rewards for having created an IDEA FOR IMPROVING SOMETHING is to communicate your idea. IDEA COMMUNICATION has three easy but absolutely necessary steps. Read the following steps over and over again. Study them. Think about them. Memorize them. Write them on a reminder card and re-read them often. Why? Because the following three steps are the necessary actions for getting richer . .. qUicker: ( 1) THINK UP! (2) WRITE DOWN! (3) SPEAK OUT! It's easy when you mow HOW! 56
So •.. here's HOW: ( 1) THINK UPl Thinking up ideas for impro· g things is exciting and stimulating. Your thinking wil take on a new dimension and purpose. You will devel p a creative personality! Each new idea-even an idea for small improvement-will build your success attitude. You will look, act and talk like a success! And every new idea you THINK UP will lead to more ideas and more success. Everyone thinks in thought chains. This is true especially in thinking up ideas for improving things. One idea will link to another idea . . . and another idea . . . and another idea. So continue to expand and extend every idea 'you THINK UP into a continuing chain of ideas. Here's how: Simply apply the 61 Magic Questions to your idea and you will spark a continuing chain of ideasl That's right! First, use the 61 Magic Questions to SPARK IDEAS. Then, ask those same idea-sparking Magic Questions of the ideas, themselvesl The results will be amazingl You will excitedly discover that you have at your command a complete system for creating ideas, then expanding them, and using them as spring-boards for more ideasl So . . .. the first necessary step to your getting richer qUicker is THINK UPI This was taught in detail in Chapters 12 and 13. Instead of repeating the contents of those chapters here, I suggest that you fe-read Chapters 12 and 13 now-because they teach the most successful methods of THINKING Upl Chapters 12 and 13 give you the 61 Magic Questions which enable you to discover and
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evaluate every possible idea for improving anything. They make it easy for you to THINK UP so you can ... (2) WRITE DOWN! As soon as you spark an idea-WRITE IT DOWN! Write it down at once! Do not try to improve a new idea, or to develop it, or to complete it in your mind as soon as it sparks. WRITE IT DOWN first-in whatever state the idea sparks. The only safe place for an idea (even a partial, incomplete idea) is on paperl After having safely recorded your idea on paper-then you can look at it, concentrate on it, and THINK UP every possible way your idea can be improved, using the Magic Questions to spark ideas about your idea. Then WRITE DOWN all rewted ideas-and new ideas which this method will spark. In WRITING DOWN ideas, use whatever system suits your working style: 3 x 5 cards, notebooks, 8~ x 11 letter-size sheets filed in a drawer or cabinet, or whatever method suits your style and convenience. Because I deal with literally thousands of ideas (often brief idea sparks), I use 3 x 5 cards which I file in small metal file boxes, numbered and filed in large, fireproof, locked, metal filing cabinets. I clip closely related ideas together. Then I file generally related ideas in the same file box. If you WRITE DOWN your ideas on 3 x 5 cards, select several to carry in your pocket. Use ideas on 3 x 5 cards for re-reading and study. Do not try to remember an idea-WRITE IT DOWN! Write it down instantly! Then study it, refine it, improve it, complete it for persuasive communication.
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WRITING DOWN every idea and keeping an idea file is the second necessary step to getting richer qUicker. The foregoing suggestions should be sufficient to start you sparking ideas and to enable you to decide what method you will use to WRITE DOWN and safely file your ideas. So we shall proceed to the third necessary step to your getting richer qUicker: (3) SPEAK OUTI An idea, promptly written down and safely filed away-has no value to you or anybody. Getting richer quicker requires that you persuaSively communicate your idea to others. You must SPEAK OUT about your idea. And, of course, "SPEAK OUT" is used here, not in the limited vocal meaning, but to emphasize that you must communicate your idea to others by words, whether the words be vocal·or written. Since I do not know your idea, nor your circumstances, nor your intended goal-the method for you to "SPEAK OUT" about your idea is left to your own good judgment. The possibilities for communicating an idea could be a casual suggestion to your employer (the: "1 wonder what would happen if we tried ..." technique as described in the next chapter) ... or in a detailed, typed presentation, impressively bound in an attractive cover ... or an enthusiastic speech to a small or large audience. Using whatever method is appropriate, you must "SPEAK OUT" about your idea ... where it will do you the most good ... in whatever manner will most persuaSively present your idea.
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You can be sure that when you SPEAK OUT about your IDEA FOR IMPROVING ANYTHING-all people will listen!!! Because IDEAS are progress! Because IDEAS are improvements! Because IDEAS are money! So, the three necessary steps for your getting richer qUicker are: ( 1) THINK UPI (2) WRITE DOWN! (3) SPEAK OUT! Anything can be improved! Everything can be improved! You be the one who SPARKS THE IDEAS for improvement and you will get the credit, you will get promoted, you will become famous, you will get richer qUicker . .. IF you constantly (1) THINK Upl . . . (2) WRITE DOWN ... (3) SPEAK OUTI
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Chapter 18
Get Richer .•• Quicker[
Here Is The Proper And Respectful Way To Suggest Your Ideas To Your Boss When you think up an idea which you believe will benefit your company, suggest it to your employer in a deferential manner which will get you credit for trying to make yourself more useful-but without seeming presumptuous or incurring resentment. Obviously, your employer has more knowledge and experience than you do, so you will incur his resentment if you give the impression that you think you know more about the business than he does. So always suggest your ideas in the form of questions in the manner of simply asking his more experienced opinion. Here's how to do it: Casually and courteously ask the appropriate variation of one of the following or similar questions:
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I
( a) «What do you think would happen if (your idea)?" (b) «Suppose our company would test (your idea), do you think it might . . . . . ?" ( c) "Do you think we could reduce costs by (your idea) ?" ( d) "Would it speed up production if we (your idea)?" ( e) "How do you think our customers would respond if we (your idea) ?" (f) ,"I wonder if. our employees would prefer (your idea)?" Those are enough examples to give you the "Suppose Methoa' of always suggesting your ideas to your employer in question form. The "Suppose Method" gives you the follOwing advantages and safeguards: You do not incur resentment by giving the impression you think you are smarter than your superior. All you did was casually and courteously ask his more experienced opinion. If your idea has merit, you suggested it and you will get the credit for trying to make yourself more useful. If your idea does not seem feasible to your employer, he will tell you so and probably tell you why. Then you can admiringly say, «That is why I wanted to get your experienced opinion before I tried to develop the idea further." In that way, you tum the rejection of your idea into a compliment to your employer. If the circumstances seem appropriate, you might add, "I try to think up ways to make myself more useful to the company. I hope you won't object to my asking your opinion if I think I have a useful idea."
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If your employer says he is not interested in your ideas and that you should just do what you get paid for-start looking for a more rewarding job in a more progressive company. Remember: The sure way to get promoted is to make yourself more useful. You attract your employer's favorable attention by asking him how you can make yourself more useful. Three proven success methods for making yourself more useful are: ( 1) Improve products (2) Improve methods (3) IMPROVE YOURSELF I When you do these things to make yourself more useful to a progressive "growth" company that has a management which encourages and rewards improvement -you will get richer . . . quicker!
Chapter 19
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Your Golden Road To Riches ... CREATIVITY! A top management consultant says, "If you don't have CREATIVITY (if you don't THINK UP IDEAS for improvements), management will think you are as brilliant as a burned-out light bulb. And you know what happens to burned-out light bulbs!" In all income-earning tests, CREATIVITY always pays off best. The American Association of Applied and Professional Psychologists compared the intelligence tests of a group of high-salaried executives with the same intelligence tests given to much lower paid employees. In three of the four aptitudes tested, the two groups were equal. But in the fourth test-CREATIVITY-the high-salaried group was vastly superior. They earned higher salaries because they were much more cmative. It pays to THINK UP IDEAS! 64
When you think up and submit ideas for improving a company, here is an inside tip from the nation's top corporations: These big employers report that almost all of the suggestions they receive from employees require the expenditure of more money. They say they would more readily consider for promotion, an employee who thought up ways of reducing costs and saving money. Of course, thinking up ideas for company improvement is not limited to ideas for reducing costs and saving money-but those are the ideas the employers want most. However, thinking up ideas for any of the following company improvements will put you on the golden road to riches: ( 1) Reduce costs (2) Save money ( 3) Increase sales ( 4) Increase productivity ( 5) Increase profits And there are thousands morel I could fill this book with a list of urgently needed ideas in every phase of business operation. And every idea for improvement offers the opportunity of a promotion, bonus, wage increase or other valuable reward. When you get on the golden road to richesCREATIVITY-you will get richer . .. qUicker!
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Chapterro Get Ricber ••• Quicker!
You Can Create Ideas By These YOGA Methods And By DISPERSED ATTENTION Methods To create ideas for improvement in order to get richer qUicker-the only sure, proven, scientific method is for you to THINK UP ... WRITE DOWN ... and
SPEAK OUT ... your best ideas developed by lOgically evaluating every alternative. That is the purpose of my IDEA SPARKERS stimulated by the 61 Magic Questions, described in Chapters 12 and 13. By checking your ideas against those questions, you use the scientific method. However, there are other ways to create ideas -ranging from Yoga to floating paper boats in a bathtub. In fairness, I want to give you these other methods, too. The Yoga method of «
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nor looking at anything in particular. Just an hour of silence when you keep your mind "open for ideas", ready to receive but not seeking or trying-just patiently waiting for whatever idea may come. A variation of the Yoga method is to sit on the Hoor in a dark room and look steadily at the flickering flame of a candle-and wait for ideas. Another method is to meditate in the solitude and majesty of the mountains or in other places of beauty and inspiration. Beardsley RumL the Chicago University professor, who was called the "national idea man", used to lock himself up for an uninterrupted hour every day and just let his mind roam at will. This method also is used by other "professional idea-producers" and while it produces random ideas, it does not focus on a needed idea. It is called producing ideas by "dispersed attention". When you are not seeking a specific idea, it is a good method. A form of the "dispersed attention" method of seeking ideas is to put a number of desired ideas in the "works" at the same time and switch from one idea to another as soon as an idea shows no signs of developing at the moment. This was one of Edison's methods because he worked on many ideas simultaneously. Other idea producers also do not try to force an idea which will not come, but instead of switching to another idea, abandon the project altogether and switch to a hobby or some other unrelated activity until the next day or even longer. Other "dispersed attention" methods are used to get the conscious mind off of idea creation so that the
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creative subconscious can work without interruption. They are as varied as the individuals who use them: A Hollywood script writer improvises on the piano. Another idea-creator meditates in a church. Another buys a new hat. Many just take a leisurely walk. Some take long hikes. Others listen to their favorite types of music. Some methods are weird. Don Herold's method was soaking in a bathtub. So was Joseph Conrad's. Shelly added the Hoating of paper boats in his tub. Many idea-producers acclaim shaving, but composer Brahms got his best musical ideas while shining his shoes! To each, his own! But the scientific, lOgical, sure method for you to create ideas for improvement and thereby get richer quicker is for you to THINK UP ... WRITE DOWN ... SPEAK OUT ... the best ideas perfected by considering every alternative by checking whatever you want to improve against everyone of the 61 Magic Questions in Chapters 12 and 13. I assure you it will make you richer quicker than devoting an hour to contemplating the flickering Hame of a candle or Hoating paper boats in a bathtub!
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Chapter 21
Get Richer •.. Quicker!
How You Can Maintain A Continuous Flow Of Ideas For Improving Things When you THINK UP ideas for improving things, WRITE DOWN every idea instantly. Do not try to judge the merits of Meas as they come to you. Especially, do not be critical of any idea no matter how foolish or impractical you may suspect it is. As soon as you start fudging and criticizing any idea in a How or chain of ideas, the flow of ideas will stop. And it may be difficult to start again. So as soon as you THINK UP an idea, WRITE IT DOWN instantly and continue to THINK UP related ideas and WRITE THEM DOWN. The secret of profitable idea creation is to THINK UP and WRITE DOWN every possible alternative to every idea. List every possible variation. Use the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13 as a check-list to stimulate
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alternatives and variations to every idea. But do not try to judge, evaluate or criticize while you are creating. Mter you have written down your ideas and then listed every possible variation and alternative (and there may be a hundred I), then-and only then-should you begin to judge, criticize and evaluate all of the variations, alternatives and possibilities. But do not be too hasty in discarding ideas which may seem to be impractical, foolish or just plain ridiculous. Often it is better to test them first. Years ago, I used to be National Bass Champion (so proclaimed Outdoor Life Magazine, April 1957). At that time, my average catch was 28 bass every day I fished, under all conditions. Later, I created ideas for catching more bass which increased my average catch to 60 bass every day I fished, under all conditions-all on artificiallures, many of which I deSigned myself. The reason for mentioning this, is that this unusual record was achieved, not by my skill (because thousands of fishermen are much more skillful than I am) but by creating ideas for improving ways to catch more bass-especially in making and colOring my own lures and creating unusual lure action. Some of my ideas were so "ridiculous" that no one else had ever tried them. Yet when I tried them, even to my own surprise, these «ridiculous" lures often made sensational catches I The foregOing personal experience is recounted to emphaSize several points: ( 1) Creating ideas for improvement can be applied to anything (even fishingl).
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(2) Do not discard any idea just because it seems to be ridiculous or impractical-until you TEST it first. It may surprise even you by being sensationall (3) Even if your initial idea does not workan alternative or variation of it may. Here are some other PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS for creating ideas to improve things: When you want to THINK UP an idea, do not just sit and look at a blank sheet of paper, waiting for the perfect idea-or even a sensible idea. Start writing at once! Write whatever comes to your mind on the subject-or even any subject-no matter how silly or dull. One famous writer starts each day's writing by typing: «The moon is made of green cheese." Then he continues to type about the "moon" ... or "green" ... or "cheese" ... or whatever comes to his mind-until he gets his imagination "warmed up" and his flow of desired ideas started. In starting and maintaining a flow of ideas, you have to go for quantity and completely disregard quality. First, capture every idea and every alternative and every variation ON PAPER so that it cannot escape, because ideas are elusive things and have a way of vanishing in thin air, unless you WRITE DOWN everyone. Later, you can judge, evaluate and test. But not while you are creating. And, do not stop creating ideas (and all alternatives and variations) too soon. Remember, an idea is only a beginning-it is not the entire structure of an improvement. Your idea may be the essential comer-stone-but it is not the entire building.
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Every idea must be supplemented by related ideas and combined with them. It is by combining ideas into a complete thought structure that plans are made and projects started and improvements completed. Every idea must be followed by the questions: «What eI?" if?" se ... "Now what P" ... "Wha t . . .. "suppose we tried . . . P" You simply refer back to the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13. And create ideas for improving things, methods, plans, organizations-whatever will make you more useful and therefore more valuable. So that you will GET RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Chapter 22
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Learning Facts Is Not Enough! You Must Apply IDEA POWER To Facts! In any good, modem set of encyclopedias there are more facts than you ever will learn. Your employer can purchase such a set of encyclopedias for about $500. All the facts always will be available whenever he wants them. The encyclopedia never is out to lunch, or taking a coffee break, or on vacation. The total cost is $500 (tax deductible), with no employee Social Security tax payments or other employee benefit payments of any kind. Just $500 for all the facts. So . . . if your sole usefulness to a business is that you have gone to school and learned facts-even if you know all the facts-your lifetime value to your employer would be $500. And that is all you should be paid: $500 for life. But most people do not even know all the facts
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available in a $6 almanac. So on that basis, their total lifetime income should be $6. Actually, it would be more convenient and more efficient for their employer just to buy the $6 almanac. So your bowing facts is worth a lifetime income of $500 to $6, depending upon whether you are equivalent to a set of encyclopedias or an almanac.
Facts are valuable only when they are activated by IDEAS! You will acquire value-get richer quickerto the extent that you (1) know useful facts, and then (2) activate those useful facts by practical ideas, and (3) thereby produce improvements and profitable progress. A fact is static. It is documented information. It is inactive. And when it is unused, a fact is unproductive and therefore, produces no profit. But an unused fact is an unused springboard, because when it is used it has lifting power! Every fact is a springboard to opportunityl You will get richer qUicker in direct proportion to your use of facts as springboards to lift your ideas to great heights of improvements and profitable progress. The golden road to great wealth is to learn useful facts . . . which you constantly activate (usually by combining them) through useful ideas ... into valuable improvements and profitable progress ... thereby making yourself more useful and more valuable ... so that you
get richer qUicker. Acquiring great wealth is no more complicated nor difficult than that. You can do it. Anybody can do it.
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It should be taught in all our schools where, too often, most of the time is spent stuffing our youths full of facts. Anatole France should be required reading for all of our educators-at least, the following two brief sentences: "Let our teaching be full of ideas. Hitherto it has been stuffed only with facts." Every student should be taught three things: (1) Useful facts, especially facts applicable to a targeted occupation. (2) Useful idea creation which combines, adapts and converts useful facts into valuable improvements and profitable progress. (3) The methods of communicating the resulting valuable improvements and implementing the profitable progress. These three learning essentials do not just apply to students in school. They apply equally to everyone who studies at home for self-improvement. So, that is the purpose of this book and my other books which concentrate on teaching PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. Without your learning and using PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS (wherever you may learn them) you simply cannot succeed. The next chapter will teach the third method listed above: how to communicate your ideas for valuable improvements and implement profitable progress. Its title: Don't Just Think About Your Ideas For Improvements-DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM!
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Chapter 23
Get Richer ... Quicker/
Don't Just Think About Your Ideas For Improvements-DO SOMETHING ABOUT THEM! Just doing the work that comes across your desk or work station will get you nowhere because you only will be tust a human cog in the business conveyoreasily and cheaply replaceable. It is only when you THINK UP ... WRITE DOWN ... SPEAK OUT ... with practical ideas for improvements-that you move up from being just a human cog in the business conveyor ... to being the man who designs a better conveyor ... to being the man who owns the conveyor. If you don't want to be just a replaceable cog in your company's business machine: ( 1) You must THINK UP practical ideas for improvement. Ask yourself everyone of the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13, and WRITE DOWN every idea
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which these questions will spark in your imagination concerning whatever you want to improve. (2) Study and evaluate every idea for improvement which you THINK UP and WRITE DOWN. Combine, refine, modify, clarify your ideas into one or more useful suggestions for practical improvements. Do this at once. Do not "hold" your ideas awaiting ·some future perfection. (3) Promptly SPEAK OUT about your ideas for improvements, quietly, modestly and respectfully. Do not announce your ideas as though they had been handed down with the Ten Commandments. (Re-read Chapter 19: "Here Is The Proper And Respectful Way To Suggest Your Ideas To Your Boss.") Learn the following PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD recommended by one of the world's most successful businessmen, Dr. William M. Scholl: "You must go to work on an idea as soon as it strikes you. If you wait for an ideal time and place to work on it, you probably never will. Whenever you get an idea, try it out. It is better to know for certain that it is no good than to do nothing about it and wonder if it is good." Never echold" an idea. When you "hold" an idea, you block the free-How of other ideas which normally will follow in a "chain" of related ideas for improvements. Do not ''hide'' an idea. If you conceal an idea it will shrivel and die from lack of exposure. So immediately expose your idea for improvement to the "elements"-the "elements" of expert opinion, favorable or unfavorable. Let your idea get tossed about in the storms of criticism and the deluge of suggestions for
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improvement. Do not resent criticism and suggestions. Every idea is nourished by the ideas of others. Welcome them. Appreciate them. Openly say you are grateful for everybody's suggestions. Remember, they are discussing, focusing attention on, and improving YOUR idea! And, even if some of your ideas are not accepted immediately-it is much better than being unnoticed! Probably the easiest, best, most profitable way to attract attention-favorably and memorably-is to suggest useful ideas for improvements! Always keep a lot of desirable idea options open! Always keep a lot of practical, useful ideassubmitted-and "in the works"! Always keep a lot of developing «idea futures" in your subconscious "hopper"! Always keep your idea production line filled with ideas being completed-moving steadily forward to completion! Always have many idea roads leading to your life-goal! Then you will never be in an all-or-nothing, make-or-break, do-or-die situation. You never will be under pressure or feel anxiety about any project because it will be only one of many idea roads, only one of many, and perhaps even better, possibilities. Decide right now that you are a «do-somethingabout-it" person! Immediately, you will start getting more out of life! More ideas! More action! More contacts! More opportunities! More money! You will get RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Chapter 24
Get Richer •.• Quicker!
Sharpen Your Ideas On The Grindstone Of Criticism Do not fear criticism of your ideas. Welcome criticism. Invite it. Learn from it and be grateful for it. Sincerely express your gratitude for honest and helpful criticism. The grindstone of criticism may be rough and sometimes nOisy-but that is a sign it is sharpening your ideas. Your ideas will not attract much attention unless they also attract some criticism. Few ideas are born perfect. The only person who is smarter than anybody -is everybody. So expose your ideas. Ask for opinions, suggestions-yes, and ask for criticism. Sharpen your ideas on the rough grindstone of criticism. Do it deliberately-without fear or sensitive feelings-because you simply are using one of the most effective PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. 79
But also expect-in addition to honest, helpful criticism of your ideas-some ridicule and envy. Do not let ridicule and envy hurt or disturb you. It has often been said that ridicule is the real test of an idea because ridicule will not stick unless the ridicule is deserved. So if ridicule does stick and is deserved, you will know that your idea needs modification and improvement. So learn from that kind of ridicule as you would learn from criticism (friendly or unfriendly). However, your idea also will attract some ridicule which Simply is the result of envy. Envy may not be benevolent but it is a sure sign of your superiority and a form of praise. In fact, John Gay, the English poet, wrote, «Envy is a kind of praise." And the Roman sage, Pliny, wrote, "Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides." ~. To put the wisdom of Sydney Smith in this same context: "Learn from your earliest days to inure your ideas against envious ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in constant dread of envious ridicule, than you can enjoy your life if you live in constant dread of death." So . . . expose your ideas for improvement. Communicate them modestly and welcome criticism which helps you make them better so that they will be more useful. But although you communicate your ideas modestly-do not do it timidly or fearfully. Do not dread or resent envy, but accept it as recognition of your superiority.
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Take satisfaction from the old proverb:
cCThose who envy you~ pay you tribute. The sure sign of failure is not to be envied by many." Nobody kicks a dead dogl Do not be intimidated by envious people who criticize because of jealousy. Let all criticism How through the strainer of practicality. You will be delighted by the many golden nuggets you will acquire that wayl I can verify that by my own experience. One time a famous lawyer telephoned me after seeing me have a rough time before a public commission. The lawyer gruHly announced, "I am going to give you some free advicel" Which he did. That free advice (totally critical) has been worth a fortune to mel Another time, a small publisher telephoned me long distance and announced that he would tell me in four words how to stop making a costly mistake in book marketing. He did-in four words, tool His criticism saved me so much money that I shudder to think what it would have cost me to ignore that little, unknown publisher's criticismI The lesson comes through loud and clearl Welcome all criticism. If you strain it carefully, you will acquire many golden nuggetsl And get RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Chapter 25
Get Richer ..• Quicker!
How You Can Get Rich By Suggesting Ideas Which Are NOT Completely Perfected The sure way to fail as an idea-creator is to try to be perfect. Thomas Edison was the best idea-creator. He patented 1,093 inventions worth millions, and gave the world thousands of other useful ideas which he did not even bother to patent. So we should learn from Edison. He did not try to be perfect. He only tried to create useful ideas-and make them available so that everyone would have an opportunity to improve his ideas. In fact, ALL of Thomas Edison's ideas have been improved! Think of Edison's first "talking machine" . . . which later was improved into a "phonograph" . . . which later was improved into an electronic "stereo-phonic system" ... and so on and on. Or consider how many improvements have
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been made in electric lighting from Edison's idea of the incandescent lamp bulb. In fact, you can become very rich just by submitting ideas which will not work at all! The only requirement for a «successful" idea which will not work is that it can somehow, by somebody, be modified, adapted, combined or improved so that it will be useful. Because YOU started a chain of ideas, YOU will get the credit, get promoted, and get rich as the originator, sharing the rewards with those who improved YOUR idea into final, workable form. If you had not originated the idea, there would not have been anything to improve! Remember, every idea (whether it works or needs to be further developed) is only a beginning. I never have known of any idea-or any man-made thing-which was perfect. Every idea is improved over a course of time as man's knowledge, technology and experience increases. Ideas evolve! That's what evolution is all about, and evolution applies more visibly to ideas than anything else. The "survival of the fittest" applies to ideas as does the need to adapt to changing conditions. So do not be timid or hesitant in suggesting and submitting your ideas. Your ideas need not be perfect. Indeed, no ideas (even Edison's) ever have been perfectl In fact, your idea need not even «work" in its early stages. It need be only a beginning. Without a beginning, there can be no successful completion. Do not confuse "failure" with «defeat". 88
The basis of all idea-creation is CCfailing-
forward". So do not let "failure" take something out of you. Be sure each "failure" puts something into you. None of your ideas will really "fail". Every idea -failure or success-is simply a step toward creating something. You will learn as much-or more-from your failures as from your successes. (Personally, I have learned -and therefore ultimately profited-much more from my initial failures than from my initial successes). Failures are an essential part of building success. Failures created Lincoln and led to his greatness. All successes and no failures created Napoleon and led to Waterloo. Ten years of idea failures created the nickeliron-alkaline storage battery. More than 17,000 idea failures created latex. Are you afraid your idea will fail? Trying your idea is simply one experiment to determine to what extent it needs to be modified, adapted, combined and improved. It is not a one-shot final test of success or failure; it is merely a one-test experiment which, if you use the methods in this book, will lead to your ultimate success and the rewards of thinking up useful ideas. Charles Kettering, the great inventive genius of General Motors, told how they developed the Diesel engine. He said they tried one failing idea after another for six years until they finally found one idea which would work. Was Charles Kettering a failure because he had ideas which did not work the first time they were tried? His 84
ideas for the Diesel engine over a period of six years did not work. Was he a failure? Not exactly. He modified, adapted, combined and improved his ideas until he did develop the Diesel engine-which was how he developed all of his great inventions. One would think there would be a more "scientific" way, yet Charles Kettering when he was in charge of research of the largest, richest, most productive corporation in the world said that "trying one idea after another is the
only successful way we know." Do not timidly hesitate to suggest your ideas because they are not perfect (and never will bel) and because you are afraid they might fail the first experimental test. So whatlll All ideas have to be modified, adapted, combined and improved. All ideas evolve as knowledge, technology and experience show ways to improve them. As the old Italian proverb says: "He who never
fails, never grows rich." The secret of getting richer qUicker is to FAIL FORWARD I
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Chapter 26
Get Richer ••. Quicker!
GIVING AWAY Your Ideas Will Make You Richer ... Quicker! Sure, you've heard about the man who had an idea, claimed it was an "invention", obtained a patent, became a millionaire and received royalties for life. But for every inventor who patents an idea, there are literally millions of people who had ideas and did NOT patent them-but who were rewarded by executive attention, lucrative promotions, increased income, suggestion bonuses, and who became richer quicker by this Simple method of making themselves more useful (therefore, more valuable) by constantly THINKING UP ... WRITING DOWN ... SPEAKING OUT ... their ideas for improving products, materials, services, methods, organizations, projects, plans, and everything which needs improvingand everything does! Of course, ideas which are original, unique inventions of maior consequence should be patented if a
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valid, legally-defensible patent can be obtained. It is extremely time-consuming, expensive, and an invitation to threats and actual litigation by probably dozens of people who have "patents applied for" on any and every alleged invention which has any feature which is in any way similiar to one which your "patent applied for" claims to be original and unique. I do not want to discourage the proper application for any valid, legally-defensible patent through the professional services of a reputable, qualified attorney who specializes in patents. But I do not want this and the preceding chapters to create a cult of "instant inventors", rashly applying for patents at considerable loss of time and money-to the enrichment of "invention" promoters. So let us briefly review: ( 1) The purpose of this book is to enable you to GET RICHER QUICKER ... ( 2) By making yourself more useful . . . ( 3) And, therefore, more valuable . . . (4) Through using the PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS in the preceding and following chapters ... (5) NONE of which requires that you become an instant genius or engage in hazardous speculations . . . ( 6) But just by teaching you to use the simple, sure methods which have enabled millions of people like you to GET RICHER QUICKER. SO, the purpose of this book is NOT to lead you to believe that you can invent and patent some miracle contrivance which will make you a billionaire overnightbut simply to encourage you to:
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(a) THINK UP! (b) WRITE DOWNI ( c) SPEAK OUTl Simply by doing those three things with the object of improving products, materials, methods, services, organizations, projects, plans-anything and everything within your own personal world-you will constantly become more useful and therefore more valuable ... and GET RICHER QUICKER. You accomplish all this by giving your ideas away! Do not haggle and hassle over how much you should be paid for each idea. That attitude will get you more resentment than money. Do not try to put a price tag on each idea. You do not want money for each idea. What you do want is the reputation for constantly suggesting ideas for improvements. That reputation will make you richer qUicker than putting a price tag on each idea and then trying to peddle it. A business succeeds or fails based on its competitive rate of improvement. Therefore, any employee-at any level-who constantly suggests ideas which increase the competitive rate of improvement of any business will be increasingly rewarded . .. first, by executive attention ... then, by promotions . . . increased income. . . suggestion bonuses . . . and the fob-security of being indispensable. Which is what the next chapter is about ...
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Chapte1' 27 Get Richer •.. Quicker!
Your Only Job-Security Is To Make Yourself Indispensable It is the purpose of this book to teach you how to get promoted to better and better jobs, each paying .an increased income-so that you will get richer quicke1'. Before you can do that, it is necessary for you to make sure you can keep the fob you have so that you can use your present job as a springboard to a series of increas-t ingly better positions with more job-security. There is no future in working in a job which is going to be eliminated by improved technology and computerized automation. Nor is there a future in working in a declining industry-or for an inefficient company-which obviously cannot survive in the future. The iceman no longer cometh and puts a large block of ice in the icebox as was done when I was a little boy. No more iceboxes (except coolers for outings; which
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soon will not require ice) no more ice-wagons, no more icemen. An entire industry . . . gone! At one time in our nation's history, most employment was in farming-and in some foreign countries it still is. Yet in the year 2000, in the United States, only S% of the labor force will be employed in farming, as big corporate farming replaces the small, single-family farms, combining them into vast crop-factories. Many years ago, when I was president of Rice Consumer Service (U.S. Rice Industry), I produced a motion picture on rice agriculture in the United States in which crop planting, fertilizing and insecticide-control all were done by airplane, and harvesting was done by huge combines. All of this now is commonplace with an increasing number of crops, and by the year 2000 only 3% of job availabilities will be in farming. Only 16% of the total labor force in the year 2000 will be employed in actual manufacturing because blue-collar labor will be replaced by fully computerized automation. Labor unions may strike in protest, but strikes cannot replace jobs which no longer exist. The remaining 81 % of all future jobs will be in DEALING WITH PEOPLE-in the professions and in other people-services. So ... the first essential of job-security is to have a job in an industry and in a business and in an occupation which has a growth future. While having such a job is essential for jobsecurity-it does not guarantee fob-security. It only makes it possible provided that you can make yourself more valuable than all of the other eager applicants seeking that 90
same fob-YOUR fob. Competition for jobs will increase. You only have to consider the statistics presented in the first part of this chapter to realize that there will be so many millions of people seeking different jobs that the competition for each and every still-available job will be terrific! And many of those people will be eagerly seeking YOUR fob! So you have to establish a reputation with your company's management: ( 1) That YOU are more valuable than anyone who might seek to replace you-because you constantly prove to your management ... (2) That YOU are indispensable to your company as a constant source of ideas for improving products, materials, methods, services, organizations, projects, plans and everything which needs improving-and everything does! Why will the preceding two qualities make you indispensable to a growth company? Because a business succeeds or fails based on its competitive rate of improvement. Therefore, any employee-at any level-who constantly suggests ideas which will increase his company's competitive rate of improvement is absolutely indispensable to his company. Doing this will make you so indispensable that, should your job be eliminated by computerized automation, your company will place you in another job because no company in today's competition can afford to lose a constant source of ideas for improvement. 91
Many companies have research departments which constantly work on ideas for improvements, but their urgently necessary work usually is focused on improving products, materials and methods. For the future, I envision TOTAL IMPROVEMENT, under a Vice President in Charge of Improvement, with a creative department of idea-people who will work to improve every detail of the company's operations from materials acquisition to customer satisfaction. In the meantime, in order to assure your own job-security and to get richer qUicker-you can be a oneman TOTAL IMPROVEMENT IDEA DEPARTMENT. Here's how: ( 1) Make a list of your company's products, materials, methods, services, organizations, projects, plans and everything which needs improving-and everything does, because everything can be improved. IMPORTANT! Do this as best you can, to the best of your own knowledge and unobtrusive observation. Do NOT go prying around, "poking your nose" into company operations and other people's jobs with the announced intention of improving them! Remember, you are NOT Vice President in Charge of Improvement . .. yet! So, don't act like it. That is the surest way to become so unpopular that you promptly will get fired-if you survive! Be very discreet and unobtrusive. Do NOT ask prying, unwelcome questions. Above all, do NOT tell anybody that you are looking for things to improve! . Just privately list your company's products, materials, methods, services, organizations, projects, plans and everything you can think of without prying into other
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people's jobs and company business. You will be able to privately compile a long enough list for a years suggestions without offending anybody. The number of things which can be improved in any business is almost unlimitedl Then, apply each of the 61 Magic Questions (in Chapter 13) to each item on your list-one item at a time. As ideas for possible improvements begin to spark in your mind, write them down instantly. Concentrate on one item on your company list at a time--even for a week or longer-and write down every idea for improving that one detail of your company's operation. Then, as explained in Chapter 18, when you have developed an idea for improvement which you believe will benefit your company, suggest it to your employer in a deferential manner which will get you credit for trying to make yourself more useful-but without seeming presumptuous or incurring resentment. A suggestion for improvement implies criticism unless it is modestly and deferentially stated. As explained in Chapter 18, by far the best way to suggest your ideas is in the form of questions in the manner of simply asking a more experienced opinion. Ask your employer such questions as: "What do you think would happen if our company tried (your idea) ?" "Suppose our company tested (your idea), do you think it might ... ?" "Do you think we might reduce cost if (your idea )?" Re-read Chapter 18 for more suggestions for
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submitting ideas without seeming presumptuous or causing resentment. If your idea does not seem feasible to your employer, he will tell you so and probably tell you why. Then you can admiringly say, "That is why I wanted to get your experienced opinion before I tried to develop the idea further." Your employer cannot resent your asking his experienced opinion about an idea which you hoped would help his business~ However, if your employer does bluntly discourage your having ideas which might improve his business and your asking his experienced opinion of them, then
start looking for a more rewarding job in a more progressive business. Today, successful management realizes more than ever that many of the best and most practical ideas for improvement can come from employees at all levels. So the most progressive companies have established programs to encourage employee suggestions. Employee "idea suggestion boxes" are placed throughout the offices and plant. Cash bonuses are offered and Widely publicized throughout the organization. The amount of each cash bonus is based on the value of the suggestion and an employee's cash bonus may amount to thousands of dollars for just one highly profitable suggestion. Most "employee suggestion bonuses" are in the hundreds of dollars. Usually, at least a small token bonus is paid for each suggestion (even if it has little value) to encourage continued employee participation in thinking up ideas. Big companies, like General Motors, have paid 94
bonuses totaling millions of doUars to employees for suggested improvements. Employees, who really concentrate on thinking up ideas for improvements, sometimes earn more from "suggestion bonuses" than their pay checks I But the principal value of your constantly suggesting ideas for improvements is that you will build a reputation with management that you are indispensable to your company as a constant source of ideas for profitable improvements. And because a business succeeds or fails based on its competitive rate of improvement-you will make yourself indispensable, assure your job-security, get promoted, get increased income-GET RICHER QUICKER!
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Chapter 28
Get Richer ••• Quicker1
What This Nation Needs Is An IDEA EXPLOSION!!! When our national and especially the world population expanded with suddenly alarming growth, it was dramatized by the term: population explosion. I want to urge you and the thousands of other readers of this book to join me in promoting the idea that what this nation needs is an IDEA EXPLOSION! Talk it up at every opportunity. Write Letters to the Editor or Readers' Points of View of your local newspapers. It took World War II to start the last IDEA EXPLOSION in this nation. The public, not the researchers, mind you, but the general public suggested ideas for improving war materials production which saved Uncle Sam five billion dollars! (U ninHated dollars of those days. ) The civilian employees of the War Department thought up 20,069 new ideas which saved $43,793,000 in
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18 months! Employees at one Navy Yard submitted 900 ideas for improvement in just two weeks! But we don't need a war as an incentive for an IDEA EXPLOSION. We are faced with a devastating crisis-NOW-in almost every situation in this nation and throughout the worldI We have a food crisis (more people are starving to death throughout the world right now than were killed in all wars!). We have a monetary crisis, an inflation crisis, a gold crisis, an interest rate crisis, a money supply crisis . . . and more, much morel We have a crime crisis, a drug-abuse crisis, a morals crisis ... and more, much more. We have a governmental crisis with incredible waste, unquestionable inefficiency and, too often, questionable morality. We have a fuel crisis, an imported materials crisis, an unstable balance of trade crisis, an export crisis. Well, there is no point in further continuing to list all of our crises. You name it-and we've got a crisis in it! It would be interesting-but futile-to try to document how this nation and the world ever got into such a mess! But it will be more constructive to THINK UP ... WRITE DOWN ... SPEAK OUT ... concerning ideas for improvements! We have had enough bunglinglIt is high time we started having ideas for improvements! This nation needs an IDEA EXPLOSION! 97
Why do we need an IDEA EXPLOSION? In one word: SURVNALlII For too long, we have depended almost entirely on disorganized, over-educated, under-experienced ''brain ( ?) trusts" for ideas when we should have been getting practical ideas from the people who really know-the millions of people who are actually doing the work, making the products, using the equipment, providing the services, and ultimately paying for everything! We need to get rid of our "ivory towers" and their economics of disaster. We need to get rid of our amateur "game plans" which have led from one victorious national catastrophe to another. We need to remove every cause of the suspected trend toward "government by the highest bidder". We need to stop the "price-wage spiral" before we can no longer pay either the prices or the wages. And we need not only government by the people-but IDEAS by the people! That's what this chapter is about: IDEAS by the people! If business will eagerly encourage every employee, at every level, to THINK UP ideas for improvement related to his job-the improved methods, procedures, products and services will create a nation of unlimited abundance and a secure prosperity for everybody! If all of our mass media will eagerly encourage every citizen, at every level, to THINK UP ideas for improvement for the products and services which affect their 98
lives-we can transform national apathy into the excitement and enthusiasm of making everything better I This nation needs an IDEA EXPLOSION ... and here's how to get it: All businesses of every kind and size should have continuous suggestion incentive programs for all employees, at all levels, and should intensively promote their suggestion programs by placing idea suggestion boxes throughout their offices, plants or stores, featuring their earnest desire for employee suggestions-on posters throughout their premises, in their employee publications or in folders given each employee. Cash awards should be substantial and at least some award or recognition should be given for every genuine suggestion submitted. Every business, depending upon its size, should have a department or at least an individual whose primary function is to encourage, obtain, reward and properly channel for evaluation and possible use-all ideas for improvement. The great British economist and management counselor, Herbert N. Casson, wrote, a generation ago: "An efficient firm must be an organized friendship." How strange that now seems when at labor-strike meetings the workers jeer and curse the employers who prOVide their jobs, and at management meetings the attitude is similarly intractable. In fairness, let me add that there are some exceptions, even though, regrettably, they are not sufficiently spectacular and inflammatory to rate television and other news coverage.
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Nevertheless, the way to improve employeemanagement relations is for management to encourage employee involvement and participation in functions too often reserved solely for management, and for employees to cooperate by participating in such mutually advantageous projects as idea suggestion programs. Perhaps labor and management can move closer to becoming an c'organized friendship" through working together on ideas to improve the business from which both derive their incomes. Businesses should not limit their search (and awards) for ideas for improvement only to their own employees. Separate campaigns seeking customer suggestions for product and customer service improvements should be a part of every advertising campaign. Customers and potential customers would have a much higher regard for a company which devoted some of its advertising to seeking ideas for product and service improvement than they now have for companies which sell products and services that could be materially improved if the companies earnestly sought the ideas and suggestions of all customers and prospective customers. Put your customers on your "team". Suggestions from prospective or lost customers would reveal why they are not now buying-so that the business could offer them more of what they want and less of what they don't want. To find out-just ASK I Even though most people will not send in ideas for improvement, everyone will appreciate being ASKED and will have a higher regard for a company which sincerely and earnestly is trying to supply the kind of products
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and services its customers want and to eliminate those things which annoy and alienate customers and prospects. Every newspaper, magazine and business publication should devote a regular feature column or page to «Ideas for Improving SOMETHING" submitted by readers. This should be separate from "Letters to the Editor" and "Readers' Views" pages which demonstrably are not focused on ideas for improvement. Many readers would welcome this means of suggesting their ideas. Every television and radio station should have regular programs for broadcasting and giving credit for "Ideas for Improving SOMETHING"-and intensely promote the sending in of such ideas by listeners. Everybody has-or can think up-an idea for improving something. Thinking up ideas is contagiOUS. Television and radio programs which would stimulate and broadcast listeners' ideas for improvements-ranging from civic improvements to household hints-would be welcome and interesting additions to television and radio programing. Schools, beginning in the early grades and continuing through college, should have weekly classes on the techniques of creating ideas for improving things. Such classes should begin with specific projects as focal points for class attention, for example: "What ideas do you have for improving job procurement for graduating students?" would be a rewarding idea project for senior classes. And "What ideas do you have for making learning more fun?" would be stimulating for almost all grades. Later, after creative idea techniques are developed, idea classes should be uninhibited, freewheeling discussions of ideas for improving everything. 101
There should be challenges, too, in the form of contests: "Who will be the mst to submit in writing a list of practical ideas for improving a hundred different things." No, a hundred is not too many, considering that anything and everything can be improved by creative thought (review the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13). As Sherwood Anderson said, "The whole obfect of education is, or should be, to develop the mind. The mind should be a thing that works." And, what better way to train minds to work than to stimulate them to think up ideas for improving things? One of the best places for such training is in the home. And, idea stimulation should not be confined to the children in the home. While "thinking up" should be taught and practiced at an early age, it also is essential for adults as the best means of keeping their minds flexible and adaptable to change. Psychologists say that most people, organizations and businesses suHer from what is known as "tradition paralysis." They become paralyzed in previously established thought and action patterns. They become mentally, emotionally and phYSically incapable of moving in any other than their established patterns. But as W. O. Douglas said, "Security can only , be achieved by constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts." We must continuously create new ideas for adapting ourselves to constant changes as they occur or we shall suffer the fate of the now-extinct species which failed to adapt to change through evolution. 102
The consequences of failing to adapt to change during one human lifetime is not "species" extinction, of course. Extinction is more gradual than that. Extinction occurs in a continuing series of losses. The type of business in which you now are employed may become extinct. Your job may become extinct. Your income may become extinct. The only thing you can be sure of is change. How can you cope successfully with change? You must do these three things: ( 1) Accept the inevitability of· change and expect it. Prepare for change-confidently. (2) Anticipate the direction and manner of change so you will profit by it. ( 3) Learn to manage change! To manage change, you must anticipate the direction and manner of change. Because the change will not as yet have occurred, you must first visualize and deal with the change in your imagination. And you must imagine boldlyl For, as John Dewey taught us, "Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.~~
Dare to imagine the impossible I Dare to stretch your imagination to the very limit of the impossible-then beyond that, because out there lies the future, waiting to be discovered!
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Chapter 29
Get Richer ••. Quicker/
The Following Chapter-Lessons Are Especially Selected From A Thousand PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS It was necessary, in the preceding chapters, to explain the methods in some detail because such success methods as the 61 Magic Questions obviously could not be condensed. However, I want to compress as many PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS as possible in this book. My forty years of research, testing and compiling proven success methods have resulted in three personal libraries and fifteen private files of methods used by the most successful men and women in history to achieve their leadership, power, wealth and fame. This amounts to more than a thousand different success methods which I want to make available to everyone who really wants to succeed. In order to bring all of these proven success methods to every ambitious person in compact book form
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for home study, I am publisping them in a series of books which will constitute a complete PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS LIBRARY of which this is the fourth book. I want to power-pack as many proven success methods as possible into each book and, because the preceding chapters required necessary details and therefore were longer than usual, I shall devote the remainder of this book to giving you proven success methods in brief, compact chapters so that I can give you as many methods as possible in this book. The purpose of this explanation is to assure you that, because a proven success method is stated briefly in a short chapter, does not mean that it is any less important and valuable. It may be more important to you than a method which requires a more lengthy description. These are the methods used by the most successful men and women to achieve their leadership, power, fame and wealth. They are not limited fust to making money. These are the successful methods which YOU can use for self-improvement, solving problems, overcoming handicaps, surmounting obstacles, attaining your highest goal in life . . . getting whatever you want! These are the methods which, in addition to other achievements, will enable YOU TO GET RICHER ... QUICKERI But what is more important is that the methods in this book are not limited fust to making money-but to making you a totally successful person. For example, you will learn how to avoid half your troubles . . . in the next chapter. 105
Chapter 80 Get Richer •.. Quicker/
How You Can Avoid Half Your Troubles! Humorist Josh Billings wrote (with more wisdom than humor): "One half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying "yes" too quickly and not saying "no'
soon enough." Well, there you have it. How to avoid half of your troubles I And, this time, Josh Billings wasn't kidding. He was stating a PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD. It comes in two parts:
( 1) Do not be too qUick in saying "yes". (2) Do not be too slow in saying "no". Let's have a closer look: ( 1) Being too qUick to say "yes" accounts for all of the countless mistakes which result from: ( a) not first obtaining all of the relevant facts, (b) not first intelligently considering every possible alternative, (c) not first thinking the proposition lOgically through to its conclusion.
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Eager, impetuous youth rushes into trouble by being too qUick to say "yes". The worn come-on that "everybody's doing it" is too often irresistible to inexperienced youth. And it is often equally irresistible to gullible non-thinkers of every age. A proven success method is to view with suspicion any proposal which does not permit time for thoughtful consideration of facts, alternatives, consequences. Any proposition which insists on an "instant yes', a pressured acceptance without time for thorough consideration, should be flatly rejected. Do not pride yourself on your "intuition" to the extent that you gullibly substitute your "intuition" for logic based on facts. The proven truth is that "intuition" can be manipulated by any con man, or even by anyone who knows a few "emotional trigger words". (1) Do not be too quick in saying "yes". (2) Do not be too slow in saying "no" .. This is not to suggest that you be a "no-person", but that you " be a "know-person. Being a "know-person" means that before you say "yes" or "no", you first (a) obtain all the facts, (b) intelligently consider every possible alternative, (c) think the proposition logically through to its conclusion. When you use this proven success method of being a "know-person", you will decide without worrying later about the outcome. You will do as the great psychologist, William James, prescribed: "When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all care (anxiety) about the outcome." 107
You will not keep looking back anxiously over your shoulder. You will take the get-richer-quicker advice of successful oilman Waite Phillips, "There comes a time when we must decide and act and never look back." Look straight ahead. That's where your future is! And, remember, your future is an extension of today. So if you are (1) too quick in saying "yes", or (2) too slow in saying "no"-the consequence will be your future! Your future is too important to entrust to "intuition" which can be manipulated by a few "emotional trigger words". Your future deserves nothing less than your learning and using the proven success methods of the men and women who have attained whatever they wanted in
life. As you learn proven success methods, you will learn that much advice which has been so freely tossed about-fust isn't sol For example, you will learn that the oftengiven admonition to "be yourself" can be the worst possible advice I And you will Ie am why . .. in the next chapter.
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ChapterS1
Get Richer •.. Quicker1
"Be Yourself" Can Be The Worst Possible Advice! For as many years as I can remember, personality counselors and assorted advisers have been advocating: «be yourself. Of course, you cannot be anyone elsel But the intent of all this «be yourself' advice is, in addition to Hattery for whatever purpose, to warn you against trying to be «like other people"-even very successful people! If you want to be Hattered into «being yourself' and staying the way you now are, then there is no sense in studying this book because its specific purpose is to teach you how to be like the successful people who notably have achieved high positions of leadership and power, and who have attained great wealth, fame and whatever they wanted in life. If YOU want leadership, power, wealth, fame -or whatever are your highest goals in life-the only way 109
you can achieve them is to develop the successful personal qualities and use the methods which have been proven successful by others in achieving those goals. As you develop more successful personal qualities and use more successful methods, you will change. And that's good! Nobody ever became more successful without changing for the better! The more you change for the better, the more successful you will bel And the more secure you will bel The dinosaur was the largest animal which ever lived. Apparently that seemed reason enough to "be yourself back in those early times. Anyway the dinosaur never changed and, therefore, became extinct. It has always been so. And it is so now. It is not enough just to continue to "be yourself. Success requires continuous change-change into a more successful personality using more successful methods. Don't get stuck with the presentl The reason for studying this book is to improve on the present by changing it for the better. Change to improve yourself-with every PROVEN SUCCESS METHOD you learn. The sole purpose of this book is to teach successful methods of selfimprovement. Self-improvement IS change! So each chapter teaches another lesson in selfimprovement--change for the better! You can improve only by changing! Do not resist change. Seek change eagerly as you study the following chapters.
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Chapter 82 Get Richer ... Quicker!
How Would You Like To Have You As Your Boss? Your imagination can be a great teacher. In your imagination, you can visualize all sorts of interesting and challenging situations-and then you can practice deciding how you would meet the imagined challenge or handle the imagined situation. Practicing in your imagination can help you improve your responses and methods without having to go through each actual experience (as taught, in detail, in my book Thoughts To Build On). For example: How would you like to have YOU
as your boss? Do you have the necessary leadership qualities? How would you correct poor workmanship byemployees working under your superviSion? How would you handle employees' complaints and grievances? How would you motivate your employees to do better work? What 111
employee incentive programs would you use. Why? What changes would you make? How would you improve things? Those are just a few of the many questions you should ask yourself in the imaginary situation of YOU as the boss. Your answers to those questions will reveal how much and precisely what you will need to learn to qualify for your boss' position. And for even higher positions of leadership in your company and in your industry. Or, if you already are an executive, take a long, hard look at yourself by imagining that YOU are each of your employees-one by one. If you were Joe, how would you like to have YOU as boss? Be Joe, in your imagination, and think of all the things Joe would like YOU, his boss, to do. As Joe, in your imagination, think if YOU would be a better supervisor for Joe if you had a more pleasant disposition, or were more considerate of Joe's problems, and more helpful, personally, in solving them. Then, in your imagination, take an employee~seye view of YOU, as boss, from the viewpoint of each individual employee. Try honestly to see yourself as others see you. Everyone needs to do this, whatever his or her position in life-at work and at home. Everyone has his own little wagon to pull through life. You cannot pull yourself forward in your own wagon. You only can pull someone else forward in your wagon. But notice ... in pulling someone else ahead, you also move ahead-and YOU are in front!
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Chapter 88
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
How You Can Persuade Others To Do Whatever You Want Them To Do! One of the nation's top executives sars, "If you develop the ability to persuade others to do whatever yoo want them to do, you don't need anything else. If you do not have that ability, it doesn't matter what else you have." Well, that lays it on the line. Either you learn this or you don't get richer ... quickerl So, let's get started-knowing that we cannot cover such an important subject in this one chapter. There will be more chapters on "how you can persuade others" throughout this book, and I have written a 71-chapter book, How To Get Whatever You Want, which covers the subject more completely. There is much to learn-and all the methods . will be revealed to you-but the first thing to learn was plainly stated by the top executive quoted at the beginning of this chapter: "If you develop the ability to persuade
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others to do whatever you want them to do, you don't need anything else. H you don't have that ability, it doesn't matter what else you have." We begin with the teaching of Joseph Joubert: "We may convince others by our arguments; but we only can persuade them by their own." And let us hasten to point out that "convincing others by our own arguments" leaves us holding an empty bag, because as the time-tested proverb tells us: "A person convinced against his will; is of the same opinion, still." (And probably your enemy, besides.) The proven success method is to persuade (not convince) others by using their own stated opinions as the best way to do what you want them to do. Here's how to do it: ( 1) Never state your opinion or position on a matter FIRST. (2) Always get the other person's opinion
FmST. (3) Then AGREE that the other person's reasons are precisely why a certain course of action (leading to what YOU want) is the agreed upon way to procede. (4) This is known as "tailoring" the other person's opinions to more nearly confonn to yours, while you are enthUSiastically AGREEING with them, espeCially as they are "tailored" (modified) toward your objective. (5) You probably will have to "tailor" your own positions somewhat and, in fact, should enthusiastically agree to all modifications in your own positions EXCEPT the accomplishment of your obfective (which should, increasingly through your "tailored" negotiation, 114 .
begin to become the other person's objective, too!). ( 6) In fact, you can afford to lose, graciously and agreeably, every point as long as it is "tailored" to accomplish YOUR obfective. SUMMARY: Never try to convince others with your arguments which are in conflict with theirs. Always AGREE with their opinions and gradually "tailor" them so that their opinions actually support whatever you want. To do this requires that you keep the other person talking about his opinions so that you can find more which are subject to "tailoring" to support your objective. This is not an easy technique to perfect, but as • we quoted one of the nation's top executives: "If you develop the ability to persuade others to do whatever you want them to do, you don't need anything else. If you do not have that ability, it doesn't matter what else you have." So it will be well worth your time to re-read and study this chapter ten times-or a hundred timesbecause it teaches a necessary ability for your getting richer . . . qUicker!
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Chapter 34
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You Get Richer Quicker When You Acti~ate, Then Fulfill "Eager Wants" In persuading people to do what you want them to do, the proven success method is to arouse in others what psychologists call an "eager want"-then fulfill it! An "eager want" is the activation of a powerful subconscious desire. Power with people is possible only by ful£lling one or more of their basic subconscious needs. These are described in detail in my book, How To Get Whatever You Want, so we shall not take space here to do more than list some of the basic subconscious needs of everyone you meet every day. This will teach you some of the ..eager wants'~ which you can activate-and then fulfill-every day, so that your personal popularity and influence will skyrocket! Here are some of the basic subconscious needs 116
of everybody. When activated, they become the «eager wants" which you can fulfill and make yourself desirable as a fulfillment source: (1) Fulfill the «eager want" of everyone to be ADMIRED. Always enthusiastically express your sincere admiration of some quality or possession of everyone. (2) Fulfill the «eager want" of everyone to be APPRECIATED. Famed psychologist, William James, taught: «The deepest craving in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." ( 3) Fulfill the «eager want" of everyone to feel IMPORTANT. Many psychologists consider this to be the most powerful motivation because it is the principal drive behind ego-actions. This was the teaching of the great educator, John Dewey. (4) Fulfill the «eager want" of everyone to feel NEEDED. When a person feels no longer needed, even life, itself, loses meaning and value. You can render no greater service than to make everyone feel needed. Your reward, in gratitude alone, will be worth many times your thought and effort. SUMMARY: You must do this every day with everybody you meet, phone or to whom you write. Deep in the subconscious of everybody are powerful personal needs. These subconscious needs may or may not be apparent from appearance or conduct, but they are the constant subconscious desires of every person. By your constantly fulfilling these «eager wants" of everybody you meet, phone or write-your personal popularity and influence will skyrocket! 117
Chapter 35
Get Richer ... Quicker!
Be A Winner!!! ... In "The Pleasing Game Of Interchanging Praise!" Oliver Wendell Holmes described friendship as «the pleasing game of interchanging praise." There are deeper roots of friendship than that -but the idea, itself, offers such pleasant rewards that we should include in the «games" we play: the pleasing
game of interchanging praise. Try a few practice games-in your imagination -right now, just to feel the warm, friendly glow of it! Imagine that you are talking with a relative or friend. Think of some admiring remark you can Sincerely make. Obviously, this will please your relative or friend, so now imagine he or she admires something you would like to be praised about in return. You will be pleased by the compliment-and it will be your turn to make another admiring comment ... and again receive praise in return. 118
You will like your imaginary game so much that you will want to actually experience the wann glows of friendship which that wise and great American, Oliver Wendell Holmes, described as "the pleasing game of interchanging praise." Try it on the next ten friends you meet ... and the next hundred! You may want to make "interchanging praise" part of your life. And you should! It's a pleasant game . . . and you always win! What makes this even more pleasant is that everybody always wins! The English critic, William Hazlitt, observed, "The art of pleasing consists of being pleased:" And, let me add, "The more pleased you are, the more pleasant you will be as a companion." Do not be timid or indifferent in expressing your pleasure in the fonn of praise, because as the French philosopher, Vauvenargues, wrote in his Reflections: "It is a certain sign of mediocrity always to praise moderately." As Dr. Nonnan Vincent Peale says, "Enthusiasm makes the difference!'"
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Chapter 86
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Living And Working In HARMONY Is The Easy, Happy Way To Succeed A proven success method is to find out what causes trouble, wear and loss-then do the opposite. Consider: friction. Friction among people, at work, at home, anywhere-causes trouble. In fact, if you trace any trouble back to its beginnings, you will find that it started with friction. Friction among people causes wear. When someone tells you he or she feels "worn out", suspect friction because friction wears out people, just as it wears out machinery. Friction among people causes loss-lost tempers, lost friendships, lost cooperation, losses of every kind that spread in ever-widening circles. So, use the proven success method stated at the beginning of this chapter: when you find out what causes 120
trouble, wear and loss-do the opposite. What is the opposite of friction among people? HARMONY among peoplel So, you have found how to eliminate the trouble, wear and loss caused by friction among people. Replace friction with HARMONY-at work, at home and everywhere. Since you now know the cause of the problem and the solution to the problem, you should not have too much difficulty in "narrowing the problem gap" by moving the known cause and known solution increasingly closer together until the solution, HARMONY, replaces friction. Not knowing the problem or problems to which you will apply this method, I obviously cannot fill in the details, but if you constantly seek HARMONY and openly urge everyone involved to do the same, you soon will be working and living in HARMONY. The next chapter in this book.teaches the Psychotherapy of Words. There are certain "magic" words which you can repeat frequently and intensely so that they become part of your subconscious and are constant gUidance forces in your life. One of those Psychotherapeutic Words is HARMONY. Flood your mind with frequent, intense repetitions of the "magic" word HARMONY until it secretly controls your thoughts and actions. Gradually, you will realize that you are succeeding in business and in life with amazing ease. HARMONY makes everything easierl 121
Chapter 87 Get Richer ••• Quicker!
How You Can Use Personal Slogans And Goal Commands To Get Richer Quicker By Psychotherapy You can use one of the most effective and powerful methods of psychotherapists to get what you want. This method is called by the scientific name: the Psychotherapy of Words. Certain words, deeply implanted in the subconscious mind can cause remarkable things to happenl Depending upon the word which you implant in your subconscious, you can become a drop-out or a millionaire! So, you see, what you are about to learn can have a profound effect on the rest of your lifel Psychotherapists use the Psychotherapy of Words to cure their patients' fears, anxieties, apprehenSions and a wide assortment of emotional-mental disorders. While, if you ever needed to, you personally could use the Psychotherapy of Words to overcome your
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own fears, self-consciousness, anxieties and other personality problems if they do not require the professional skills of a psychiatrist, you also can use this same method to guide you to or attract to you whatever you want in life! The principle is exactly the same and the method is the same. Only the words are different! All of my books are based on the principle that the first fundamental of teaching and learning is: SIMPLIFY. And that is what I have done with the Psychotherapy of Words. For example: In my book, How To Get Whatever You Want, I call psychotherapeutic words simply: "personal slogans." Because that is precisely what they are-no more, no less -and there would be no reader benefit (but, perhaps, some confusion) by calling simple words and phrases by scientific names. A "slogan" is understandable to everybody. Companies have "slogans". Products have "slogans". And individuals have "personal slogans"-at least, the most successful individuals have "personal slogans"! My book, How To Get Whatever You Want, devotes an entire section to "personal slogans" and it explains how to convert them into remarkably effective ~~silent chants" which are an insistent means of directing your subconscious to attain your goal. My book, Here's Help!, calls psychotherapeutic words simply: "goal commands". Because that's what they are-goal commands to your subconscious. Then my book, Here's Help!, teaches how to turn your goal commands into 123
realities. Whether you prefer to call such words or phrases "personal slogans" or "goal commands" makes no difference. The proven success method is to implant certain words or phrases into your subconscious mind by frequent and intense repetition. First, you must carefully select a "personal slogan" or "goal command" which exactly expresses what you want in life because that is exactly what you will get by using this method! Since the variations and techniques of this method are taught in detail in my other books, we shall take space here for just one example. This will be sufficient for your immediate use so that you can see for yourself what effect a "personal slogan" or «goal command" can have when, by constant repetition, you make it the dominant objective of your all-powerful subconscious mind which controls all of your thoughts, attitudes and actions. There are several highly successful personal slogans or goal commands for getting richer qUicker. Let's use this one as an example: «MAKE A MILLIONI" The proven success method is to intensely impress this personal slogan or goal command into your subconscious. You must intensely repeat the goal command «MAKE A MILLION\" so frequently to yourself that it literally floods your subconscious and totally dominates your subconscious thought. By forcefully repeating «MAKE A MILLION'" so frequently that it floods and totally dominates your 124
subconscious mind, you will focus its remarkable powers -which control aU of your thoughts, attitudes and actions -on your goal: «MAKE A MILLION I" Your subconscious mind, being magnetic, will attract to you whatever is required to attain your goal. And, your subconscious mind, also being cybernetic (goalseeking) will guide you to your goal. So when you intensely and forcefully repeat (hundreds of times every day) the goal command «MAKE A MILLION!", it floods and totaUy dominates your subconscious which controls all of your thoughts, plans, attitudes and actions. It is like being a guided missile with its computer guidance system aimed at one specific target: «MAKE A MILLION!" It won't take long for you to begin getting richer qUicker . .. with all systems «GOI" ... and you are on yourwayl You simply will be adapting to your own objective, a long-established, scientific method which is used daily by thousands of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists which they call the Psychotherapy of Words (words like «peace", «tranquil" and «serene" repeated constantly by tense, nervous, apprehensive patients to induce relaxation, calmness and peaceful composure). Instead of using the Psychotherapy of Words for mental therapy, you wiU use # for mental and total motivation! You will apply proven mental science to attain your goal-GET RICHER ... QUICKERI
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Chapter 38
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Here's What You MUST Have To Succeed In Any Type Of Work What one quality must you have to assure your success in any type of work? Lees use as an example one of the most difficult and exacting occupations: science. Would you say that the most important quality required to be a scientist would be a lightning-fast mind? Or a miraculous memory? Or high educational credentials? Here is the answer from one of the nation's foremost scientists, the famed Dr. Edward Teller. Dr. Teller says that in order to succeed as a scientist: "You do not need a lightning-fast mind, nor do you need a miraculous memory, not is it necessary that you got very high grades in school. The only quality that counts is that you have a high degree of interest in science." And that applies to every occupation. You must have a high degree of interest in your work.
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If that applies to the technical, factual, exacting work of a scientist, you can be sure that it applies equally to every other endeavor-including your present job and the more advanced work you plan to do in the future. Let's listen to Dr. Teller again, "The only quality that counts is that you have a high degree of interest in (your occupation) ." Dr. Norman Vincent Peale would say that you must have a high degree of enthusiasm for your job. Dr. Peale writes, "Enthusiasm makes the difference!" But if you want to go all the way to the top in your occupation, learn the inspiring lesson from author Lloyd C. Douglas in his novel: Magnificent Obsession. When your work becomes an obsession-a magnificent obsession-whatever other qualities you need to reach the top will come to you, and everything will fall in place like a giant jigsaw puzzle assembled by a master hand. Indeed, the very parts of life, itself, will be put deftly in place by a Master Hand.
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Chapter 89
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How You Can Focus Attention On Yourself At A Meeting Or Party You cannot win friends and influence people who don't even notice youl Here is a proven success method which will get you noticed, known and liked: Before you enter a meeting, attend a party or join a group-pause for a moment and confidently assume the attitude that you know and like everyone present. Then as you mingle with the group give each person who looks your way a cordial smile of "recognition" and a friendly nod of greeting. Let them know and feel that you LIKE theml Do this whether you know them or not. Let them wonder why they don't remember you! This will cause them not only to notice you but to think about you and try to remember you! Make cordial comments to everyone near you, 128
just as if you already were friends. Do not be eager and venturesome, but be very casual and freely at ease while being pleasantly cordial as though you were among old friends. Soon everyone present will either think he or she already knows you or will want to know you. And you will be noticed, known and liked! Those are the first three steps to a popular personality: (1) to be noticed, (2) to be known, (3) to be liked. To those nrst three steps, you need to add the PERSONAL MAGNETISM techniques taught in a special section of my 93-chapter book: Here's Help! ( a) Learn to look directly and deeply into the eyes of others to establish the magnetic power of eye contact! Watch the top stars on television contact your eyes. (b) Learn to use eye language through which you can communicate your thoughts to others through your eyes! Learn to «talk» using eye language only. ( c) Learn to smile with your eyes! ( d) Learn to project your voice through your eyes! Watch the television stars do it. ( e) Learn to generate an inner glow so you generate an outer glow-which is personal magnetism! Add the above personal magnetism techniques as taught in my book, Here's Help!, to the lessons of this chapter: (1) to be noticed, (2) to be known, (3) to be liked-and attain the rewards of a magnetic, popular personality.
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Chapter 40 Get Richer ••• Quicker/
How You Can Be A Leader It is easier to enlist a thousand helpers than to find one real leader capable of guiding them. The main problem in any project is first to find a leade:r-a real leader, not one of the many who would like to have the title and authority, but who have not bothered to learn the proven success methods of leadership. If the choice of a leader is wise, he or she will attract and skillfully lead multitudes of loyal "associates", and the success of the project is thereby assured. By just one man or woman I One real leader can be the diHerence between success or failure I As the British management expert, Herbert N. Casson, pointed out: "The business world is a place of conHict-a place of gains and losses-ups and downs. It is not a pleasant, comfortable office, where you sit at a big desk and are smiled at by pretty girls and flattered by executives."
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This is true, not only of the business world, but of all situations requiring leadership. Any project worthy of leadership is a challenge which includes conflict. It is not a parade or a pink tea. But the conflict must be with competition and opposition from the outside-not in-fighting within the organization. So the first test of leadership is organization cooperation and loyalty. And since we cannot condense a complete leadership training course into this one brief chapter, we shall focus our attention on how you can attain leadership by winning the cooperation and loyalty of others. You cannot command cooperation and loyalty. They must be earned and deserved. Here's how: A leader must devote himself to making the dreams of others come true. So you begin by building dreams! A leader, like Moses, must point to a "Promised Land, overfloWing with milk and honey." And then lead his "associates" to it. A leader must lead by being out in front with a banner-not walking behind with a whip! Note that a real leader does not have "subordinates"; he has "associates." Nobody works for him; his "associatel' work with him toward a common goal. A leader does not seek praise; he gives it. Lavishly, without reservation. Constantly. enthUSiastically, inspiringly-a leader gives the credit to and praises his associates. 181
EspeciaUy, he shares the credit with and praises his associates for his own accomplishments. This is not over-generosity. It is the mark of a strong leader who knows that the more credit he gives his organization, the more impressive he is as their leader. Credit, like criticism, eventually rises to the top. You cannot lift yourself; you can only be lifted by your organization, and only to the height that your organization (1) is able to lift you, and (2) is willing to lift you. A weak organization cannot lift you and a dissatisfied organization will not lift you. A leader will get a lot more cooperation, and a lot better cooperation, if those who are expected to cooperate have actuaUy participated to some extent in the decisions and planning leading to their expected cooperation. A leader does not demand his own way; he leads his associates in seeking better ways. Then, he continues to lead his associates along those better ways and, with the cooperation of his associates, seeks still better ways. It is neither the function nor the prerogative of leadership to think up all the best ideas. It is the function of leadership to motivate others to do so; then evaluate, select and, with his associates, put into operation the best of all the ideas submitted by everybody in the organization. That is the test of whether or not a leader will long survive. Leadership by domination and command
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ended with the right of workers to organize and strike, and the intense inter-company competitive bidding to lure highly specialized executives from one company to a competitive company. Today, leadership requires the ability which the title implies: the ability to lead. So, in the beginning, associate yourself with such a leader-even if you have to change jobs to do so. Then, as you advance, become such a leader, yourself. That is the purpose of learning and using PROVEN SUCCESS METHODS. They teach you how to become so indispensible you cannot be replaced by a computer. Remember, management cannot be replaced by computers, because it is management which controls and directs the computers. Computerized automation may replace thousands of production-line workers-but not one capable management executive. In fact, the more computerized automation, the more and better management executives and technological specialists will be needed. The old saying, «There is always room at the top", is just as true as ever. Only now there is a lot more room-and a lot more money-at the top. It is a sure way to get richer . .. qUicker!
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Chapter 41
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Learn To MAKE NEWS Because Favorable News Will Make You! Did you hear about the hermit who was elected President of the United States? No, you didn't. In fact, you didn't hear about the hermit at all. Which is precisely the point. H you are going to get elected, or become famous, or get richer quicker-you are going to have to MAKE NEWS, because the news you make will determine how widely and how favorably you will be known. And being widely and favorably known is a sure way to get richer . .. qUicker! As one of my favorite leadership teachers, the great British econorgist and business counselor, Herbert N. Casson, taught: "A leader must always be in full view. He must stand in the spotlight on the stage. "Oblivion-that is what a leader must fear
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above all else. Praise helps him along and blame keeps him alive, but oblivion destroys him." You avoid oblivion by making news about yourself. How can YOU make news? Obviously, I cannot answer that question for each individual reader personally. Many readers of my books are corporation presidents with capably-staffed public relations departments. Many other readers are high school or university graduates whose families or friends gave them my books as graduation gifts. So, the difference in situations, capabilities and facilities among my several million readers is so great that there is not space in this chapter or this entire book to attempt to teach so many different kinds of readers how to make news in his or her individual situation. In every instance, however, you must start with an idea, opinion or statement of information which preferably is new itself (whence came the name «news"), or which is sufficiently interesting to the public, or to a specific classification of people, to whom it may be directed through newspapers, magazines, other types of publications, television or radio. Then, you simply send your newsworthy idea, opinion, or statement to the specific news media which have a large percentage of readers or viewers or listeners who would be interested in YOUR news. Depending upon your situation and your news, your «news release" should be in whatever form is appropriate-from a «letter to the editor" or «letter to readers' views" to professionally prepared "news media releases" nationwide to newspapers, magazines, television and radio.
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You must be careful that your news is not so self-serving that it would be considered by the editors as a cheap attempt to get free advertising. If it is desirable to disseminate news which is so self-serving that it is advertiSing, then, by all means, pay for its publication, televising or broadcasting as advertising. That often is the best way to get your news to people exactly as you want to say it which may be far too "commercial" to be accepted by the news media as free publicity. As the president of a large advertiSing agency for many years before I retired, I want to make this experienced observation concerning news and advertising. The most effective advertising, the advertising which attracts the most attention and the most thorough reading, is advertising which is news-interesting, useful, helpful news about products, services and companies. Millions of dollars are wasted on advertiSing which simply is "yelling" the products' names and exaggerated benefits. I respectfully submit my own timetested motto, proven by forty years of experience: «If you want to sell-don't yell!" That motto applies to personal selling, too. If your news provides a service which is of much more consequence than the fact that it subtly builds a favorable product or company "image", it will be Widely used as news or education-without charge. I also was president of Rice Consumer Service (U.S. Rice Industry) before I retired. We furnished a free recipe and food photographic service to every newspaper in the United States. Our recipes and appetizing food 136
photographs were regularly published without charge for years on the food pages of newspapers nationally (and each recipe contained our client's product: rice). I also produced an educational color movie showing how rice was grown in the United States and the proper method of preparing rice and serving it in many different and delicious ways. This educational color movie, entirely about our client's product: rice, was widely shown to movie audiences throughout the nation-without charge to us. So there are many ways to MAKE NEWSfavorable «image-building" news-and this is essential to your getting richer . . . qUicker! The one thing you cannot afford-is to be ignored! MAKE NEWSI
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Chapter 42
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Success And Riches Are The Result Of Negotiating Agreements, Not Disagreements Getting into an argument is easy. Getting out of an argument is difficult. Participating in an argument without arousing irritation and antagonism is impossible! The way to be disagreeable-is to disagree. The way to be agreeable is to agree. The purpose of this chapter-lesson is to teach the highly profitable methods of negotiating agreements. The first lesson is not to participate in disagreements: Either (1) agree, (2) if there is not complete agreement, expand the areas of agreement and thus narrow the "disagreement gap", (3) do not haggle over trivialities which should be generously conceded, (4) never directly disagree, but use various diverting techniques, (5) learn the art of "interested silence". While you cannot negotiate an agreement by
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being silent, you may be surprised to learn that being silent is the first step in successfully negotiating agreements. Never state your opinion or position first. This is taught in the chapter-lesson titled: "How You Can Persuade Others To Do Whatever You Want Them To Do", but it needs repeating for emphasis. Never stating your opinion first applies not only to negotiating agreements, but to keeping out of trouble generally. Do not go around stating your opinions and making pronouncements. This puts you indelibly on the record first. And you later may regret it. Remember that when a chicken is hatched, it cannot be put back into its shell and be concealed again. You never will have to defend or retract that which you did not say. There is an ancient Persian proverb which teaches: "More have repented of speech than of silence:' In a hostile situation, stating your opinions first is like carrying a lightning rod across an open field in a thunderstorm. It violates the wisdom of the American Indians who warned, "Do not feather the arrows of your enemies." So . . . never state your opinion or position first. If you are asked your opinion first-respond thoughtfully by saying, "That's an interesting point. What's YOUR opinionr Encourage the other person to state his or her opinion first. This gives you the full range of options: ( 1 ) If you possibly can agree, then agree fully and enthUSiastically. Add facts or opinions of your own to
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further emphasize your full agreement. Do not ":water down" your enthusiastic agreement with trivial misgivings and disagreements. The way to be agreeable is to agreetherefore enthusiastically agree at every opportunity. (2) If you cannot entirely agree, then be enthusiastic in emphasizing everything-important and unimportant-about which you do agree. Then, if you must mention points of disagreement, do so in the manner of questions concerning the possible disagreement of "others" (never yourself!), thus: (a) Ask: "I wonder if (others) may not feel that we, etc., etc., etc." (b) Ask: "Do you suppose that there might be (others) who would take a slightly different point of view and etc., etc., etc." ( 3) In any event, do not openly challenge strongly-held opinions and provoke personal confrontations. If you absolutely must question the correctness of opinions, always do so in behalf of "others" (named or unnamed). ( 4) The only "agreeable" and the most successful technique in negotiating differences is first join'em. Make it clear that you are on their side, that you understand and sympathize with their point of view. (Note: I said "understand" and "sympathize"-I did not say "agree".) Being "on their side" eliminates confrontation and hostility. Then, using the "questions-which-might-beraised-by-"others" technique described in the preceding paragraphs (2) and (3), "tailor" their opinions and "harmlessly modify" yours as taught in the chapter in this book,
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titled: "How You can Persuade Others To Do What You Want Them To Do." That is the way to negotiate agreements, not disagreements. There is one form of disagreement which you cannot avoid because it comes to you as a complaintwhich you cannot head off because the other person already is complaining. And, complaining disagreeably, tool Here's how to handle a complaint: Let the complaining person talk himself out. Sympathetically encourage him to keep on talking about his complaint. DO NOT INTERRUPT. And, of course. do not argue! Then, when the complaining person completely exhausts every detail (and is beginning to feel that he may be over-emphasizing his injury with so much complaining), ask him to repeat various parts of his complaint (especially the more exaggerated parts) so that c'you will be sure you understand exactly". By that time, the complainer will have '1et off all his steam", and soothed by your own calm, sympathetic understanding, all of the emotion will have been diSSipated -and an agreeable settlement can be reached. In settling complaints remember two other human-relations principles: (1) Millionaires have been made ONLY by adhering to the time-proven slogan: "The customer is always right." You'll be "taken" sometimes, but the Law of Averages makes that slogan too profitable to disregard. (2) As taught in my book, Thoughts To Build On, "GOODWILL is your success insurance", 141
GOODWILL, like a good reputation, is created by many actions-but can be lost by merely one. So, do not say, write or do anything until you have asked yourself, "Will what I am about to say, write or do-create goodwill or incur ill willP" If you can answer with assurance that what you are about to say, write or do will create goodwill-say, write or do it at once! Creating goodwill is adding to your success insurance. But if you conclude that what you are about to say, write or do will incur ill will (no matter how clever, expedient or "justified" your action may be) do not do it. In my book, Here's Help!, there's a chapter titled: "You May Be Sorry You Stirred It!" Even the title of that chapter will keep you out of a lot of trouble I Always create goodwill ... never incur ill will ... negotiate agreements-not disagreements. It will make you RICHER . .. QUICKER!
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Chapter 48 Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Change The CLIMATE And You Change Attitudes And Situations! Change the climate and you change every living thing within that climate. The great, terrifying prehistoric monsters were not destroyed in some gigantic fight to the death.
No! AU that happened was a change in climate! The great, terrifying prehistOric monsters could not remain great and terrifying in the changed climat~ so they had to adapt to the new climate. Or else! What worked with prehistoric monsters also
wiU work with people, today! But, you do not have to change the climate of the earth; you merely have to change the emotional climate in any disagreeable situation which you want to change. If you get involved in an unpleasant or hostile situation, you will find that the emotional climate is a
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storm of distain, distrust, irritation, anger and any combination of negative emotions.
Don't foin the hostaity-disperse it! Instead of trying to win in an angry confrontation (which nobody can permanently win), change the emotional climate.
Calm it! Cool it! Relax it! Like the terrifying prehistOric monsters which had to change with the changed. climate, angry people cannot remain hostile in a calm, cool, relaxed emotional climate of friendly conciliation, fair-minded understanding, genuine goodwill and willing cooperation. In nature, violent storms cannot exist in a climate of great calm. In human nature, this is equally true. So ... if you would be a leader, you must learn to control the emotional climate-to bring about an emotional climate of great calm in which storms of anger and hostility cannot exist. You do not have to defeat an adversary; you merely have to change the emotional climate which causes him to be an adversary. You simply change the emotional climate to an atmosphere of reconciliation, understanding, cooperation and goodwill-and your adversary will change according to the climate and become your friend. Isn't that the better way?
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You Can Make Any Problem Harmless Simply By DE-CONFUSING It! You can get very rich simply by solving your own problems and then by making a career out of solving the problems of others. There isn't anything complicated about it. Anybody can do it. Thousands of successful people do. lts all in knOWing how! So, here's how: The basic principle of solving problems-all problems-is the same. So we can learn it from any successful problem-solver. Let's learn the basic principle of problem solving from a man who made a career out of solving problems and was paid-millions for solving other people's problems. His name: Stanley Arnold. And this is his secret of solving problems: CCEvery problem contains within itself the seeds of its own solution:~ Of course, it does! The solution to every prob-
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lem is within the problem, itseHl The solution to every problem is not outside the problem where the amateurs look, but inside the problem where the professional problem-solvers look, find it, and get rich by solving it and other problems. If a bomb were discovered in a large building, the bomb-squad would be called to de-fuse the bomb. Defusing is removing the device in the bomb, which if unremoved, would cause the bomb to explode, resulting in great damage. When a bomb is de-fused, its remaining parts are made harmless and may be calmly and safely disassembled and used for beneficial purposes. Problems are like bombs, capable of great destruction. The difference is that a bomb must be de-fused whereas a problem must be de-confused. The result is the same. When a problem is de-confused, the confusing part of the problem is removed. Then the remaining parts of the problem may be calmly and easily disassembled for beneficial uses. It is the confusing part of a problem which is threatening. As soon as the confusion is eliminated, the remaining parts of the problem can be disassembledremoved from the problem calmly, one at a time, until the problem, itseH, no longer exists. Only its separated parts exist-to be used for your own advantage. Once the dangerous element, confusion, is eliminated-it actually is fun to take the various remaining elements of a problem apart and realize how com-
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pletely harmless they are by themselves when they are not made threatening by the addition of confusion. That is why scientists are so happily dedicated to their research (which is a form of problem-solving). Their scientific approach is, first, to de-confuse the problem, and they do not proceed further until all confusion is eliminated. Then they calmly remove each component and scientifically examine it to learn how it can be used beneficially. Since life consists principally of problemsand since you will get richer quicker to the degree that you successfully solve your problems and the problems of others-be a real professional in the field of problem solving. ( 1) Know that every problem contains within itself the seeds of its own solution. (2) First, de-confuse the problem and thus eliminate the confusion of frustration, certain failure and threatening consequences. ( 3) Then, having de-confused the problem, calmly disassemble it into its separate parts which you examine with the dispassionate objectivity of a scientist. (4) Remember, life consists principally of solving problems. You will get richer qUicker to the degree that you successfully solve your problems and the problems of others.
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How You Can Use The c;c;Law Of Increasing Abundance" To Get Everything You Want There are eternal, infallible Universal Laws which govern the universe and everything in it-including YOU. Examples: The Law of Gravity, the Law of Cause and Effect, the Law of Increasing Abundance. This chapter is about how you can use the Law of Increasing Abundance to get everything you want-and get it in increasing abundance. The 'Law of Increasing Abundance requires that you be thankful for everything-and in return for your thankfulness, and to the degree that you are thankful, you will receive increasing abundance of whatever you want. The Law of Increasing Abundance actually is an application of the Law of Cause and Effect. Your being
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intensely thankful is the "Cause" which produces the "Effect" of pouring into your life an abundance of whatever you want and are intensely thankful forI The more your thankfulness increases, the more your abundance increases. It is never the purpose of any of my books to intrude into the religious beliefs of my readers. However, since it is true of all religions, it is proper to pOint out that abundance is bestowed only on those who are devoutly thankful for it-and abundance is denied or taken away from those who are arrogantly ungrateful. Your religion may teach that the giving of devout thanks is a requirement for Divine bestowing and increasing of abundance-and that the Divine denial or taking away of abundance is the penalty for ingratitude. Or, you may prefer the explanation that a constantly held and expressed attitude of thankfulness attracts, whereas a constantly held and expressed attitude of ingratitude repels-which applies to abundance. Or, you can find the explanation in the Law of Consistency which requires that all things be consistent. Therefore, if you maintain an intense attitude of thankfulness for the increasing abundance in your life, the increasing abundance will occur-to be consistent with your thankfulness for it. It is the Natural Order of the Universe that all things must always be consistent. Nature acts in miraculous ways to maintain consistency in everything, so increasing abundance in your life will be provided to be consistent with your constant, intense thankfulness for it. One of the specific requirements for your use of the Law of Increasing Abundance is that you be constantly and intensely thankful for everything.
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That's right I Everything! It is easy to be thankful for whatever obviously is good. Yet most people are not even intensely thankful for that! But the Law of Increasing Abundance requires that you be intensely thankful-openly, frankly, sincerely, intensely thankful for everything-and, not only think so, but frankly tell others that you are thankful. Certainly it isn't hard to be thankful for the good things in your life. But you must constantly think about how intensely thankful you are for them. It will help if you make a written list of all the things for which you are thankful, and then read each item on that list every day and be intensely thankful for it. It may be a little more difficult to tell others how thankful you are for the various items on your Thankful List. Do not brag to others about the items on your Thankful List, but tell them humbly that you are thankful. It is your sincere humility of thankfulness for whatever you have-which activates the Law of Increasing Abundance to provide you with continuing abundance. Your abundance will increase in direct proportion to your openly and humbly expressed thankfulness for it. It is your attitude, your thoughts and your public expressions of thankfulness that make the Law of Increasing Abundance continue to reward you-because only as you are thankful do you deserve and therefore receive increasing abundance. Now we come to the more difficult-but most rewarding part-that of being thankful for everything. It may be easy to think and express thankfulness for the good, enjoyable, profitable things in your life
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-but how can you think and express thankfulness for the unpleasantness and failures? Here's how: You need first to learn and then to be thankful for the lessons, the character bUilding and the personal challenges of unpleasantness and failure. In my own long and eventful life, I have observed that while I pleasantly benefited from my successes, I learned more and therefore ultimately profited much more from the lessons of my failures. So I am sincerely thankful for the lessons of my own failures-and you must learn to be thankful for the lessons of yours. When you learn and accept that, then you are ready to use the Law of Increasing Abundance-because you will have learned the basic principle of success which is that you will learn more and therefore ultimately profit more from the lessons of your failures than from your easy successes. And so you can be openly, sincerely, intensely thankful for your failures-and not only think so, but frankly tell others that you are thankful for the lessons of your failures, and why. You must accept failure-unashamed-as just one of life's lessons. When you reach that point, you can use the Law of Increasing Abundance to get everything you want -and get it in increasing abundance. Remember, the Law of Increasing Abundance is just as real and just as infallible as the Law of Gravity or the Law of Cause and Effect or any Universal Law.
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The Law of Increasing Abundance requires that you be intensely thankful for everything-and that you not only constantly think so and mentally give thanks -but that you humbly tell others that you are thankful. It is through your constant, sincere, intense thankfulness for everything that the Law of Increasing Abundance will attract to you more and more things for which to be thankful so that you increasingly will get everything you want . .. in abundance! Begin by being thankful for the lesson of this chapter, because it will make your own life a harvest of INCREASING ABUNDANCE!
Which means you will get RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Chapter 46
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How You Can Multiply Your Effectiveness By Becoming A "'Telephone Personality" Here's a way to multiply your success instantly! In my book, Here's Help!, is an entire section teaching how to develop a magnetic personality. In this book, in this chapter, let's sharpen the focus and concentrate on how you can develop a magnetic telephone personality. Your developing a magnetic telephone personality is not as incidental as you may, at first, think. Your effectively using the telephone can greatly increase your success in business, your influence in civic affairs and your personal popularity. Unless you aheady are an expert in using the telephone, it can be stated with reasonable certainty that you should use the telephone at least three times as often as you now do. Perhaps more often than thatl
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Whom would you telephone to use your phone three times as often? The way to increase your telephone calls to three times as many is a simple proven success method. You simply set a quota of three times as many telephone calls-or more if you now make very few. Then write at the top of a sheet of paper the number of telephone calls you have pledged yourseH to make. Write the day of the week and date on the next line. Then make a check mark on the line (after the date) every time you make a telephone call. Be determined to reach your quota of calls. Do not set your quota so high it will become a burden or be too time-consuming or require that you phone the same person so often you become a "telephone nuisance". Your quota will "force" you to make telephone calls you have been putting off. (Writing the last sentence reminded me of my own quota and I made three "thank you" telephone calls I had postponed I ) • Also your quota will cause you to think of more people you should call-or even could call for reasons stated later in this chapter. Make a list of names and phone numbers in addition to your alphabetical directory which is a reference convenience and should not be used in this method. List the names and phone numbers on one page of whatever size necessary and keep it in plain view next to your daily phone-call quota sheet. Now ... think of your telephone as your goodwill broadcasting microphone. Make each of your telephone calls your own personal goodWill broadcast. 154
Unlike a radio broadcast which reaches many people impersonally, your personal goodwill broadcast will be on a one-to-one basis and should have one central purpose, in addition to whatever "small talk" it includes. The one central purpose of your goodwill broadcasts by telephone must be to make other people "feel better" because you called-not just because you phoned, but because of what you said when you phoned. What is the "magic formula" which always will make other persons "feel better"? ("Feeling better", as used here, is not limited to health, but to the total feelings of pleasure and well-being.) You simply use the 3 G Formula as taught in detail in my book, Here's Help! and which, applied to your telephone conversations, teaches that you always must: (IG) Express gratitude (or appreciation in terms of admiration and compliments). (2G) Express goodwill (with an unmistakable "I like you!" attitude). ( 3G) Express good wishes! Those are the "magic" 3 G's: (IG) gratitude, (2G) goodWill, (3G) good wishes! Print or write them on a card or strip of paper and tape them to your telephone as a constant reminder. Otherwise you may forget to use one or more of them. When you think of your telephone calls as personal goodWill broadcasts with the central purpose being to make others feel better because you phoned, you will have a new and broader attitude toward telephOning. You easily and almost automatically will add to your list
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many persons you do not have to phone, but now want to --just to make them feel better. This will include shut-ins and many who are alone and lonely, and who would feel much better if someone cared enough to phone. In many cities there are social service organizations which will furnish you a list of shut-ins, invalids and lonely elderly people whose day, or even week, would be made brighter by one of your goodwill telephone broadcasts. The 3 G Method is equally important in business telephone conversations. Always express: (IG) gratitude, (2G) goodwill, (3G) good wishes . . . and you will be amazed at how remarkably your business relationships improve! We have considered only telephone calls which you originate. Now let us study how to handle all incoming telephone calls. ( 1 ) Welcome every telephone call as a happy event-never think of any telephone call as an unwelcome interruption. (2) Just as employees welcome their "coffee break", so you should welcome a «telephone break". ( 3) Put a halo around your «hello"! Make your "hello" sound the keynote for your following broadcast of goodwiU! ( 4) Whatever else the content of your telephone conversation, be sure it includes the 3 G's: (IG) gratitude (or appreciation in terms of admiration and compliments), (2G) goodwill, (3G) good wishes! And remember, whether you telephone someone or they telephone you: Phone time is fun time!
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Chapter 47
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Here's How You Can Get A Lot Of People Involved In Helping You Succeed! You cannot succeed just by yourself. It is a time-worn saying, but "lifting yourseH by your own bootstraps" just cannot be done. You have to be lifted to success by people who are willing to help you. So ... a proven success method is to make a list of all of the people who might help you succeed. Then write beside or under each person's name exactly how he or she can help you succeed. Using that list as a reminder, ASK those people for the help you need. Always ASK courteously, but forthrightly and expectantly. In my book, How To Get Whatever You Want, are many chapter-lessons which will teach you, in detail, the successful techniques of ASKING, and why people will
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do what you ASK, and how to change a "no" response to "yes", and all related ASKING methods-so I will not take the space to repeat all those lessons in this book, too. The method I want to emphasize here is that you make a list of all of the people who might help you succeed and then ASK them courteously but forthrightly and expectantly for the help you need. You Simply use the Law of Averages. Most of the people will help you if you ASK them properly-so you are much farther ahead than if you had not used this method. Some of the people will not assist in your efforts to succeed no matter how worthy your goal or how persuasively you ask for their cooperation. But do not let this discourage you in the least. Just scratch their names off your list and replace each name with two new names of people whose cooperation you will ask. Soon you will have a lot of people involved in helping you succeed. That's a lot more effective than trying to do it alone! The more people you get to help you, the greater will be your success; the faster you will succeed I Which is another way of saying: YOU WILL GET RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Chapter 48
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Never Ask "IF" ... AlwaysAsk~~HOW" As this book has emphasized previously, everything can be improved and everything must be improved or suffer the
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Chapter 49
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How Attractively And Impressively Do You "PACKAGE" Yourself? People complain about the high cost of food products, part of which is the cost of attractive packing which purchasers consciously or subconsciously demand. Without attractive packaging, no product can successfully compete. There is a lesson in this for people. How do you "package" yourself? Your "package" is all that others see. They do not see your wisdom or your wit. What others see is how you look. If you think you are not judged by your appearance-think againl No matter how hard you try to project your personality through your "package"-remember that what others are seeing constantly is your appearance. Today's fad is to show contempt, disdain and indifference by deliberately displaying the ultimate in 160
slovenliness in clothing and grooming. So we need to recall our example of food product packages. Suppose some of the most popular products suddenly were displayed in faded, frayed, unkempt or bizarre packages designed to show deliberate contempt for public opinion? Their popular appeal would not last any longer than their first display. Your appearance is talking to others constantly when you are not even saying a word. What is your appearance saying about you? Psychologists have learned a lot recently about "image-bUilding". And what psycholOgists have learned is that the visual image makes a deep and lasting impression in the subconscious minds of others so that there is an unconscious «attitude tilt" for or against the visual image and the person it represents. I hope you have a full-length mirror in your home. Look long and carefully at the entire "package" you are putting on public display. See yourself as others see you. Look at yourself through the eyes ( and thoughts!) of your employer, your associates, your friends, your neighbors-especially those whose position and influence can determine your success. Do you look successful? Do you look important? Do you look like the kind of person who deserves respect, attention, special consideration by those whose esteem you need to get richer quicker? Do you?
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When You Have Crossed The River ... Abandon Your Boat! In the race to success, do not burden yourself with useless things. The experienced traveler has learned the advantages of "traveling light". There is priceless wisdom in the old proverb: "When you have crossed the river, abandon your boat." Imagine that the "river" was one of the obstacles on your chosen road to success. Your ''boat'' was of great value in crossing the river. But having enabled you to cross the river, your boat is of no further use to you. No matter what your boat cost; no matter how valuable your boat was in crossing the river-your boat no longer is of use to you, but is a burden. So ... when you have crossed the river, abandon your boat. There is a tyranny of things. I wrote about it in my book Thoughts To Build On.
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Things, no longer useful, become a burden. They take up space. Physical space. Too often, mental space. Usually, emotional space, too, if they worry you. While I was National Bass Champion, I acquired 1,500 fishing lures! I do not now need them. I shall use only a few of them in the future. Yet I will not give them up. None of them. Not even the many which will not catch bass! I am caught up in the tyranny of things. Most of us are. Tolerate my little eccentricity about fishing lures, but only as a warning to yourself that there are much bigger things which will become heavy burdens if you persist in clinging to them after their usefulness is gone. Do not plod through life dragging behind you the countless useless burdens of the past. You will greatly simplify your, life and rapidly accelerate your progress to your life-goal if you will let go -phYSically, mentally and emotionally-all of the nowuseless, non-essential things which you have accumulated over the past years. Let them go! Simplify your life! Uncomplicate things! Streamline your life by eliminating all useless nonessentials! Free yourself from the "tyranny of things"f When you have crossed the river--abandon your boat!
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Chapter 51
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You Must Manage Life-Or Life Will Make You Its Slave! Life will not tolerate a vacuum! Either you fill your life with meaningful and worthwhile activities-or fate will fill your life with a junk-heap of problems and troubles. Either you manage your life-plan it, control it, :611 it with the acts of your own choosing-or life will make you its slave, plodding endlessly from problems to troubles to hardships to adversities. Because life will not tolerate a vacuum! Either you fill it with what you want or you condemn yourseH to receiving the left-overs from the tables of abundance of others who know how to manage life. So how can you manage life? It's easy when you know how. So, here's how: There is a wise proverb: "Leave tomorrow until tomorrow."
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And so you should. It is when you try to live tomorrow today that you add tomorrow's problems to today's problems and thus double your work load. You can manage your life successfully only if you live by Dr. William Osler's famous prescription: «Live one day at a time." Dr. Osler warned, «The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter." The constant warning of all physicians and psychiatrists is: Do not over-burden yourself .physically, mentally or emotionally. It is like over-loading an electric power line. You will blow a fuse! The blown fuse may be your heart or some other vital physical organ-or it may be your mentalemotional fuse, leaving you a neurotic or psychotic wreck. Begin managing your life by controlling time. Live only one day at a time ... live today! Anyone can manage one day's problems. As Robert Louis Stevenson wrote: "Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day." No one day, no matter how disastrous, can overwhelm you, because, in the consoling wisdom of William Cowper, "The darkest day, lived till tomorrow, will have passed away." And as Dorothy Dix wrote: te[ stood yesterday; [ can stand today." So can you. When you divide your life into days, then your life becomes manageable.
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And when you divide each day into hours and concentrate on each hour's work-one hour at a timeyou begin to control time! To the extent that you control your time and control what you do with it-you actually control your life, because that is what your life is: time! It is your time. It is your life. You either control it or become its slave! By dividing time into small, manageable units -you can control it, manage it, command it. It is the proven success method of divide and conquer. H you confine your «attention span" to one hour at a time and focus on the problems and work of only that one hour, undistracted by the events of previous hours and the speculation of future hours, you will achieve a "concentration effectiveness" which will produce outstanding results ... hour after hour ... day after day ... week after week. I do not have to tell you what you will accomplish by such time-managed concentration-effectiveness. You know! You will get richer ... qUicker!
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Chapter 52
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YOUR JOB: Do Yon Hate It? Tolerate It? Or Improve In It? You can think of your job as drudgery-and hate it. You can think of your job as routine-and tolerate it. Or, you can think of your job as a constant challenge and opportunity to improve-and enter an exciting, new career of getting richer . .. qUicker! It simply is a matter of whether you let your job use you-or you use your job! Most people let their jobs use them-and wear them out until they are tossed aside with other worn-out parts. You can use your job instead of letting your job use you! How? You begin by doing your job so much better
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that you become better than your job. As soon as you become so much better than your present job that it is clearly obvious that you have out-grown your present job, you wiU get a bigger fobfrom your present employer or another firm. It is just the same as when a growing boy obviously is too big for his present clothing. He always gets larger clothes to fit his larger size. Can you remember ever seeing a ten-year old boy wearing the clothing of a fiveyear old child? Somehow, somewhere, some way, he always gets clothes to fit his larger size. And, it is that way with jobs. If you have outgrown and are obviously much bigger than your present job-somehow, somewhere, some way-you will get a bigger fob! I cannot tell you how in this one, brief chapter. But I do tell you how in this entire book-and in my other books of proven success methods. It is the purpose of this chapter to emphaSize that: (1) You must NOT think of your job as drudgery-and hate it. (2) You must NOT think of your job as routine -and tolerate it. (3) You MUST think of your job as a constant challenge and opportunity to improve-to improve so much that you outgrow and become so much bigger than your present job that somehow, somewhere, some way you will get the bigger fob which your improvement deserves! The methods are in this book.
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Chapter 58 Get Richer ••. Quicker1
The Secret Of Successful WorkPlanning And Life-Planning There is a method of successfully planning your work and successfully planning your life which ensures that you will reach your goal at the desired time. Here's the secret:
Start at the finish! Decide exactly what goal you want to accomplish and exactly when you want to have accomplished it. That is the finish. That is the completed achievement. And that is where you start your job-plan or life-plan-at the finish! Permit me to use my own work as an example: Having devoted 40 years to researching, testing and compiling proven success methods, it is necessary to record these more than a thousand success methods in book form. I retired at 50 to devote my full time to continuing
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my research (now 40 years) and thus helping others, principally through my books which comprise a Proven Success Methods Library. Now, instead of being president of eight corporations, I am an author and publisher. To help as many millions of readers as possible, I also write articles for national magazines and newspaper syndicates. The writing and publishing business (like all other businesses) is a series of "deadlines". A "deadline", as you know, is the definite, final date on which each job (and each specific part of it along the way) absolutely must be finished. No excuses I The manuscript for the book must be delivered to the book manufacturer on a definite date; the magazine article must be received by the magazine editor; the newspaper feature must be received by the national newspaper syndicate-on a definite date. This same kind of "definite-due-date" is the successful operating basis of all businesses and all kinds of work. So, that is where the "start at the finish" schedule begins. On your plan-sheet, you write the "deadline" or definite-due-date" followed by a brief deSCription of the finished job. Then you write the definite dates on which each step which will produce the finished job must be completed in order that the work will be finished on time. The last date you write is the date on which you absolutely must start. Then you Simply invert the order of dates and C<
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steps so that your plan-sheet will be in chronological order. This is the «start at the finish" planning method of all successful business planners. If you are not now using this "start at the finish" method, begin to use it at once. Use it in planning all jobs-large and small. You may not need it for simple, small jobs, but use it anyway-just for practice. This same «start at the finish" method also should be used in your planning to reach a definite goal in life. The method is exactly the same: ( 1) On your life-goal plan-sheet, write the definite time you want to attain your goal in life and follow that date by a brief but specific description of what you want to achieve in life. (2) Then write the dates and a description of each of the steps you must take to reach your ultimate goal in life. (Obviously the dates will have to be approximate, but write down a date which is your best estimate for each necessary step along the way to your ultimate goal.) Write these in reverse order, starting at the finish, then your objective before that ... and your objective before that ... until you reach the beginning date for planned progress to your life-goal. ( 3) The beginning date for your planned progress to your life-goal must be NOWll! Then you will have a date-a scheduled series of dates-with DESTINY!
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Chapter 54 Get Richer ••• Quicker!
PLAN BIG! You've Got 60 Trillion Cells Going For You! Your body consists of 60 trillion cells. How well you manage your 60 trillion cells will determine your health, your life, your success or failure. You have quite a management problem. Managing your 60 trillion cells requires a lot of know-how and it will pay you in health, happiness and success if you start by learning the basic principles in this chapter. Let us begin at the very beginning: one single human cell. That single human cell is a female egg. Once fertilized, that one cell begins dividing. And the divided cells continue dividing ... and dividing ... and dividing. In nine months, the cells have divided (and therefore multiplied) until they total two trillion cells in the form of a baby ready for birth. So you are born, all two trillion cells of you.
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After you are born, your cells continue to divide (and therefore multiply) until you become an adult consisting of 60 trillion cells. However, your individual cells do not last very long. They wear out, decompose and are eliminated as waste matter. To the extent that you maintain healthful life habits, your worn out, decomposed, eliminated cells are replaced by perfect new cells. Your cell replacement is at the rate of millions of cells every second. If you do not maintain healthful physical, mental and emotional life habits, your body and mind will deteriorate because your cell replacement will deteriorate in quantity and quality. If your cell replacement is inadequate or stops entirely-you die. Because your cell replacement rate is millions of cells every second, your body and mind can deteriorate at an alarming rate. And, of course, the reverse is true. If you improve your physical, mental and emotional health habits, you improve the quality and rebuilding properties of your new, replacement cells. And, at the rate of millions of new activated cells every second, you can improve with amazing rapidity! You can build your IDEAL YOUI The actual formation and operation of the 60 trillion cells of which you are composed is too complicated to try to describe in much detail. However, for any readers who may think that their bodies are something which may be ignored, misused or permissibly abused, here are a few facts about the mechanism (actually biochemistry) of cell-
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operations which emphasize a complexity with which no one should harmfully tamper. The energy which your 60 trillion cells require to perform your life functions actually is a kind of electricity produced by your bodily process which syntheSizes a substance called adenosine triphosphate. This breaks down into components and, in so doing, generates the energy to activate the cells to operate your body. This cell activity is directed by deOxyribonucleic acid and the actual activity is the work of ribonucleic acid. Your cell communication is conducted through hormones. There you have the biochemistry of bodily function-which you may not find very interesting except that it emphaSizes the amazing complexity of your body and the obvious care it deserves and requires. Do not mistreat your body any more than you would work on your watch with a hammer! But with all of its amazing complexity, your body (all 60 trillion cells of it) merely is the servant of your mind. It only is through your mind that your body has usefulness, direction and purpose. As Ben Sweetland, Radio's Consulting Psychologist of a generation ago, used to teach: "You are not a body with a mind; you are a mind with a body." Your body simply is an extension of your mind! Your body is your mind's servant. Its only purpose is to do your mind's bidding. So you are in control! You've got a lot of cellpower-60 trillion cells at your command! Why do you think you were put in control of
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so much power? To be a failure? That would mean that Infinity-the Infinite Mind-would be an idiot! Would Infinity give you personal control of such terrific power so that you would fail? Infinity is no such idiot. The precision of the Infinite Universe ... operating at split-second precision ... through space without dimension ... for eternity, time with no beginning and no end-is not the mastercontrol of an idiot. So, giving you control of a 60-trillion-cell Lody to achieve your worthy goal through your mind which will be guided by the Infinite Mind-if you let it-is Infinity's command for you to succeed! The principles and methods of channeling Infinite Power into your own life are explained in this book and in my other books. You need not fail. You must not fail. You dare not fail-because to fail would be to scoff at a worthy lifegoal and to show contempt for the Infinite Purpose which gave you your 60-trillion-cell body with which to succeed as part of an Infinite plan. So use your 60-trillion-cell body as the servant, not only of your mind, but of the Infinite Mind-knowing that whatever man can conceive, man can achieve! Make no little plans! PLAN BIG! You've got 60 trillion cells going for you!
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Obstacles Are Power Generators! It's a good idea to learn about obstacles because the road to success is really an "obstacle-course". A long time ago, some timid weakling started the rumor that obstacles are hindrances-and that false rumor has been circulated by timid weaklings ever since as their alibi for inferiority. Some people even believe that obstacles are excuses for failure I The fact is that obstacles are the power-generators of success! The successes of all great men and women have been generated by the obstacles they overcame. The greater the obstacles, the greater their success. Since this is true of every person who ever succeeded, we shall not devote much space here to giving examples, but I cannot resist mentioning a few: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and many of our Presidents started life in the poorest homes, with
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little education and no advantages-except lots of obstacles to use as power-generators to win the Presidency of the United States! Thomas Edison was sent home from school because he was too stupid to learn anything! So he became the greatest inventor in history! Charles Drew, the Negro scientist, did not know there was an obstacle known as the "color barrier» so he perfected the means of preserving blood plasma in «blood banks" and saved the lives of millions of people of all races and colors! Joan of Arc was a poor, little shepherd girl who led the armies of France to instant victory in a war that the French generals had been unable to win in a hundred years of fighting! Benjamin Franklin was the fifteenth of seventeen children of a poor candlemaker. His first obstacle was that he had only one year of schooling. So he taught himself philosophy, four languages, the classics, writing for publication, science, finance, politics, diplomacy-to become one of the best educated and greatest Americans! Irvin Berlin had to flee Russia during its Revolution. His family brought little Irvin to America where they lived in a dark cellar. Irvin Berlin could only attend school for two years. He wanted to write songs, but he couldn>t afford music lessons and couldn>tread musicwhich was an obstacle (!II) in the song writing business. But he overcame the obstacle by writing a song anywaywhich he sold for 33¢. The good thing about obstacles is that once you start to overcome them, you can>t stop! So Irvin Berlin wrote 800 songs and made millions! He also 177
wrote musical shows like "This Is The Army" which earned $12,000,000-and Irvin Berlin gave all of the profit to the Army Emergency Relief Fund. Then, there was a dwarf with a frail body, oversized head, poor eyesight, threadbare clothes, no money. He came to America from Germany and couldn't speak English. With that many obstacles, his success was assured! Charles Steinmetz became the electrical genius who developed alternating current and made possible the electrification of the world! Charles Clinton Spaulding was a Negro janitor in an insurance company. He was so handicapped by the obstacle of the "color barrier" that he became president of the company and built it into the nation's largest Negro owned and operated business (assets $95,000,000; employees 2,000). A poor Irish boy had only five years of schooling and had to go to work as a clerk for $4.50 a month. This was an obstacle to his ambition of becoming a writer. So he quit his $4.50-per-month job and wrote for nine years during which he earned a total of $30. Well, the obstacles which are the hardest to overcome, ultimately pay the biggest returns when you do surmount them. So George Bernard Shaw became one of the most famous of all writers and made millions of dollars from his plays, books and articles. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And the list could go on and on-because there is no limit to the number of obstacles and no limit to the millions of "handicapped" people who become rich, powerful and famous by overcoming the obstacles which life helpfully puts in their way, thus giving them the opportun-
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ity to succeed. You can only succeed by accomplishing something difficult! You cannot get richer qUicker by doing nothingl There was lame and sickly Annette Kellerman who overcame her obstacle by becoming the World Diving Champion and was judged one of the world's most perfectly formed women. And George Jowett who was a lame, weak little boy who was beaten up by a big bully. George Jowett resolved that that would never happen to him again, so he exercised and trained for two years-then looked up the bully and beat hell out of him! Nobody ever tried to bully George Jowett again because, as mentioned earlier, once you get started overcoming obstacles, you can't stop-so George Jowett, in ten years, became the strongest man in the world, which is about as bully-proof as anyone can get to bel But back to the poor people: D. A. Thomas was poor and delicate-so he built more than thirty great companies and became super rich. Another poor, delicate boy was not able to attend school and had to be taught at home by his mother. So James Watt invented the steam engine which changed the industrial worldl There was a poor farm boy whose father died before he was born and whose mother had to rear him on their total income of $400 a year! You will remember him as Sir Isaac Newton, discoverer of the Law of Gravity! Elias Howe was a frail, lame little boy whose family was so poor they were starved most of the time! He 179
invented the sewing machine and made millions I Let's face itl Obstacles are not handicaps! Obstacles are opportunities! Obstacles are the challenges which make overcompensation pOSSible. And over-compensating for obstacles or handicaps will get you anything you wantl But, how can you over-compensate if you don't have any obstacles or handicaps for which to overcompensate? You need obstacles and handicaps! So if you don't have a lot of obstacles to overcome, if you don't have a lot of handicaps for which to over-compensate-start looking for some! Life is filled with them! And it doesn't make much difference which obstacles or handicaps you have-just as long as they are so difficult that they offer real challenges! Here are a few examples of the variety of obstacle-opportunities: Babe Ruth was the Strike-Out-Champion before he became the Home Run Champion! He struck out more times (1,330) than any player in the Major Leagues! Julius Caesar was epileptic, but he conquered the then-known world! Demosthenes stuttered-so he filled his mouth with pebbles and shouted over the roar of the waves until he became the greatest orator in ancient Greece! Darwin was neurasthenic. He was so nervous he could hardly sleep. So he wrote the monumental Origin of the SpeCies 180
Is being "old" an obstacle and a handicap? Vanderbilt built his railroads and made most of his fortune after he was seventy! Monet, the great French artist, was still painting his magnificent pictures when he was eighty-six! Titan painted his incomparable Battle of Lepanto when he was ninety-eight! Or, consider other obstacles and handicaps: Beethoven, composer of immortal symphonies, was deafl Milton wrote Paradise Lost when he was blind! Helen Keller was deaf, mute and blind-so she became one of the most famous women of all timel John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in a prison cell! Be grateful for obstacles and handicaps! They are your challenge to over-compensate-~o do better, so much better with such fierce determination and unstoppable persistence that success is inevitable! Surmounting your obstacles and overcoming your handicaps must become your «magnificent obsession"! Obstacles are sources of power which did not exist until the obstacles offered resistancel You are like a river. The river moves forward slowly in its channel and generates no power. Then, a dam ( an obstacle) is placed in the path of the river and stops it -just as you would be stopped by a large obstacle on your road to success. But what happens? The river is only stopped temporarily by the obstacle (the dam). The How of water builds up against the dam and forms a huge lake. 181
This creates a great reservoir of power which did not exist before the obstacle in the form of the dam was encountered by the slowly moving river. The· obstacle (the dam) created a new, vast reservoir of power so great that it operates a hydroelectric plant generating enough electricity to serve a large city and all of the surrounding countrySide I And so in your life, you will find that obstacles are sources of power which did not exist-until the obstacle blocked your way to success! Learn to use the power created by obstacles just as all successful men and women do. The brief examples on the preceding pages tell how others have used the obstacles and handicaps in their lives to achieve greatness. That same power, that same opportunity to tum obstacles into terrific personal power is available to you, as it is available to everyone. Your obstacles, your handicaps are your challenge to over-compensate-to surmount your obstacles and to overcome your handicaps with such fierce determination and such unstoppable persistance that you will be much more successful than if you had not been challenged by your obstacles and handicaps. Never again think of obstacles or handicaps as hindrances-think of them as power-generators! Because ... that's exactly what they arel More power to you!
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Chapter 56
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What Do You Want? Act AS IF You Already Have Received It And Give Thanks! The world is a stage and all people are actors playing their self-chosen parts. This concept of life and living has often been repeated in literature (Shakespeare in As You Like It, Thomas Heywood in Apology for Actors, Montaigne in Of The Most Excellent Men-to mention a few great writers who described the world as a stage and all people as actors). Whatever literary merit this concept may have, I prefer its use in psychology. Frankly, I believe that "role playing" or "play acting" gives focus to life and that by ACTING AS IF you already have received intensely sought personal qualities or possessions you actually win acquire them. Especially, if you are thankful for them, do you activate the Univet'sal
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Law of Consistency, as described elsewhere in my books. The Bible plainly teaches that you should ACT AS IF you already have received that which you wantand give thanks for it. Then, that which you want shan be given unto you. The Bible says sol If modem religion would use this Biblical teaching instead of exhorting compliance FIRST with denominational doctrine, there would be a world religious revival which would encompass millions of people who are not now attracted to the preconditions of denominational doctrine. This ACTING AS IF and GIVING THANKS as a means of communicating with an Infinite Source of Abundance, is recommended by the Wise Men throughout the history of thought. It is everywhere-in religion, in history, in literature and in psychology. It may seem strange or mystical to those who are not familiar with it, but any principle which is so extraordinary and yet so universal throughout all history must have credibility. The great psychologist, William James of Harvard, was a constant advocate of the principle: ACT AS IF. Among other uses, William James taught the use of ACTING AS IF to regulate feelings which cannot be controlled by will power. William James taught: "Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the ACTION, which is more directly under the control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the FEELING, which is not."
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Thus, psychologist William James teaches us that by ACTING AS IF we feel better, or feel happy, or feel confident, or feel inHu~ncial, or feel successful-we actually will cause ourselves to FEEL the way we ACT! Psychologist William James expresses it this way: «Thus, the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if your cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to ACT and speak AS IF cheerfulness were already there." It is relatively easier to ACT AS IF you feel than it is to ACT AS IF you receive. Obviously, this is not advice that you ACT in a ridiculous or foolhardy manner. Your actions must be believable to you before they will be accepted by others. If you use that as a rule, you can use the principle of ACTING AS IF to acquire what you want -without over-acting. Here's why: Your actions are controlled by your thoughts, your beliefs, your attitudes and your feelings. So, as long as your actions are reasonable and consistent with the foregoing, you can use the principle of ACTING AS IF «you are" and "you receive"-·without over-acting. For example: It is possible and desirable that you ACT AS IF you are a success-at least to the extent that you demonstrate a success attitude in your manner and content of speech, in dressing and grooming to achieve the most successful appearance possible, in your choice of the most successful associates, in eating at restaurants frequented by successful people (you can choose the most inexpensive items on the menu and limit the quantity), and by doing everything possible to build your success image. 185
You can think up and do an almost unlimited number of things to demonstrate a success attitude and to build your success image. I personally can assure you that it can be done -because I did it when I was a very young man, starting out without anything! In fact, my qualifications and assets were something less than zero! Yet, I often "dined" at restaurants which were frequented by the most successful people. I ate soup. Period! Just soup. On account of my diet (financial diet!). But I was there and I saw, was seen by, and increasingly met more and more successful people. Just by eating soup! And that is just one small example. Now, let us consider the miraculous power of GIVING THANKS IN ADVANCE. When you sincerely and intensely are thankful for something which you do not yet have but which you confidently believe you will receive, and ACT AS IF you have received it-the Universal Law of Consistency will provide it. Otherwise, there would be no consistency and the Universal Law of Consistency would have failed. No Universal Law can fail-ever! Let me cite another personal experience. For twenty-five years, I had smoked three packages of cigarettes a day. I was as addicted a cigarette smoker as anyone could be. I would not even answer the telephone until I lit a fresh cigarette. Often, I noticed to my embarrassment that I had two cigarettes burning at the same time. So, I decided that, after smoking three packages of cigarettes a day for 25 years, I had made my"smoking quota"-and would never smoke again.
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Well, you have heard all the horror stories of the difficulty of an addicted smoker trying to quit. I stopped smoking instantly and forever with no "withdrawal discomfort" at aU. I carried an open package of cigarettes in my pocket, had an open package in front of me on my desk at the office and on my chairs ide table at home. I furnished cigarettes to my friends and even lit them. But I never smoked another cigarette, cigar or pipe. What was my secret method? No secret. It's right in this chapter. I gave THANKS IN ADVANCE for the will power not to want to smoke. Anytime I felt the slightest desire to smoke, I said silently to myseH, c'Thank you, God, for the will power not to want to smoke". It is an impossibility to thank God for the will power not to want to smoke-and then want to smokeand actually smoke. It Simply cannot be done if you are sincere and honest in your little prayer of thanksgiving. Call it an answer to prayer if you like. Or call it the infallible Law of Consistency. (They are the same.) If you sincerely and honestly were thankful (especially to God) for the will power not to want to smoke, it would be so clearly inconsistent for you then to want to smoke that smoking would be impossible and completely undesirable. It has been so in my case for many years-although I have no objection to others smoking, and I furnish them cigarettes and I light their cigarettes for them. I have no desire whatever to smoke again, myself, although I have no special medical or other reason not to. This may be one of the most helpful chapter-
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lessons you ever will read-so let us review it in a brief summary with some additional explanations: (1) Think, as have the Wise Men throughout history, that the world is a stage and all people are actors playing their self-chosen parts. (2) You choose the part you play and, by ACTING AS IF, you actually develop the personality and character, and acquire the possessions consistent with the part in life you have chosen to play. (3) In ACTING AS IF, you must believe that you actually acqUire the personality, character and possessions consistent with the part you have chosen to play in life. The Bible teaches: "Whatsoever things ye ask for when ye pray, believe that ye RECEIVE them, and ye shall have them." ASK! ... BELIEVE I ... GIVE THANKS I ( 4) Not only should you believe that you RECENE the personality, character and possessions consistent with the part you have chosen to play in life, but you must GIVE THANKS IN ADVANCE as though you are receiving or already have received them. Thus you activate the Universal Law of Consistency which will cause your pm:sonality, character and possessions to become consistent with your ACTING AS IF ... intensified by your belief . . . reinforced by your giving thanks for what you are receiving or already have received. (5) Your ACTING AS IF must be believable to you before it will be accepted by others. Your actions are controlled by your thoughts, your beliefs, your attitudes and your feelings. So, as long as your actions are reasonable and consistent with the foregOing, you can use the principle
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of ACTING AS IF "you are" and "you receive" without over-acting. lt would be inconsistent and therefore impossible for you to act in a ridiculous or foolhardy manner which was contrary to your controlling thoughts and beliefs. Remember, you are "acting out" your BELIEF that you are becoming-or have become-the kind of person you want to be. lt is your BELIEVING expressed in ACTION which will make it sol ( 6) Having reviewed the basic principles, it now is most important that you re-study this complete chapter-lesson. You may have to re-read it many times. If this is necessary in order for you to thoroughly understand it and start using it immediately-by all means, do sol Your entire future may depend on itl
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Chapter 57
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Here Is The EASY Way For You To Get Richer ... Quicker! The ONLY way for you to get richer qUicker is for you to learn and use proven success methods. This book and my other books in the Proven Success Methods Library will teach you HOW to get richer quicker and HOW to get whatever you want in life. But, success has two requirements: ( 1) Success first requires that you know how; (2) Success then requires that you do now! The first requirement-that you learn HOW to succeed-already has been made easy for you by my 40 years of researching, testing, and now publishing every proven success method which I could find in 40 years of intensive research ... more than a thousand proven success methods. So, the first requirement: KNOWING HOW already has been made easy for you. You simply read ... 190
and learn. The second requirement for success is that you DO NOW-that you USE the proven success methods as you learn them. And, that you start using them NOWI Here's how you can make your DOING NOW easy, too. You have a built-in energy generator. It is called DESIRE. If you DESIRE something enough-nothing can prevent your getting itl In my book, Here's Help, is a chapter on: "The Power Of CARING ENOUGHI" In it, I quoted William James, the Harvard philosopher and psycholOgist, and perhaps the greatest thinker of modem times, who wrote: ,clf you only CARE ENOUGH for the result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good. Only you must really wish (INTENSELY DESIRE) these things:' Note that you must "really wish"; you must "care enough"; you must INTENSELY DESIRE! Simply by using your built-in energy generator called DESIRE-you generate the energy, you stimulate the motivation, you activate the will power-all of which combine to make it easy to USE the proven success methods which will make you richer ... qUicker! So what was impossible without DESIRE, becomes easy with DESIRE! It is a lot easier to do something you want to do than it is to try to do something you do not want to do! That applies to everything in life, but it applies especially to getting richer quicker!
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Once you get started, getting richer quicker gets easier and easier. It is a Universal Law that money attracts money. As soon as you accumulate some money, it immediately will' attract more money. This is because money, itself; provides the means of doing things which could not be done without money. Havihg the means (money) opens doors of opportunity which could not be opened otherwise. And, as you multiply your opportunities, you pyramid your gains. You get richer . .. qUicker! It begins with your learning proven success methods . . . then using them . . . powered by your built-in energy generator, DESIRE . . . which makes it easy because you want to do it. Then, as they say at space-ship lift-offs: "AU systems are GOr' You. are on your way to your target ... getting
richer . . . qUicker!
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Chapter 58 Get Richer ••• Quicker/
ASK! ... And You Shall Succeed! Those Who FIND OUT Get Richer ... Quicker There is a saying: "The world belongs to those who find out." Well, finding out is not enough-but that's the way to start! H you can find out what's wrong, and then find out how to fix it-you're half-way there. When you USE what you have found out to actually fix what is wrong, you're all the way therel H you make a career of finding out what is wrong, finding out how to fix it, then actually fixing ityou'll get richer qUicker! If you make a career of finding out what people want, or will want, or can be persuaded to want, and finding out how to provide it, then providing it at a fair profit -you'll get richer quicker!
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Examples could go on indefinitely, but the lesson already is clear: First, you have to FIND OUTI It often has been said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." So it is. And I want to add: "Too little knowledge leads to disasterl" Therefore, this chapter-lesson is on the proven success method of FINDING OUT. There is only one way to find out and that is to ASK: ( 1) You can ask people, or (2 ) You can ask books. You should-you must-ask both. You now are asking this book what are some of the thousand proven success methods which will enable you to get richer quicker. So we shall assume you know how to FIND OUT by asking books. You now are doing it. So, let's focus on how you can FIND OUT by
asking people. The method is simple: Just ASK. If you ASK courteously and expectantly, most people will give you the information you want. It is positively remarkable how much valuable and useful information you can get just by ASKING. This seems so elementary that you may wonder why I should mention it at all. The reason is that few people make full use of ASKING, and most people seldom use the proven success method of ASKING at all! Listen to any conversation-and recall your own-and you will find that conversations, at all levels, consist almost entirely of people making statements.
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Yet when you make a statement, you do not learn anything! Usually, you don't accomplish anything, eitherl Try this: See how many interesting questions you can ask during every conversation for an entire week-starting now. Even try to carry your part of a conversation entirely (or almost entirely) by asking questions! This is a real challenge-and it has an important purpose. It will quickly teach you the valuable art of asking questions. It also will teach you to stimulate the person or persons with whom you are talking-instead of only haH-listening to what they are saying because you are already thinking of what you want to say next. In social conversations, you need ask only the simplest questions: "What did you do next?" «Then, what happened?" ?" "What do you think about "How do you think would be the best way to do it?" ?" "What is your idea concerning You could make a list of a hundred such questions. It would be useful if you did-for practice and for the list, itseH, which should be reviewed occasionally as a reminder. By using the art of asking questions as the principal part of your social conversations, you quickly will gain the reputation of being the most interesting and stimulating conversationalist in town.
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But that's only the beginningl When you master the art of asking questions -and use it with purpose in business-you will be able to accomplish two valuable objectives: (1) You will FIND OUT whatever you need to know. (2 ) You will control every interview because it will consist of answering your questions (and you control the questions). You can ASK your way to success I One of my proven success methods books, How To Get Whatever You Want, has an entire section on the successful methods of ASKING. Here is one of the many suggestions from that book: ASK for expert opinions about your plans or problems. Ask the experts for their critical opinions. (Most people ask for opinions when what they really want is Hattery.) Polish your plans with the experts" ideas! You will be pleasantly surprised by the willingness of most experts to give you valuable advice free, when asked under the following conditions: ( a) If the request is obviously not an attempt to· get free professional counseling for which the expert normally receives large fees. (b) If the requested advice can be given spontaneously without time-consuming research. Learn and use successful ASKING methods and you will become an expert at getting richer quicker.
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Chapter 59
Get Richer ... Quicker!
Two "Magic" Words Which Will Make You Popular Everywhere! From the preceding chapter, you learned a proven success method which uses the highly effective technique of ASKING. In fact, you learned that you can literally ASK your way to success! And, so you can. But that does not preclude your using other different-and seemingly opposite-proven success methods. In my forty years of researching proven success methods, I tested and compiled over a thousand methods, each of which is different from, although sometimes related to, other success methods, all available from my books for your use as proven success techniques. You can choose the methods which best suit your purpose.
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This gives you a broad range of options. You are not limited to just one way to succeed. You can choose, from a thousand proven success methods, those methods which are best suited to your own personality and situation -and which you feel will most quickly attain your goal. All of the success methods in my books have been tested and proven. So it is not a question of which will work but of your choosing the methods (any combination of them) which you can learn to use most effectively to reach your goal as qUickly as possible. As its title implies, it is the purpose of this book to enable you to succeed ... QUICKER! SO you are given many proven success methods from which to choose. There is not just one narrow road to success-but there are many high-speed super highways and you should choose the routes best suited to you. This explains why, in the preceding chapter, you were taught how to ASK your way to success, and in this chapter, you will learn how to TALK your way to success-with the skillful, frequent use of two "magic" words. These simply are two different methods. You can choose between them-or you can combine them into an even more effective success method. So, let's proceed now with the lesson of this chapter: "Two Magic Words Which Will Make You Popular Everywhere!" The two words are not really "magic" in any supernatural sense, but their use by you will so miraculously increase your popularity that you will agree that these two words work "like magic".
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The two "magic" words are: "I like . .." It is how you use the words, "I like . . ." which will cause your personal popularity to skyrocket no matter how popular you already arel Here's how to use the magic of: «I like . ..~~ Frankly and Sincerely say that you like as many of another's personal qualities, accomplishments and possessions as you pOSSibly can, at every opportunity, whenever you are with... or telephone... or write that person. Then, do this with everyone-every time-you are with . . . or telephone . . . or write . . . every person. That's all there is to it-but it is popularity dynamite! It should be clear enough, as just explained, but just to impress it deeply into your mind, re-read the foregOing explanation several times. Here are a few examples: You meet a woman acquaintance and, after a cordial greeting, you enthusiastically say, "I like that new dress!" (Or hat, coat, hairstyle, or whatever you think your acquaintance would like to have complimented.) Later, if you have occasion to telephone or write her, say or write, "1 liked the (descriptive) dress you were wearing the other day when we met." Or, when visiting in a home, enthusiastically say, "I like your living room arrangement." (Continue briefly telling what you especially like about it.) Or, in a telephone call, "I like your daughter. She impresses me." (Continue enthusiastically to tell how the daughter favorably impresses you).
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Or, employer to file clerk: "I like the way you take care of our filing." (State specific instances. ) That should be enough examples to explain the popularity success method of: "I like . . ." The method is for you to say, "I like . . :' at every opportunity-to everybody. No exceptions! To everybody! If something about which you can say, "I like . . ." is not readily apparent-look for it or try to think of something about which you can say, "I like . . :' This method, to be totally successful, requires that you find something to like about everybody-and that you find many personal qualities, accomplishments and possessions about which you can enthusiastically say, "I like . . :' at every opportunity. The more often you say, "I like ...", the more people will like you in return. Remember, you cannot succeed alone. You only can succeed with the friendly cooperation of many people who like you enough to want to help you succeed! Being liked will open many "doors" which will make it easier for you to get RICHER . .. QUICKER!
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Chapter 60
Get Richer ..• Quicker1
Here's How You Can Use The Amazing '~AW OF INCREASE" Charles Fillmore was one of the foremost recent teachers of the Law of Increase, but this Universal Law was taught back in the days of the Old Testament of the Bible, and records show its use long before that. The Law of Increase, simply stated, is: "You INCREASE or IMPROVE whatever you PRAISE." The remarkable increase or improvement resulting from PRAISE is explained in detail in my book, Thoughts To Build On, so we shall take space here for just a few examples: ( 1) Scientific tests show that school children get better than average grades when their work is praised, but get very poor grades when they are frequently criticized. (2) Business associates will cooperate with you, and employees will do much better work, when they 201
are praised, but will be uncooperative and resentful if they are criticized. You can greatly increase the productivity, efficiency and effectiveness of an eI).tire business organization by freely using PRAISE which doesn't cost you a centl It is the Law of Increase: "You INCREASE or
IMPROVE whatever you PRAISE." (3) At every opportunity, praise your family, friends, acquaintances-everybody! They will think you are wonderful and be eager to be with you. As psychologist William James taught: "The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated." What better way to tell people that you appreciate them-than PRAISE?" You simply use the Law of Increase to increase
your popularity and improve your relationships with everybody! Easy, isn't it? And, there's more! When you use every opportunity to PRAISE everybody-you actually eliminate anx-
iety, fear and emotional depression from your own life! You are assured of that by one of the greatest psychiatrists, Dr. Alfred Alder, who advised his patients who were the unhappy victims of anxieties, fears and depreSSions: "You can be cured in fourteen days if you think constantly how .. you can p1ease someone. How is the best way to please someone? Psychologist William James taught: "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." PRAISE I Not only does the Law of Increase work with people, but it certainly influences animals. Many people 202
believe it influences crops and plants. And, now, science has proven that PRAISE improves everything! Let's have a closer look. The Law of Increase is: "You INCREASE or IMPROVE whatever you PRAISE." Animal trainers-including trainers of wild animals, domestic animals and small pets-all use PRAISE reinforced by REWARD to increase and improve the obedience and performance of the animals they train. When the animal being trained responds properly, it is enthusiastically PRAISED, then REWARDED with its favorite delicacy. Always this causes the animal to increase compliance and improve performance. While I personally have no scientific proof of the effectiveness of applying the Law of Increase to crops, there are tens of thousands of farmers who PRAISE the growth and abundance of their crops daily from planting through harvest. If they did not have reason to believe it works, they surely would not continue to do it year after year. But they do; by the thousands! There are millions of housewives who will testify that loving PRAISE makes their houseplants grow more luxuriantly! And Dr. J. B. Rhine's years of testing at Duke University confirms what many scientists have long believed: "Mind does influence matter." PRAISE INFLUENCES EVERYTHING! The Law of Increase gives you tremendous power, including the means of increasing your success and wealth-and making you RICHER ... QUICKER! 203
Chapter 61
Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Be A GOOD NEWS Reporter And All "Doors" Will Open For You! You will get richer qUicker if you are welcome everywhere! Why? Because the more welcome you are as a guest, as a friend, as a business associat~the more "doors" you can open and go through. I often have described success as the ability to open all "doors" to opportunities, contacts, alliances-to the treasure rooms of success and wealth. When your presence is so eagerly sought that others enthusiastically open the «doors" for you, your influence, success and wealth are assured. Throughout history, the people who have been welcomed everywhere, always, under all circumstances, by everybody-are those who brought GOOD NEWS! In ancient times, messengers who brought bad 204
news, such as the loss of a battle, were executed! That should be held in your mind' as a constant reminder of the degree of displeasure toward people who bring-or even bring up-bad news! No, in these enlightened days of tolerance, you will not be executed if you are a persistent source of bad news. You will be fired! Or SOCially avoided! Notice that you do not have to cause the bad news. You merely have to regularly transmit bad news, bring up unpleasant topics, disagreeable subjects-to be fired, or shunned and avoided like a plague. And, in a real sense, if you usually bring bad news, discuss unpleasant topics, dwell on disagreeable subjects-you will be a plague! And definitely treated like one! This may not be fair. There is a "need to know" -for better or for worse. We all should face up to our problems-the sooner, the better. We should not ostrichlike, hide our heads in the sand. "Life is a problem-solving adventure! We must welcome problems as challenges! Let it rainr I have written that in my books, magazine articles and syndicated newspaper articles. I shall continue to do so. Because it is true and we need constantly to be reminded of it. But we solve problems with facts. So let us apply the facts to the problem of transmitting bad news. It is a fact that bad news, unpleasant topics and disagreeable subjects have all of the charm of an activated skunk. And your having associated with a skunk is a fact that will linger long after you have put the skunk aside! It also is a fact that bad news will travel fast 205
enough without your volunteering to serve as broadcaster. So ... leave the bad news broadcasting to the multitude of eager doomsayers and scandal gossips. Instead, choose the financially and sOcially rewarding career of GOOD NEWS Reporter! (This will not interfere with your present work; it will enhance it/) Look for GOOD NEWS everywhere, in every situationl Remember that news usually is good or bad depending upon the point of view. Be an advocate of the GOOD NEWS side of the story. Once you really get into the spirit of being a GOOD NEWS Reporter, you will find good news everywherel But finding good news everywhere is only half of your career as a GOOD NEWS Reporter. The other half is reporting it to everybody on every occasion I That's when-and how-you begin to open "doors". As soon as people begin to associate you with GOOD NEWS, you will be welcome as a guest, as a friend, as a business associate. And, if you never disappoint them but always bring GOOD NEWS, you not only will be welcome, you
will be sought! You will not even have to open "doors", yourseH-others eagerly will open for you the "doors" to valuable opportunities, influential contacts, powerful alliances ... "doors" to the treasure rooms of success and wealth! It's a pleasant way to get richer . . . quicker!
Chapter 62
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The
'~Squeaking Wheel'~
No Longer "Gets The Grease"
The world has an over-abundance of chronic complainers who must think that the old cliche that "the squeaking wheel gets the grease" was one of the Ten Commandments. So they continue their chorus of complaints, gripes and grievances. They are the "squeaking wheels" who think if they "squeak" loudly enough and long enough, they will get "the grease" in the form of special benefits to temporarily quiet them. And, having been rewarded in the past merely for "squeaking", they are tempted to think it will payoff in the present. 'Not so! We now know that it is more pleasant, more efficient and more economical to replace the repeatedly "squeaking wheel" with one which causes less friction and less annoyance.
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Let all "squeaking wheelS' (including professionals) take note. Hereafter, the only "grease" they will get will be to expedite their exit through that one-way door marked: OUTI We are fed up with chronic complainers. We no longer shall waste time in deferential sufferance of the vanity of self-appointed or "adversary-advocate" grievance committees. As for the professional complainers, let them terminate their lucrative careers by complaining to their constituencies that everybody just found out that problems
are not solved by adversary complaints but by cooperative solutions. A proven success method now used by most knowledgeable executives is that no problem or complaint is to be submitted to them unless accompanied by a feasi-
ble solution, preferably with alternative solutions. This eliminates "gripe sessions" altogetherand replaces them with problem-solving workshops. It "changes the climate". It prOvides a fresh, stimulating atmosphere where ideas sparkle, unobscured by gloom. The irritating whine of "squeaking wheels" will be gone, replaced by the harmony of creative suggestions for improving the latest improvement I
While everybody gets richer . .. quicker!
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Chapter 68 Get Richer ••• Quicker!
Be A Spirit Lifter! Remember in the first section of this book you learned that 81 % of all jobs in the near-future would be "personal-services-to-people" jobs. Because DEALING WITH PEOPLE is the field in which almost all of the readers of this book can get richer quicker, most of the proven success methods taught in this book are specific techniques for succeeding with
people. Obviously, knowing how to succeed with people also will help the 3% of the work force who will be engaged in big corporate farming because they will need to deal with people in farm management, purchasing, marketing and almost every phase of operating their huge ••crop-f actones ." . And that also applies to the 16% of the work force which will be engaged in the computerized automated manufacturing of the future. This will require the greatest skills in people-cooperation and people-coordina209
tion because in this vast technological complex, peopleerrors will cost millions of dollars each! So, in all jobs in the years ahead, proven success methods for SUCCEEDING WITH PEOPLE are the absolute requirement for getting richer qUicker. One of the proven success methods for SUCCEEDING WITH PEOPLE is stated in the title of this chapter: "Be A Spirit Lifterl"
Most people are personally depressed at some time. Some are depressed all of the time; some are depressed most of the time; some are depressed occasionally. In every case, the feeling of personal depression-discouragement, dissatisfaction, lack of vitality, lack of enthusiasm, lack of eagerness-is very real; it is felt as a
"spiritual sickness'. The effect of personal depression is physical, mental and emotional. That adds up to "spiritual" which encompasses all. So "spiritual sickness" is a good name for personal depression. Therefore, this chapter-lesson on your being a SPIRIT LIFTER for others. As this and my other books frequently emphasize, your influence in dealing with people depends upon your being a source of what they need. Often, what they subconsciously need. For you to be a source of what others need, you first must know what they need. One thing you learned from this chapter is that people need to have their spirits
lifted. And how do you lift their spirits? You do as taught in a previous chapter: you 210
fulfill their "eager wants"-their deep subconscious needs. For starters, let's briefly review four "eager wants" which everyone has and which you can fulfill every time you see, phone or write every person. ( 1 ) FulIDI the "eager want" of everyone to be ADMIRED. Always enthusiastically express your sincere admiration of some quality or possession of everyone. You can find qualities or possessions of everyone which you sincerely can admire. Do itl This positive thinking will do you as much good as your expressed admiration will benefit the person admired. No one can feel depressed while being enthusiastically ADMIREDI (2) Fulfill the "eager want" of everyone to be APPRECIATED. The famous Harvard psychologist, William James, taught: "The deepest craving in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." Think often about the qualities or acts of others which you appreciate-and tell them frequently in person, by phone or in a letter. Noone can feel depressed while being en· thusiastically APPRECIATEDI ( 3) FuIml the "eager want' of everyone to feel IMPORTANT. Many psycholOgists and such great educators as John Dewey consider this to be the most powerful motivation because it is the principal drive behind ego-actions. Everyone is IMPORTANT in some way. Find it! And tell each person about it often. No one can feel depressed while receiving recognition of personal IMPORTANCE! ( 4) Fulfill the ..eager wan(~ of everyone to
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feel NEEDED. The feeling of being no longer needed is a major cause of personal depression. There is a need for everyone in this world of people-problems requiring personalhelp. Your greatest service as a SPIRIT LIFTER is convincing depressed people that they are needed-and then proving it by bringing together the depressed people and the situations in which their services are needed. No one can feel depressed if he or she personaUy is NEEDED to actively assist others in succeeding with their problems. If you begin by fulfilling these four "eager wants" of others, you will lift their spirits every time you see, phone or write them. You will be a SPIRIT LIFTER who is needed and sought by manyl It requires little imagination to visualize the tremendous personal magnetism you wiU radiate by constantly lifting the spirits of everyone within range of your personality. People will do almost anything to be ADMIRED, to be AP.PRECIATED, to be IMPORTANT, to be NEEDED. You be the one who constantly fulfills these c'eager wants" of others and they will do almost anything for youl One of the things they will eagerly do for you will be to help, in every way they can, enable you to attain whatever you want: success, wealth, influence, power, fame ... whatever you want! And that is a small price for them to pay for
admiration, appreciation, imporlance, feeling needed. People willingly pay much morel
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Consider the billions of dollars spent annually for clothing, cosmetics, jewelry, and the hundreds of items with which all people seek ADMIRATION. Consider the billions of activities all people engage in annually to earn some APPRECIATION. Consider that people will do (and have done) literally anything to feel IMPORTANT. They murder, riot, steal, vandalize, cause anything from wars to panics-to feel IMPORTANT. That's on the negative side. On the positive side they devote lifetimes to studies, research, careers in countless endeavors-to feel IMPORTANT. Consider that people, by the thousands, have committed suicide because they no longer felt NEEDED. And for each thousand people who deliberately take their lives, there are millions more who simply drop out and die a lingering death of depression and remorseL-because they no longer feel NEEDED. Being a SPIRIT LIFTER is no inconsequential thing. You wiU be handling emotional dynamite! You will be using the unlimited power of the subconscious! And yet, you can do it so simply, so easily! Like this: Whenever you are with someone, or telephone someone, or write someone-you visualize what you can say which will make that person feel ADMIRED, feel APPRECIATED, feel IMPORTANT, feel NEEDED. Then sincerely and enthUSiastically say itl I cannot tell you what specific words to use. You will have to select the most appropriate and most effective words for each different person. It will help you at first to list each person's
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name at the top of a page of a notebook, then write under each name an appropriate list of things to say which will make that person feel admired, feel appreciated, feel important, feel needed. Then say those things to that person whenever you see, phone or write him or her. Review Chapter 46: "How To Multiply Your Effectiveness· By Becoming A Telephone Personality." Then use the telephone techniques taught in that chapter to become a SPIRIT LIFTER. Use your telephone as your goodwill broadcasting microphone to lift the spirits of at least three people every day. Review Chapter 61: "Be A Good News Reporter" and. use the exciting methods taught in that chapter to lift the spirits of everyone you meet, phone or write. Just begin every conversation with: "Did you hear the good news about ... ?" Or: "Isn't it good news that ... ?" You can find many other chapters in this book and in my other books which will help you be a SPIRIT LIFTER. Being a SPIRIT LIFTER requires some thought and effort-but your reward will be eager help and cooperation in your getting whatever you want in life! And . . . to the extent you lift the spirits of others-YOU LIFT YOUR OWNI
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Do Unto Yourself What Your Competitor Will Do Unto You! But Do It First! The following proven success method will enable any business to get ahead and stay ahead of all competition by using "imaginary proiection", First, here is some useful background: In my other books of proven success methods, I conSistently have advocated the use of «imaginary projection" to enable my readers to «externalize" themselves in order to "see themselves from the outside", As proof of how effective I think "imaginary projection" is, there are three chapters in my book, Thoughts To Build On, which teach highly useful forms of «imaginary protection": One chapter, «Practice (In Your Imagination) Makes Perfect", teaches how professionals in all sports practice in their imaginations to perfect their champion215
ship form. You can use this method in all activities. Another chapter, "Be Your Own Ghost", teaches how you can, in your imagination, visualize the cereal you" standing outside your own body and critically watching you perform each daily task. This is one of the most effective forms of self-improvement. Another chapter in my SO-chapter book, Thoughts To Build On, is titled "Externalize YourseH, Don't Exist", That chapter teaches how to replace SELFconsciousness with OTHERS-consciousness-with remarkable results! And there is a three-chapter section in my book, Here's Help, which expands on psychologist William James' teaching of the "imaginary projection" of AS IF, which is one of the most effective methods in success psychology. The purpose of the preceding references is to show that "imaginary projection" can be and actually is being used to greatly improve performance in the lives of individuals who use it. Now, let us progress from the use of "imaginary projection" by individuals to its highly profitable use in business. The title of this chapter states the principle: "Do Unto Yourself What Your Competitor Will Do Unto Youl But Do It Firstr What does that mean? How do you do it in your business? Here's how: (1) First, imagine that YOU are your competitor (your most progressive competitor). 216
(2) Next, as your imaginary competitor, what would YOU do to get ahead of youP Make a written list of every weakness in your business which you, if you were your competition, would take advantage of. Imagine, if you were your competitor~ what would you do to get ahead of YOUP Your list of what you, as your competitor, would do to get ahead of YOU will consist of: (a) All weaknesses in your business which a competitor could take advantage of. (b) All conceivable new ideas (competitive «scoops") which your competitor could put into effect FIRST and thus get ahead or stay ahead of you. you do an innovative and comprehensive job of imagining what you would do to YOU~ if you were your most progressive competitor-you will actually have a list of what you must do FIRST~ before your competitor does it to youl ( S) Then, using your list as a guide, immediately DO all the things on your list. ( a) Immediately correct every weakness. (b) Immediately put into effect every new idea (competitive "scoop") before your competitor does. ( c) Do it FIRST-before your competitor does-and do it to your own advantage! Every business should assign to its best "idea man" the responsibility of being its imaginary competitor. This "idea man" imaginary competitor should submit frequent written reports to management-reports titled: "If I Were Our Competitor, This Is What I Would Do To Get Ahead Of Us'.
n
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This report then would list every conceivable thing your most progressive competitor could do to get ahead or stay ahead of you. Your "idea man" imaginary competitor should subject every idea to each of the 61 Magic Questions listed in Chapter 13 of this book. The use of "imaginary projection" in business, as taught in this chapter, can put what Walter Chrysler called "imagineering" into your business. And, being your own imaginary competitor is a challenging and an idea-stimulating concept which will SPARK IDEAS that will enable you to get ahead and stay ahead of competition. It is a sure way to GET RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Unless You Increasingly Do It Better-You Will Not Be Asked To Do It Again! The name of the game-in business and in life is-IMPROVE I The title of this chapter sums it up: "Unless you increasingly do it better-you will not be asked to do it again." Consider the ultimate: To be great! No person ever became great by doing what others could do just as well. You have to do it better! Now consider, just the commonplace: Not to be great, but merely to maintain your present position in business, in your community and in life. As Alice in Wonderland discovered: you have to keep running fust to stay in the same place! A business must constantly improve its products and/or its services at a competitive price-or other
219
companies will gradually or overwhelmingly put the unprogressive company out of business. It is not enough to continue present company products, services and performance. A company must constantly improve. A Universal Law is: Make progress or stand aside. Or be pushed aside! The three requirements of success are: Improve! ... Improve! ... Improve! That applies not only to companies but to individuals-at all levels-at work, at home, at school, in their community or group activities, in life. You must constantly improve! You must constantly do better! You must have ideas, plans, suggestions for progress-and implement them with your own increasing effort. Constantly! Work and live by the demonstrated success method of billionaire J. Paul Getty: "Try harder!" How? As recommended in this book: Think up! ... Write down! . . . Speak out! Improve! ... Improvel ... Improve! Because, unless you increasingly do it betteryou will not be asked to do it again! But if you DO increasingly do it better-businesses will bid for your services by offering you increasingly greater compensation. You will surely GET RICHER ... QUICKER!
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IDEAS Are What The United States Are Made Of! This nation is not just a conglomerate of people, resources, buildings-held together by an inefficient bureaucratic government under a Constitution no more stable than its frequent reinterpretation by a changing Supreme Court. All of those components of this nation-with all their natural faults and weaknesses-still add up to the richest and most powerful nation in the world! What magic has produced such a gigantic miracle in just 200 years? Some years ago, the New Yorker said it best: «IDEAS are what the United States are made of." There you have itl The magic key to greatness -whether it be the greatness of a nation, a company, or an individual! IDEAS I IDEA POWERI
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The people of the United States have produced, promoted and capitalized on more useful, valuable, productive IDEAS than people any place else in the world! Yes, our forefathers populated and developed a land rich in natural resources-but other countries are rich in natural resources, too. We do not have a monopoly on or even a sufficiency of essential resources-as is clearly evident by our necessarily vast imports. Most of us believe that we have the best form of government in spite of our propensity for compounding inefficient, incredibly wasteful bureaucracies. But ours may not be the best form of government for all other nations under their different present circumstances-and, hopefully, we shall not consider it a precondition for international friendship and cooperation. While no one should deny that hard work contributed much to the early building of this nation, we have, for many years, worked less hard . . . for fewer hours . . . and much higher wages than any people on this earth. So ... giving due credit to many other assets, the fact is that the greatness of this nation is principally the result of IDEAS ... beginning with the ideas of those wise men who wrote our Constitution and founded a form of government "of the people, by the people and for the
people". For two centuries, the people of this nation have been using IDEAS as building blocks, until today our people have built the greatest, richest, most powerful nation in the world. Let us not forget how this nation was built. It was built by IDEAS. Not only by the ideas of a few great 222
geniuses, but by the ideas of millions of people in all occupations-people who thought up ... wrote down ... . . . spoke out. We need to remember that! This nation is depleting its once "unlimited" supply of natural resources at an appalling rate. To the extent that we deplete our natural resources, we must replace them with creative resources. IDEA POWER! To the degree that we fail to replace our declining natural resources with the equivalent in creative resources, we shall decline as a world power. This nation needs an IDEA EXPLOSION! And we need it NOW!
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Yon Cannot Safely Speed Forward While Regretfully Looking Backward Most people live out their entire lives, existing in circumstances which "happened" to them in the past. Their lives are a continuation of what ''happened" to them and they feel that they are "victims of circumstances", products of heredity and environment. That simply is not sol At least, it need not be so! As Harry Emerson Fosdick so wisely taught, "Life consists not Simply in what heredity and environment do to us-but in what we make out of what they do to us:' Your present and your future need not be controlled by heredity, nor past environment, nor past events. Instead of existing in circumstances which ''happened'' to you-beginning right now, YOU start '·happening" to circumstances! Take controll By your ·'happening" to circumstances, you dominate and mold them to your will. 224
You cannot safely speed forward while you are regretfully looking backward. So do not keep looking over your shoulder at the past. The past is over and done withl The faster you speed forward, the farther you leave the past behind and the more dim all past events will become until past mistakes and past sorrows become blurs which fade into the distant haze. It is like climbing a mountain to reach your goal at the top. The higher you climb, the deeper become the shadows of the valley you have left. Then, as the past vanishes in the darkness of the distant valley below, the higher path ahead becomes brighter in the sunlight on the highest peak which is your goal. So do not look back into the shadows of the past. Speed straight ahead to your goal and leave the shadows behind. You cannot safely speed forward while you are regretfully looking backward!
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The Magic Password To Success Is: FIRST! In my forty years of researching proven success methods, there was one word which seemed to be almost a "magic" password to success. That "magic" password to success is: FIRST. Here are examples from my books on proven success methods. Note that the trigger-word is "FIRST": ( 1) The way to get others to cooperate with you in doing what you want to do, is FIRST to help them do what they want to do. OHer your cooperation FIRST. (2) The way to start a conversation, even with a stranger, is to ask a courteous question FIRST. ( 3) The only way you can be a leader is to be FIRST. You have to stay ahead to be a leader. ( 4) The way to avoid costly mistakes is to ask FIRST ... and get the facts FIRST ... consider all possible alternatives FIRST. 226
(5) The way to deal with trouble is to prepare for it FIRST. ( 6) The only way to really be accepted is to deserve acceptance FIRST. (7) The way to a higher income is to make yourself more valuable FIRST. ( 8) The way to improve your performance is to practice in your imagination FIRST. (9) The way to solve a complex problem is to divide it into simple, solvable parts FIRST. ( 10) The way to survive is to adjust to your environment FIRST. (Then begin improving on your adjusted situation.) ( 11) The way to succeed with everyone is FIRST to make them feel appreciated, feel admired, feel important, feel needed. ( 12) The method of developing a magnetic personality is FIRST to generate an "inner glow» so that you can radiate an "outer glow»-which will be your magnetism to irresistibly attract others. ( 13) The secret "success-timing» is to get there FIRST ... propose it FIRST ... do it FIRST. ( 14) The way to get credit (and rewards) for your ideas is to be the FIRST to think up ... write down ... speak out. ( 15) The way to inspire and motivate others is FIRST give them hope. Only if they FIRST have hope, will people exert the effort to progress. ( 16) In order to learn from failure and "fail your way to success", you FIRST must learn to fail forward. Failures are lessons, not disgraces. 227
( 17) Before you can succeed at all, you FIRST must believe. William James, the famed philosopher and psychologist at Harvard, taught: "Belief creates the actual fact." You FIRST must believe I ( 18) To get others to give you what you want or do what you want, you FIRST must ask them. Most people will do what they are asked if the proper asking-technique is used. ( 19) The way to negotiate successfully is FIRST to agree enthusiastically on as many points as possible (including all points which can be conceded without substantial loss ) . (20) The way to materialize your intense desire into reality through the unlimited power of your subconscious mind is FIRST to express your desire in a 2second goal command to your subconscious, repeated hundreds of times every day. (21) The way to conquer fear is FIRST to "desensitize" the fear impulse by deliberately doing the thing you fear-conSciously and repeatedly-until the fear is "exhausted" by what is called Desensitization Therapy. (22) The way to acquire terrific power-withpeople is FIRST to become a "source of fulfillment'~ of the compelling subconscious needs of everyone within your expanding personal world. (23) The Law of Abundance requires that FIRST you must plant before you can reap an abundant harvest of what you want which you FIRST "planted" as intense mental pictures in your subconscious mind. (24) If you want to attract money, FIRST you must "think rich~~.
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(25) If you want to be successful, FIRST you must think, feel and act AS IF you already are successful. (26) If you want the goodwill of others, FIRST you must express your goodwill toward them. (27) If you want to attract friends, FIRST you must offer your friendship. (28) If you want to be loved, FIRST you must love. ( 29 ) If you want to achieve the advancedmental-emotional-spirituallevel of the Quiet Mind, FIRST you must learn eye-relaxation and how to "'black-out" or «blank-out" disturbing mental pictures. ( 30) If you want to activate your personality, FIRST you must generate «motivational excitement." (31) One of the most effective methods of self-improvement is FIRST to create an imaginary "constant companion" of your "ideal you". (32) If you want to build a strong and calm character, FIRST you must condition yourself not to emotionalize trouble. ( 33) The way to avoid being upset and irritated by the selfish, egotistical, ungrateful people whom you will encounter daily, is FIRST to accept the fact that no one is perfect and to maintain an attitude of tolerance toward others so that you become insensitive to their human imperfections. ( 34) If you would reach the maturity of knowing that life is too brief to permit animosity, resentment and anger to add to your difficulties-you FIRST must learn that nothing will be gained by escalating trouble.
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( 35) H you want to reach the heights of success, you cannot "pull yourseH up by your own bootstraps". You must be lifted to success by your fellow men. So, you FIRST must make yourseH "easy to lift". (36) To become popular, successful and happy-you FIRST must use the 3-G Method: always, and to everyone, express (IG) Gratitude, (2G) Goodwill, ( 3G) Good wishes.
(37) You FIRST must give-before you will receive. ( 38) You FIRST must close the door on the past (about which you can do nothing), before you can open wide the door to the present (in which you can do everything!). «Now" is all there really is! ( 39) In order for families to stay together, they FIRST must laugh and play together. ( 40) The key to a happy and satisfying life is: FIRST make everyone feel better because of you. ( 41) Develop the maturity to welcome criticism as a sometimes malicious but usually a valuable teacher. FIRST sharpen your ideas on the grindstone of criticism. ( 42) H you want to maintain what famed psychiatrist Karl Menninger called "Vital Balance," you FIRST must learn from Kipling: "Meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same." Be serenely underwhelmedl ( 43) To generate and maintain the motivation and energy to achieve, you FIRST must activate the Power of Caring Enough.
(44) To use the preceding proven success
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methods, you FIRST must have the will power to make yourself do the thing you should do . . . when it ought to be done . . . whether you like it or not. SUMMARY: All of the preceding proven success methods are taught thoroughly and completely in my other books, so the only purpose in referring to them here is to emphasize that in order to succeed in any way, you FIRST must do something. This is a push-button world! You FIRST have to push the speCific button which will set in motion the desired success-activity. The lesson of this chapter is that to succeed, you must take the initiative-you must take the FIRST step. Success is attained only through the universal Law of Cause and Effect: you FIRST must do whatever is required to cause the desired effect: success. It is the purpose of this and my other books to teach you what you must do FIRST and how to do it FIRST to cause the effect: success. And it has been the purpose of this chapter to emphasize that success is not going to «happen" to youthe only success you ever will have must be ··caused". Every success will have to be caused by your FIRST using the success method required for that specific goal. Then the universal Law of Cause and Effect will GUARANTEE YOUR SUCCESS!
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Chapter 69 Get Richer •.. Quicker!
A Billionaire Gives You His Success Method For Getting Richer Quicker I witnessed an interview with billionaire J. Paul Getty. The purpose of the interview was to get directly from a billionaire his proven success method for
getting richer qUicker. If anybody should know about how to get richer quicker, it should be a billionaire who did itl The following instructions come from J. Paul Getty whose assets exceed one and a half billion dollars (equal to 1,500 millionaires). Here is J. Paul Getty's proven success method for getting richer qUicker. His billion-dollar method consists of only two words: "TRY HARDERI" That's it. Just TRY HARDER. It is so simple anybody can do it. And everybody shouldl 282
If that seems too simple, think it through to its ultimate conclusion: ( 1) First, you TRY HARDER ... (2) Then you TRY HARDER than that .. . (3) And you constantly TRY HARDER .. . and HARDER ... and HARDER! The result is that you compound your effort. And compounded effort is like compound interest. It expands at a terrific rate! The "get richer quicker" method of the superrich is known as "pyramiding". You can do it with money, investments, and with effort! When you TRY HARDER ... and then TRY HARDER than that . .. and pile the results of your constantly increasing efforts, each upon all the others, you are pyramiding your efforts. And when you pyramid your efforts, you pyramid your results, and you compound your profits. The acceleration in your assets will be enormous and the total result ... well, J. Paul Getty made one
and one-half billion dollars! His proven success method: TRY HARDER! The proven result: He got richer . .. qUicker!
Chapter 70
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Success Is COPING-Not Just HOPING! First, there must be hope-because when hope is lost, all is lost. Without hope, there can be no motivation. Without motivation, based on hope, there wnI be no constructive effort. Without constructive effort, resulting from motivation based on hope, there can be no accomplishment. So, first and constantly, there must be hope. Anyone who aspires to be a leader must learn that. The first act of a leader must be to instill hope-convincingly. Thereafter, his only function is to fulfill that
hope-totaUy. Leadership is just as simple as that. All else is window-dressing-for which is paid too high a price. Being simple does not mean being easy. Instilling hope-convincingly-is difficult. 234
People have been misled too often by too many. Fulfilling hope-totally-is much more difficult. But it can be done! Here's how: H oping must be taught and understood as the beginning of coping. Hoping and coping must be inseparable. They must be part of the same process-accomplishment. Hoping is the beginning and coping is the fulfillment. One must follow the other. Too often, people are given only hop~and soon are disillusioned and resentful. Too often, people are required to cope without hop~and life becomes a hopeless grind. They must have a leader who, like Moses, will constantly point to a Promised Land-and lead them there. That is the kind of leaders we need; leaders who will instill hope-convincingly-and who will fulfill hop~totally. They must do both. To do both, they must lead their followers to cope to fulfill their hope. No hope is impossible of fulfillment if those who hope are led to cope with whatever difficulties must be overcom~with intelligence, hard work, and relentless perserverance which will not quit until their hope is fulfilled. If you can provide that leadership, there are thousands of such opportunities-and you can fill in the amount on your own pay check!
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How You Can Become An Expert At PROBLEM SOLVING, The MostNeeded Skill! H you wanted a simple, uncomplicated life-you picked the wrong time to be born! The world has so many problems that even the problems are having problems! Maybe that's good. At least, it is a solid gold opportunity for those who are experts at solving problems. People who cannot solve their own problems are condemned to poverty. People who cannot solve other's problems are condemned to mediocrity. People who can solve their own and other's problems get richer . .. quicker! In a world :Glled with problems, if you cannot solve problems-who needs you? If you can solve problems, life becomes a problem-solving adventure filled with exciting challenges and big rewards!
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Here's how to become an expert at problem solving: First, understand that you do not have to decide IF a problem can be solved. There can be no problem for which a solution does npt exist. The fact that the problem exists is, itself, proof that there also is a solution-because the problem and its solution are parts of the same whole. Just as a circle must have a center, a rectangle must have an area, a force must have a cause (and an effect) ... a problem must have a solution. So, you do not have to concern yourself deciding IF a problem can be solved. You can concentrate on HOW to solve it. The method is not new-but true. Aristotle used it. So must you. Here's how: (1) Write down exactly what the problem is. Problem-solver Charles Kettering of General Motors re-emphasized what has been said for centuries: "A problem well stated is a problem half-solved." To write down exactly what the problem is, you have to get all the facts. Actual facts-without bias or prejudice. The recommended method is first to pretend that you are the lawyer presenting all the "facts" from the point of view of one side, and then pretend that you are the lawyer presenting all the "facts" from the point of view of the other side-with your unbiased intelligence serving as judge. The late Herbert E. Hawkes, Dean of Columbia College, Columbia University, taught: "Half of the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make
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decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base' a decision." One of the principal causes of not having sufficient information about a problem (next to lack of thoroughness and just plain laziness) is that would-be problem solvers think that a description of the problem is sufficient in writing down what the problem is. You need more than a description. You also need an explanation. The two are not the same. Description merely is recording that which is observed. This is useful and, in fact, a necessary beginning in stating a problem. But you also need explanation and that requires much more than observation. Explanation requires understanding. Description is the "what". Explanation is the "how" and "why". So, first write down exactly-and completely -what the problem is. Describe it and explain it. (2) Write down every possible solution. For this you have assistance which has not been available before. You simply apply the "61 Magic Questions" in Chapter 13 of this book to the problem and to every solution, including every possible alternative. You will be amazed at the many possible solution ideas this will spark! Write them all down under possible solutions. ( 3) Decide definitely which solution to put into effect. If you have done a thorough and complete job in writing down the first two steps, the decision should literally leap into your mind! If, for some reason, it doesn't 238
come through loud and clear-then re-examine each possible solution and alternative at least ten times. And consider the probability that some possible solutions have been overlooked and omitted. Seek additional innovative and unique solutions. If a decision still does not appear dominant and supreme, turn the problem and all possible solutions over to your subconscious and do not struggle with it. Sleep on it. That is almost certain to produce the correct solution. If your subconscious does not produce a clear solution in a few days and nights-you'v~ got a mental block which, for some psychological reason, resists the solution. So you must resort to the tedious process of eliminating the least effective solutions. "Divide and conquer" or, more correctly, "subtract and simplify". Then, if you still have more than one remaining solution, "talk it out" with knowledgeable people. Obviously, you have missed something in the preceding method. By "talking it out", you will change your focus and the solution will be sharp and clear. I have described and explained the entire process so that you will have it all in the unlikely event that deciding on the best solution is ever that difficult. Probably, it never will be. Actually problem-solving is easy if you follow the first three steps: ( 1) Write down exactly what the problem is. (2) Write down every possible solution (using the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13). ( 3) Decide definitely which solution to put into effect. The best solution should be obvious and clear
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at this point. (In the unlikely event that it isn't clear, then procede with the additional methods, as stated.) Remember always that there can be no problem for which a solution does not exist. The problem and solution are two parts of the same whole.
Solving problems is vital to your success in business and in life. People who cannot solve their own problems are condemned to poverty. People who cannot solve other's problems are condemned to mediOCrity. People who can solve their own and other's problems get richer . .. qUicker/
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Continue To Ask THIS Question And You Will Get Richer ... Quicker! One of the most profitable questions you possibly can ask is: "WHAT ELSE?" When you constantly ask yourself: "WHAT ELSE can I do to get richer quicker?", you focus your attention on proven success methods. The question "WHAT ELSE?" stimulates your desire . . . which creates your motivation . . . which generates your efforts . . . to succeed. So, when you constantly ask yourself: "WHAT ELSE can I do to get richer quicker?", you set in motion a chain-action which leads from desire to motivation to effort using proven success methods. The result is certain. You will get richer qUicker. And that is only one of many profitable ways to use the question "WHAT ELSE?" There are others. In fact, opportunities for using this method are unlimited.
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Ask your employer: "WHAT ELSE can I do to be more useful to the company?" That is a sure way to get the favorable attention of your employer. If he makes suggestions and offers opportunities, you are on your way to promotions and increased pay. (I used that simple question to ask my way from promotion to promotion-from office boy to president. ) When you ask your employer: "WHAT ELSE can I do to make myself more useful to the company?" ... and your employer shows no interest, makes no suggestions, offers you no opportunities-get a job (any job) with another company and start asking that same question. Your starting job makes no difference. But your employer's response to your "WHAT ELSE?" question will reveal whether or not you have selected a "growth" company. If you make this "WHAT ELSE?" test and find that you are not employed in a "growth" company-leave! You cannot get richer quicker if you are stuck in a no-growth jobl The question "WHAT ELSE?" will make salesmen richer quicker. Yet, almost all salesmen fail to use it! Having been president of eight corporations, I had the final decision on the purchase of millions of dollars worth of products, materials and services. I like selling and salesmen, so whenever I had the time, I talked with as many salesmen (and often their company executives) as possible. Incredible as it seems, not one salesman or his company executive accompanying him, asked me ( the buyer): "WHAT ELSE can our company do to help your company?" 242
Let me assure all salesmen and corporate executives who read my books (and thousands of them do) that the sincere question: "WHAT ELSE can OUf company do (not necessarily «sell") to help your company?" ... should be a part of every oral or written «thank-you-foryour-order". It not only will build goodwill, but it will create a spirit of total helpfulness which soon will b~come reciprocal. And, obviously, very profitable I H you want to become a civic and community leader, the question "WHAT ELSE?" (followed by impressive performance) is the surest and fastest route to such leadership. Just keep asking: «WHAT ELSE can I do to help my community?" Then accept civic and community assignments with enthusiasm-and do them efficiently and effectiveJy, generously giving or sharing the credit. (Claiming or seeking credit for accomplishments always is counter-productive. ) People who ask: "WHAT ELSE can I do to help?" . . . are welcome everywhere! Being welcome everywhere multiplies your personal contacts and success opportunities which will make you richer . . . qUicker!
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When You Form An Alliance, You Multiply Your Power! Noone is sufficient unto himseHl No individual, no company, no nation can succeed alone. No matter how great and powerful you are or your company is or your nation is-you must form alliances with-others. If you do not form alliances with others, you will wither and dry up in your own self-sufficiency. Others, who form alliances, will pass you by and'you will be ppwerless to stop them. Self-advancement, business, politics-at every level-has become too complex and too involved for self~ complacent individualists to "make it" alone. The reqUired combinations of leadership, skills, facilities and finance combine-not just to add power-but to multiply power many times. Strong leaders always have known this. They 244
formed alliances with other strong leaders and by adding their assets, they multiplied their power. The weak leaders were afraid to form alliances because their own weakness would be revealed by close comparison in mutual management. And so the alliances have grown and multiplied while the '10ners" have been unable to compete successfully against the multiplied power of combined manage- . ment and resources. So alliances became groups, and groups became mergers, and mergers became conglomerates, and conglomerates became multinationals. And now the multinationals are becoming internationals in ownership as well as multinational locations. The trend is irreversible. Since "you can't beat 'em, fOin 'em." That does not mean that this book recommends you rush out and form a multi-billion dollar multinational conglomerate. Of course notl But it does mean that you should, within your own capability, start looking for and forming mutually beneficial alliances. The more, the better-as long as good judgment is used and mutual benefit is assured. There are all forms of alliances-between or among individuals, groups, companies, industries, nations. There is a place for you in a mutually beneficial alliance now. Preferably in many alliances! Since I have mentioned the really big forms of alliances-mergers, conglomerates, multinationals, internationals-let me mention forms of alliances available to individuals.
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There are clubs, associations, unions and cooperatives. To name and describe them would £ill this book -so I shall not. Except one. Because it is so totally dedicated to directly helping its individual members get richer quicker, I want briefly to describe the City Salesmen's Club. The City Salesmen's Club is local by its very nature and membership. It is an organization of local salesmen in non-competitive businesses. The once-a-week, noon luncheon meetings provide the stimulation of goodfellowship natural to such a gathering of extroverts. But the primary purpose is to transact business with each other and to exchange sales information, especially tips on new prospects. At each meeting, one of the members is given fifteen minutes to make a direct sales presentation concerning his company, products and services. The remainder of the meeting consists of each salesman, in tum, publicly thanking each of the other salesmen-members who have helped him during the previous week by individual or company purchases, and by furnishing him sales prospect leads (obviously not identified by name). If you think that sounds dull, let me assure you it is not. It is highly competitive because each salesmen must publicly announce the results of his personal ability in obtaining the business and cooperation of the other salesmen-members. A fringe benefit is that each salesman gets to make a brief public speech every week. Good training! There should be a City Salesmen's Club in every city. Also, of course, there are the various local, 246
state, national, international trade organizations ranging from chambers of commerce to single-industry associations. And, there are the many types of cooperatives. There are farmer cooperatives through which individual farmers can unite to combine their purchasing, methodology, marketing and, of course, lobbying. Farm cooperatives, properly managed, could compete effectively with big corporate farming and perpetuate individual family farms. As alliances are formed to combine resources, facilities and marketing to multiply power-whether corporate or cooperative-opportunities for the use of such vastly multiplied power and controlled supply for pricefixing, market manipulation, product allocations, built-in obsolescence, legislative advantages and a full Pandora's box become available to the unscrupulous. There will be partially counter-balancing powers of consumer alliances, consumer unions, consumer cooperatives and governmental overseeing and regulatory agencies. However, it is not the purpose of this book to deal with the sp~cifics of legal regulations of power. It is the purpose of this book to tell its readers how to get richer quicker and to emphasize that a primary requirement is that you fain or form alliances as a means of multiplying your own power. Your skillfully and increasingly joining or form.ing alliances will assure your getting richer . . . quicker!
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Don't Frighten A Bird You Want To Catch! There is a proverb: ccTo frighten a bird is not the way to catch it." This is an obvious truth which almost every-body chooses to disregard. Violence is our heritage. It is our inheritance from our cave-man ancestors. It has diminished little throughout human history. It is world-wide. It is nationwide. 'Violence is as American as apple pie." We provide prime television time free to ourhoodlums to tell us .so. But while our instinct is for violence, prudence retrains most of us so that we confine our violence to threats. Threatening each other has replaced baseball as the great American pastime. 248
That is an unfair comparison because baseball is a spectator sport-and people want to personally participate in the ego-puffing of threatening others. So let's say, instead, that threatening each other exceeds bowling as the great American participation sport. Exaggeration? No, not at all! You can confirm this by watching television or reading your newspaper or attending a labor union strike rally or hearing a lobbyist explain the power of an unrewarded constituency. Shall we blame the leaders? No. There can be no leaders without willing followers. And threatening others is a basic human ego expression. Even though some threats are of phYSical violence or implications of it, most threats are a gamut ranging from threatened unpleasantness to disastrous losses. Threats are encountered beginning early in life from parents, many of whom cannot distinguish their own annoyance from necessary (although misapplied) discipline. So they express annoyance through threats. Threats continue throughout our entire lives until the day we die amid threats of hellfire and damnation in the name of brotherly love. Well? Let's go back to the beginning; our proverb: "To frighten a bird is not the way to catch it." But ... if you will be friendly and gentle and patient-never threatening in word or gesture-you soon will have the bird eating out of your hand ... provided that you offer in your hand something the bird wants. 249
And there you have the secret of successful negotiation-between world powers, between management aI1;d labor, between business groups, civic groups, civil rights disputants, political adversaries-between all those who are tempted by the ego expression of threatening another, no matter how subtly. Never frighten a bird you want to catch: (1) Never demand or threaten (2) Always be friendly, gentle and patient (3) Hold out your hand of friendship-offering something the other wants. That not merely is the best way; it is the only way ... the sure way to replace demands with goodWill power! If we ever are going to have peace on earth (at the conference tables, in the union halls, in meeting places, in the homes, among individuals), we must have goodWill among men. Peace on earth will result only from goodwill among men. A Man tried to teach that to people 2,000 years ago. But violence was as patriotic as pie in those days, too. So they killed Him. Maybe it still isn't too late to learn. Before it is too latel
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You Will Succeed To The Extent That You Help Others Get What They Want You will be compensated, rewarded, promoted, sought and acclaimed to the extent that you help others get what they want. That is ALL you will get paid for! So ... to get richer quicker, concentrate on these things: ( 1) Provide more of what people want. (2) Eliminate more (or all) of what people don't want. ( 3) Make yourself more valuable by making yourself more useful in helping others. ( 4) Ask: «What else can I do to help your ( 5) Establish yourself as a source of fulfilling subconscious needs of others: the need to feel appreciated, to feel admired, to feel important, to feel needed. 251
( 6) Get on people's "Most Wanted List" because they need you. It often has been said, "Put all your eggs in one basket-and watch that basket." But I say to you that it is not enough just to be a basket-watcher. You must be a basket-ca"ier. Don't just watch your basket-use it to ca"y to others the things they want! The ONLY thing you ever will get paid for is providing people with what they want. Nobody is going to pay you to sit and watch your own basket. They only will pay you to use your basket to bring them what they want. You will succeed to the extent that you provide more of what people want ... to more and more people . . . while, at the same time, you eliminate what they don't want. Getting RICHER QUICKER is just as simple as thatl Now is the best time to startf
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How To Manufacture Your SUCCESS SUCCESS is a manufactured product. Success is just as real, just as tangible, just as visible, just as useful, just as valuable (or more valuable) as any other manufactured product. As soon as you realize that success is a manufactured product, you will find that it is easy to succeed. You then will know that your success is not dependent on fate, or luck, or any mystic force. You simply manufacture your success in the same practical, commonsense way that any product is manufactured. The materials for your success already are possessed by you or may readily be obtained by you. The methods for manufacturing your success are available to you in this and my other books of proven success methods. These proven success methods are easy to understand, easy to use, sure to succeed. These proven
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success methods require no special talent, no special formal schooling, nor anything which the average person does not now have or can easily obtain. Manufacturing the product, SUCCESS, is so easy anybody can do it and everybody should! You simply use manufacturing methods which are the same-or similar to-the manufacturing procedures used in making any product. How to manufacture YOUR SUCCESS: You must know what your completed product will be. You must know what you want-what kind of SUCCESS you want to manufacture. Your basic material must be your occupation -and the succession of positions you must progress through to become your completed product: SUCCESS. It is important to understand that, although. your occupation is the basic material out of which you will manufacture SUCCESS, your occupation is only the material and the extent of your success will be determined by the success methods you learn and use to improve your jobskill and aU of the rest of your life activities. You may greatly improve your job-skill and yet be a miserable failure in life. Surveys, throughout the years, consistently show that success is due to: ( a) Ability to do satisfactory work ... 15% (b) Personal success characteristics . .. 85% Confirmation of the preceding statistics is in surveys of why employees were fired from their jobs. (a) Unsatisfactory workmanship ... 15% (b) Disliked personal qualities . .. 85% 254
That is why it is so important to learn and use proven success methods. They are highly effective in improving job-skills (15 % of your employment value), but they are totally effective in improving your personal qualities and characteristics (85% of your employment value). And, of course, employment value is only a part of your success in life. So, when you learn and use proven success methods, they increase your total success-at work, at home, everywhere, all the time! W ell, that's all there is to manufacturing a SUCCESSFUL YOU. But, having manufactured your product, you still have to package it impressively. This is taught in Chapter 49, titled: "How Attractively And Impressively Do You PACKAGE Yourself?" I suggest that you review that chapter now. No sensible company would manufacture a product destined for success and then package it in a shoddy, shabby package. To attract and impress the kind of people whose opinion, influence and approval you need to help you get richer quicker, you have to look like a success. Remember, the first things people see are your clothes and grooming. If you do not look like the kind of person who would command the respect of the Board of Directors, management is not going to present you as its selection for future top executive responsibility. So you not only must manufacture a more SUCCESSFUL YOU, but your "package" must show it at first glance.
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Then, like the advertising of any successful product, you must repeatedly impress the greatest number of people. Do this in person, by correspondence, by phone. The opportunities and methods for doing this are too many and too varied to describe here; you will find them-taught in detail-in this and my other books. Remember that studious persons know everything-but successful persons know everybody-at least, everybody who can make them richer quicker! You have to go where the "right" people are! Go where the most and biggest opportunities are! Go where the active money is! This chapter lesson on "How To Manufacture Your SUCCESS" must necessarily be only an outline-plan. Only you can fill in the details, but when you do-and if you follow every step of this plan-you will find that your success is not dependent upon fate, or luck, or any mystic force. You manufacture your own SUCCESS!
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If Your Success Locomotive Is Not "On Track", Its Power Is Useless! You can have the most powerful success locomotive in the world. It can be powered by all of the thousand proven success methods which I have researched over a period of forty years of my adult life. Your success locomotive-with all that success power-may be on a track of gleaming steel rails leading directly to your goal in life. So, you are certain to reach your goal in life,
NO III Not if your success locomotive gets off the track which leads to your goal. No matter how powerful your success locomotive is, it is totally helpless unless it is "on track", Did you ever see a huge diesel locomotive which had run off the track and dug its wheels deep into
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the roadbed? It is about the most helpless thing you can imagine! All that power, yet it could not move an inch! That's a good picture to imprint in your mind. Think of your success plan as a huge success locomotive, super-powered by proven success methods, and on a gleaming steel track leading directly to your goal in life. Then, remind yourself that unless you keep that powerful success locomotive "on track" to your goal, your success will come to a crashing stop the instant you get of} the track! As long as you stay "on track" you do not have to worry about reaching your destination. You may not be able always to see the entire stretch of track, but that iswhat faith is for! There will be dark hours in your life when you cannot see your distant goal. But you will see the track immediately ahead. Know that if you stay "on track" you will reach your goal through darkness and storms and fog. You do not need always to see your goal. It is sufficient to stay on the track leading to it. As I wrote in my book, How To Get Whatever You Want, the greatness of Columbus was not that he discovered America, but that every night he wrote in his log book, "This day we sailed west because it was our course:~ Because he stayed "on course", Columbus made reaching his goal inevitable! THAT is how it's done!
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Here Is STOCK MARKET ADVICE From AVery Wise Financier The stock market is affected daily by hundreds of constantly changing variables. Obviously, any advice I might give here concerning current stock market investing would be out of date before this book comes off the presses. I could do my readers no greater disservice. Nevertheless, in the dubious belief that a book on How You Can Get Richer Quicker should not entirely ignore stock market investing, I here give you the stock market advice of one of the wisest Americans, a Il)an who was adviser to six Presidents, and who amassed great wealth by investing in the stock market. Multimillionaire investor, Bernard Baruch, advised: "When the stock market news is printed on the front page of your newspaper-whether the news is good or bad -SELL'" I think that advice will stand the test of time. 259
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Get Tough With Yourself! Cancel All Unnecessary Plans! Concentrate! Here is a proven success method which will give your life the velocity of a guided missile-and keep you "on target". Of course, you do not NOW wander aimlessly through each day without a written plan or list of what you are going to accomplish. (Or do you?) But that's only the first half of successful planning! Here is the second, equally important half: Mter you have written your plans or list of what you are going to do each day and night-scratch out every activity which is not specifically directed toward your improvement and your progress toward your life goal! That is tough discipline-but it pays! In deciding what activities to cancel, ask yourself these questions: 260
Will a planned daily activity have any significance in improving your life a week from now? A month from now? A year from now? Will a planned activity be progress toward your life goal? If it won't-then get tough with yourself and cancel useless, unrewarding activities. If that seems too tough, remember that you bought this book to get richer . .. quickerl Well, you won't get richer qUicker by doing useless thingsl The key to getting richer qUicker is to make yourself more useful so that you will be more valuable to more people-including your family and yourself. Doing anything else is a limitation! There always will be people who urge you to do useless things and thereby set limitations for you. They cannot-except with your willing cooperation. So, actually, only you can set your own useless limitations. Concentrate, instead, on progressing to your goals of financial enrichment and life enrichment. You have a choice: limiting your own progress ( through insignificant activities) or concentrating on reaching your goals of getting richer . . . qUicker! A. H. Compton wrote: «It is the content of our lives that determines their value. If we limit ourselves to supply only the means of liVing, in what way have we placed ourselves above the cattle that graze in the £elds?" It's your choice: Join the cattle. Or get richer quicker as a means of improving the total content of your life and the lives of others. 261
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The Sure Way To Get Richer Is To Be An EXPERT In An Important Occupation Years before the installation of computerized automation to operate factories with only management, control and maintenance personnel, Elbert Hubbard wrote: "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. Now that we have machines which can do the work of thousands of ordinary men, the extraordinary man remains indispensible because without the guidance and control of extraordinary men, all machines would be useless. The message is loud and clear. If you are only ordinary, you will qualify only for menial jobs in manufacturing, if you can get a job at all. No union, no matter how powerful it now is, can negotiate higher wages for jobs
..
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that will no longer even exist. Beginning now, and increasingly in the future, you are going to have to become extraordinary. You will have to become a superior workman. You will have to be an expert. Obviously, you will increase your opportunities and income if you choose an important occupation in a growth company in an expanding industry. Then, be an expert there. There is an old Chinese proverb: "More you know, more luck you have." And Louis Pasteur said, "Chance favors the trained mind." We spend $90 billion to $100 billion annually on education, at least half of which, unfortunately, is based on those partial truthsl . It is not adequate any more just to "acquire knowledge". It is not even adequate to develop a "trained mind" which is better than just "acquiring knowledge". Yet more than half of all students at the end of their school education have not acquired expertise in a
saleable skill! Of course, there are those students who expect never to have to earn a living in this increasingly demanding and competitive economy. They can devote all of their education to culture and the fine arts. We need them. This is no advocacy for a totally materialistic society. It is not suggested that all of any student's education be devoted entirely to acquiring expertise in a saleable skill. But it is a tragedy to mislead students into believing that a diploma of just any kind will assure their 263
employment, much less their success, in a job-market which is increasingly specialized and rapidly converting to computerized, automated technology. Calvin Coolidge said, "The school is not the end but only the beginning of education." And, too many educators have taken that statement too literally. They feel that they need only provide the "beginning» of education in terms of imparting a broad range of knowledge and in training minds. Such a "beginning" is highly desirable. But if it stops with imparting a broad range of knowledge and trained minds-if it does not also produce expertise in a saleable skill-formal schooling is devoting too many years and too much money on the «beginning» and not nearly enough on expert training to meet today's, and especially future, personal productivity requirements. We are going to have to become a nation of experts. Experts at WHAT? In the foreseeable future in the United States: (a) Only 3% of our work-force will be employed in farming (b) Only 16% of our work-force will be employed in actual manufacturing ( c) So 81 % of our work-force will 'be employed in PEOPLE SERVICES (professional, technical, personal services-to-people. You can take your choice. Each of the foregoing classifications will consist almost entirely of EXPERTS, which means if you can qualify and produce (as you must), you almost certainly will get richer qUicker! 264
The foregoing percentages of available future jobs give you the odds. The 3% who produce and control the farmfood supply surely will become enormously wealthy. But your chances are 3%. The 16% of expertly skilled technicians who will operate and maintain the highly sophisticated, computerized, automated manufacturing of all materials, equipment and products will earn very large incomes. But your chances are 16%. The 81 % of professional, technical, personal services-to-people will earn Widely varying incomes depending upon their degree of skill, the quality and quantity of their personal services, and the urgency of need for their specialized personal skills. Your chances for employment in peopleservices are 81 %. Your chances of getting richer qUicker will depend upon the previously stated factors multiplied by the proven success methods you learn and use.
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You Must Be Willing To BEGIN! Then Your DOING Will Generate The Power! Could someone say this about you? ... «H e is like a clock which has no hands. He exists. He is present. He is looked at (only once). He provides no valuable information. He renders no useful service. So,
he soon wiU be replaced." There is a wise old proverb: «Nothing is easy for the unwilling:' You must be willing. More than that, you must have desire. More than that, you must be enthusiastic. And ... you must BEGIN! Then, you will find that being successful is easy. It simply is a matter of being willing to learn and use proven success methods. Then having your willingness made persistent by desire. And having your desire made 266
dynamic by enthusiasm. Then you must BEGINI Let's see what some of the great thinkers have said about these things. E. H. Chapin taught: "In this world, the inclination (willingness) to do things is of more importance than the mere power." It is a proven fact that you must want to do something before you can do it-even if you have the power to do it. The key to accomplishing anything is wanting to do it-whether you have the power to do it or not. H you intensely want to do something-and confidently begin to do it-you will receive all the power necessary to do it as you proceed! As Emerson taught: «Do the thing and you will have the power." The DOING actually generates the power to do! That fact is based on the universal Law of Inertia which is taught in all physics classes in every school. The Law of Inertia states: ( a) A body at rest (stationary), tends to remain at rest (stationary). (b) A body in motion, tends to remain in motion (at the same speed). So, if you are not doing anything, you will continue not doing anything. But as soon as you begin to do something, your momentum (power to do) will continue in force, and the more you increase your efforts to do, the more your power to do will be increased. That is a Universal Law. And, like the Law of Gravity, it always works I 267
The fact that beginning to do something actually generates the power to do it-has been known for centuries. It is taught by the Bible. It has been taught by all the Great Thinkers throughout history. Goethe expressed it this way: "Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can, BEGIN itl Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage (begin), and then the mind grows heated; BEGIN, and then the work will be completed." There is an ancient Chinese proverb: "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." But you must take that first step! You do not have to see the entire thousand miles in order to take the first step. The vision to see will be provided as needed. You do not need to see everything! You need see iust enough for the first step I So it is with the power to do. You do not need a lifetime of power in a single day! You need only the power to begin-to take your first step toward your goal. As Goethe said, "What you dream you can do, BEGIN itl Begin, and then the w01'k will be completed." And that applies to your getting RICHER ... QUICKER!
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One Of The Greatest Achievers Said These Two Qualities Would Conquer All Thingsl Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to conquer
all things? One of the world's greatest achievers said that to conquer all things requires two easily-acquired personal qualities! This great achiever was Benjamin Franklin. The inspiring story of his life and accomplishments in overcoming tremendous difficulties to become one of the greatest Americans is one of the fifteen unforgettable life stories in my book, How To Get Whatever You Want. These are true life stories which will motivate you to achieve your own goal. Benjamin Franklin's success story is one of the most inspiring and personally helpful of all. So, what did this great achiever say were the two personal qualities reqUired to conquer all things?
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Benjamin Franklin said that to conquer all things, any person needs only these two basic qualities: (1) Energy (2) Persistence (or perserverance) Is "conquering all things" that simple? Many of the greatest thinkers in history said so. Let's see what they actually said. . Hosea Ballou wrote, "Energy, even like the biblical grain of mustard seed, will remove mountains:~ H you think that "removing mountains" is impossible, let me remind you that: "To be important, a goal must first be impossible," to pharaphase Carlyle. And that we now have earth-moving equipment with sufficient energy-generated power to remove mountains and, when the situation has required it, we actuaUy have removed mountainsl Famed naturalist and author, Henry David Thoreau wrote, "D~d you ever hear of a man who had striven (energeticaUy) all his life, faithfully and singly toward an object (goal) and in no measure obtained it?" Of course notl The Law of Cybernetics guarantees your success through subconscious "goal attainment". Emerson wrote, "The world belongs to the energetiC." And he added, "The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." Donald Grant Mitchell, the American author wrote, "There is no genius in life like the genius of energy and activity." The wise and widely-quoted clergyman, Joel Hawes, used to preach, "Resolution is omnipotent. Determine to be something in the world, and you will be some270
thing. Aim at excellence, and excellence will be attained. This is the great secret of effort and eminence. "I cannot do it', never accomplished anything;
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The French essayist, Jean de la Bruyere, wrote, «No road is too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; and no honors are too distant for the man who prepares himself for them with patience." Josiah Gilbert Holland, the American author, said it more briefly: «There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, and all things in succession." Napoleon announced, «Victory belongs to the most perserveringt' And so it does, for Wellington challenged Napoleon's perserverance with his own at Waterloo by replying, «Hard pounding, gentlemen; but we will see who can pound the longest." Wellington perservered the longest-and won! No recommendation of persistence would be complete without the wise, inspiring words of Calvin Coolidge: «Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination "alone are omnipotent." So ... wise old Ben Franklin said that two personal qualities (which easily can be acquired by youand by anybody), will conquer all things. They are: Energy and perserverance. The future is yours! If you have learned this lesson, you can conquer all things! You can get whatever you want in life! You can get richer ... qUicker!
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Emerson Said That Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without THIS! Ralph Waldo Emerson was the greatest American essayist and one of the wisest thinkers this nation has produced. When a man of that calibre speaks, we ought to listen-and learn! And when he says that nothing great was ever achieved without a certain personal quality-that quality deserves our special attention! And when one of the nation's greatest industrial leaders says that certain quality will enable you to succeed at almost anything ... And when psychologist Dr. William Moulton Marston states that this same quality will enable you always to get what you want ... And when famed preacher-writer-psychologist Dr. Norman Vincent Peale writes an entire book about just that one quality . . .
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Maybe somebody is trying to tell us something! They are! And, this is it: Emerson wrote, "Every great and commanding movement in the annuals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it." One of the greatest industrial leaders in the development of this nation, Charles M. Schwab, said, "A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm." His own enthusiasm made him the highest paid executive of his time. Psychologist and author, Dr. William Moulton Marston, stated: "If anyone chooses a goal in which he is really interested (enthusiastic), he will always get what he wants or something very close to it." If you are so enthusiastic about your goal that attaining it becomes an obsession -nothing can keep you from achieving it! Dr. Norman Vincent Peale wrote an entire book on Enthusiasm Makes the Difference. Thoreau wrote, "None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm." In fact, enthusiasm for life and for what should be your personal interests and involvements in life-may be the dividing line between eager, active maturity and dull, deteriorating old age. It is not your age in calendar years that counts, but whether you have enthusiasm for life. Whenever you permit yourself to lose your enthusiasm for life-it will be all downhill from then on. Then, there are those persons-from misguided youth ... through the phoney "smart set" ... to blase middle-age ... and "escapist drop-outs" of all ages-who think (or pretend to think) that it is sophisticated to look 274
bored, act bored, even be bored. H 0 hum! Being bored is merely being dull. And you know what "being dull" is! So let us quickly return to the stimulation and goal achievement of enthusiasm. There are many techniques for generating enthusiasm, but the AS IF method recommended by psychologist William James is so simple and certain, let's use it. As described elsewhere in this book, psychologist William James taught that by sincerely acting AS IF you are enthusiastic, you actually will feel enthusiastic and be enthusiastic. This AS IF method has been proven so constantly effective that it is accepted psychological procedure, so we shall not explain it further here, but briefly describe HOW to act AS IF you are enthusiastic: the 4A's. IA ... AGREE: You must enthusiastically agree! Obviously, you cannot be enthusiastic about something or someone while disagreeing-and, therefore, being disagreeable. So agree enthusiastically! 2A ... ADMIRE: To act AS IF you are enthusiastic, you must admire. The more you admire, the more enthusiastic you will become. SA ... ACCOMPLISH: The more you accomplish by being enthusiastic, the more enthusiastic you will become! 4A ... ACCELERATE: As you increase your accomplishments by being enthusiastic, accelerate your enthusiasm to accelerate your accomplishments. Really "pour it on"! Go "all out"! Make it happen! Having generated the terrific power of the 4A's
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in becoming enthusiastic, then, pyramid your power by adding the 4C's: IC ... COMMEND: Be enthusiastic in yom commendation and yom praise!· The combination of enthusiastic commendation and praise is irrestible! It will open minds and hearts and "doors" when nothing else will! 2C ... CHEERFUL: Give radiance to your enthusiasm by being cheerfully enthusiastic. Beam! Glow! You will be amazed at the instant response! 3C ... COOPERATE: Get enthusiastically involved! Join with others. Get others to join with you. There is no limit to what can be achieved by enthusiastic
cooperation! 4C ... CONTAGIOUS: Enthusiasm is contagious. It will be even more contagious if you spread enthusiasm wherever you go. When you develop the ability to start an epidemic of enthusiasm for your causes, you can lead multitudes I Having added the 4C's to the 4A's you will be master of power with people, but you will not reach the very top unless you also add the 4U's: I U . . . UNSELFISH: Your enthusiasm must be shared unselfishly with others-with all others within the range of your personality. Enthusiasm is radiant, so radiate your enthusiasm unselfishly. Help others glow, too!
Their radiance will be a rewarding reflection on youl 2U ... UNRESTRAINED: Real enthusiasm must be unrestrained! Timid enthusiasm is not enthusiasm at all; it is lack of self-confidence-even cowardice! So, let yourself go! The more unrestrained your enthusiasm is, the more power you generate! 276
3U ... UNDETERRED: Your enthusiasm must be so overwhelming that nothing will deter you! You have a date with destiny! Do not let anybody or anything deter you. Keep your date with destiny; it may be the most important thing in your life! 4U ... UNHESITANT: Do not be hesitant about proiecting enthusiasm! Tum on your power of enthusiasm often. Do it NOW! Find someone or something to be enthusiastic about NO'\V ... and begin NOW! As Goethe wrote. "What you can do, or dream you can, BEGIN it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!" Enthusiasm is the great multiplier! It will multiply the genius, power and magic of your boldness. So, BEGIN it! ... NOW!!! Use the magic power of enthusiasm to get richer . .. qUicker!
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4:4:Contingency Planning" Will Ensure Your Success-Whatever Happens! Elbert Hubbard taught: «Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them and power flows to the person who knows how." To attract and deserve responsibilities (and that's how to get richer . .. quicker), you have to become a master of Contingency Planning. It isn't difficult. Anybody can do it. This chapter-lesson will teach you how. Contingency Planning simply is the "WHAT IF?" planning method. A single plan is only good for a single set of future circumstances. No one can predict, with certainty, any future circumstances, much less all future circumstances. So you must make contingency plans to use "WHAT IF" various different circumstances should occur. 278
In making plans, expect-and prepare forthe unexpected, because very often it is the unexpected which will occur! Having made your plan based on what the established, present trends indicate for the short-term, middle-term and long-term conditions-then you must ask yourself ( and others with expertise in that field) . . . WHAT IF something else happened? Could your present plan be modified? Or would it have to be replaced? How much :B.exibility do you have in your plan? Have you done a thorough job of Contingency Planning? By making a thorough list of all the alternatives (see Chapter 13: "The 61 Magic Questions"), you not only can select the best plan, but you also will have available for instant use, the material for the next best plan, and the next, and the next. Then, you cannot lose! You will have all the options instantly available.
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If You Feel That Whatever You Do Is Natural And Easy-It Will Be! This proven success method is so obvious and simple, I hesitate to mention it ... except that it may be the most useful success method you ever will learn. As the title of this chapter states: If you feel that whatever you do is NATURAL and EASY-it will be. Why is this simple method so useful? Principally, because it eliminates tension. If you feel tense about whatever you are about to do or while you are doing it-you radiate your tenseness and your feeling of uneasy, nervous, apprehensiveness to everyone within range. Everyone near you actually senses your tenseness, nervousness and apprehension. Then they begin to feel ill at ease and uncomfortable in your presence. Your tension bounces back and forth between you and those around you-each time becoming more unpleasant. 280
You project a negative personality-uneasy, nervous, apprehensive. Your own condition may range from feeling uneasy, nervous, apprehensive ... to being unable to speak because your vocal apparatus becomes so tense that it «locks" ... to getting the «shakes" ... to actually becoming nauseated. Do not think these results of tension are exaggerated. They happen in varying degrees to almost everybody who does not know how to alleviate tension and stress. All of these things happened to me personally until I learned the proven success method of feeling that whatever I did was NATURAL and EASY, as taught in this chapter. How do you do it? Well, you start with the universal Law of Consistency which I have explained in previous chapters. No one can think two opposite thoughts, or feel two opposite feelings, or consciously or impulsively take two opposite actions-at the same time. That would be contrary to the Law of Consistency and is impossible. So the proven success method of eliminating the feelings of tension and apprehension is to feel iust the opposite, that is feel that whatever you do is NATURAL and EASY. Once you learn that principle-and determine to live by it-you will find the specific methods taught throughout this and my other books. They are easy to learn and simple to use. However, we will give a brief review of some of the methods here:
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(1) Relax! Relax all over, but especially relax your eyes as taught in my book: Here's Help! Feel loose, not stiff and tense. Always feel that what you are doing is NATURAL and EASY. (2) Remember that, as psychologist William James taught, you can control the way you feel by acting the way you want to feel. So act AS IF what you are doing is NATURAL and EASY. ( 3) Practice in your imagination, as taught in my book, Thoughts To Build On. Before you actually do something about which you may feel tense, imagine your doing it NATURALLY and EASILY. Imagine it over and over again until you feel that you really are doing it NATURALLY and EASILY. Impress that feeling deeply into your subconscious. Reinforce it with the goal-command repeated over and over: «NATURAL and EASY!" ... "NATURAL and EASY!" ... "NATURAL and EASY!" (4) Use "attitude conditioning". For example, many of the most popular people, before they enter a crowded roo.m, always pause to start projecting their "attitude" that they know everyone in the room and are their friend. Of course, they do not really know everyone in the room, but by maintaining the "attitude" that they do know everyone, they nod, greet or speak cordially to everyone AS IF they knew them. Naturally, the others respond with equal cordiality even though they may be searching their own minds for a "forgotten" name or occasion. ( 5) The best training is actual experience. Do not timidly wait for occasions-create them! Say something (complimentary, if possible-but about the weather, if necessary) to everyone you are with for even a minute.
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Of course, do not be impertinent or brash-just be casual, NATURAL and EASY. If you are at a meeting and comments or questions are requested from the audience-get up and say something! It may not be brilliant, but it will be practice. Every experience will add to your feeling that what you do is NATURAL and EASY. ( 6) Making public speeches, even leading small group discussions, is the best training of all. Don't feel that you have to be terrific-just concentrate on the feeling that what you are doing is NATURAL and EASY. Being terrific will follow with practice. The foregOing examples should be sufficient to illustrate the kind of methods (my books are filled with them) to enable you to create a feeling which, by attitude conditioning, you make a part of your personality. In this case, the feeling you want to establish and constantly maintain is that whatever you do is NATURAL and EASY-because when you feel that it is NATURAL and EASY ... it is! The nervous tension will be gone. So will the apprehension be gone. The feeling of pressure will change to a confident feeling of free-Howing power from the source of unlimited power. Everything will be NATURAL and EASY. And that includes getting richer . .. qUicker!
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The Principle Of DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH-The Sure Way To Amass Wealth! This is the sure way to get very rich-in one quick, easy lesson. You simply use the Principle of DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH. Here it is: ( 1) You must-starting today-increase your CAPITAL every day, even if the increase is only a dollar, but as much more as possible. (2) You must strictly observe the rule that you will not spend at any time any of your "growth capital" (the money you have accumulated in your "growth capital" account by having added to it every day) . ( 3) You must keep your «growth capital" in a separate savings account-and you must never spend or borrow ANY money from that account. Never! For ANY 284
reason! That money is "gone" insofar as its spending availability is concerned! ( 4) When you have accumulated enough savings in your "growth capital" account, invest it in the common stock of a big "growth" corporation with a long record of constant growth and continuous earnings-recommended by a large long-established stock brokerage firm (not an "inside information tipster"). Investment conditions change too rapidly for me to be more speciHc in a book. (5) You must build your DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH savings account and add some money-at least a dollar, but very much more if possible-every day without fail. Do not miss a Single day. DAILY CAPITAl GROWTH means exactly that: DAILY! Every day! OJ course, you do not have to take the time to actually deposi1 the money every day-but you must keep it separate from your spendable money and never spend it. Deposit it a! often as convenient. Do not keep it temptingly available. Now, the purpose of daily adding to your DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH (and never spending it) is not just to teach you frugality and thrift. The fact is that reasonably substantial daily savings invested at daily compound interest amassed over a lifetime will make you "securely rich". But that is not the purpose or the promise of this book-which is How You Can Get RICHER . .. QUICKER! The reason for including in this book this chapter on the Principle of DAILY CAPITAL GROWTH is that by using this principle daily, you will become "money conscious". You will THINK RICHI
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And that is how you get richer . .. quicker! ... THINK RICH! When you are «money conscious", when you daily THINK RICH-you implant your goal-command for attaining great wealth deep into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is magnetic; it attracts to you the opportunities, the personal contacts, the means required to fulfill your goal-command. Your subconscious mind is cybernetic; it works like a computer in a guided missile to direct your thoughts, ideas, plans and activities to guide you to your targetyour goal in lifel The Principle of DAILY eAPITAL GROWTH will make you «money conscious". Daily, it will cause you to THINK RICH! THINKING RICH will make you richer . .. qUicker!
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Never Give Up! It Is A Law Of The Universe: "The Tide Always Turns" Philosopher George Santayana wrote: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." And Frank Ward O'Malley wrote: "Life is just one damned thing after another:' There will be many times in our lives when you and I will be moved to agree with both George Santayana and Frank O'Malley: Life is, indeed, a predicament-just one damned thing after another! Well, what should we do about it? Harriet Beecher Stowe advised: "When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as if you could not go on a minute longer, never give up then, for that's just the place and the time the tide will turn." It is a Universal Law that the tide always turns. Never, even once, in the known history of the world has 287
the tide failed to tum. The tide always has and always will tum. You can depend on that. So, hold on until the tide does tum, knowing that it will. It is a proven success method to follow behind the quick quitters. They will have painfully paved the way for your success, having done all the hard preliminary work and then quit, leaving the profitable proceeds for you to pluck. As Edward Eggleston taught, "Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure." Note that the place to begin is the point at which the quick quitters gave up, leaVing their preliminary work for your benefit. The quick quitters serve a useful purpose-not for themselves, but for others. The quick quitters do the hard preliminary work, expose the weaknesses and defects in a project, take the greater initial risks, then become discouraged and quit just at the point where the tide must turn, leaving it for you to ride victOriously on the Hood tide to triumph! The quick quitters must agree with the poet who wrote: "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been'." Those words are not only the saddest, but also foolish! It is foolish to leave "what might have the most been" to the determined and persevering so that they reap the harvest. The pasts of most people are filled with "what might have beens" (including many fantasies which would not have happened anyway!) People find excuses in their 288
«might have beens"-but they cannot find success there. Many people try only half-heartedly, spending more time looking for excuses for failing than for ways to succeed. The only thing wrong with failing is not to try again! For, as William Strong so wisely points out: «The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything and it works!" The only permanent failure is the failure to try again. Lester Pfister got the idea for inbreeding com to make it hardier and disease-proof. He started with 50,000 stalks of com and cross-pollinated them painstakingly by hand for five years. By the end of his five years of unbelievably hard work, he had only four ears of corn which had been perfectly inbred to produce hardier, disease-proof com. He was exhausted and destitute. But those four ears of corn which had resisted disease for five years made him a fortune! To run well toward your goal is not enough! You must continue running! That is how to reach your goal. There is no other way. It is not fighting that wins. Anyone but a coward can fight. It is continuing to fight ... and fight ... and fight. It is to get up when you get knocked down. It is to fight on . . . and on . . . whatever the odds . . . however great the fatigue ... to fight on ... and fight on ... to victory. That is the way of champions. It is how you succeed at anything!
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How You Can Use "The Principle Of The THIRD WAY" To Solve Your Problems Here is a proven success method which is used by the most able negotiators, the top script-writing teams, and the most highly-paid decision makers. It is known as The Principle Of The THIRD WAY. Here's how you can use it: When you and another person are trying to decide on a mutually agreeable course of action, and you want to do it one way and the other person wants to do it a different way-do not get into an irritable argument, but seek a THIRD WAY upon which you both can enthusiastically agree. The Principle of The THIRD WAY was developed and is widely used by "idea teams" such as those who write scripts for movies, television and radio. It is a psychological fact that arguments kill ideas and stop the flow 290
of new ideas. So "idea teams" avoid arguments like a plague. It is a firm rule of script writing teams that when any member of the team disapproves of an idea, the idea is dropped and everybody tries to think up something better upon which all can enthusiastically agree. This rule is followed even when only one idea or way is under consideration, so perhaps it should be called The Principle of ANOTHER (Agreeable) WAY. Alex Osborn of the great advertising agency of Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborn has been the foremost advocate of what he called "brainstorming for ideas". His rule was that in creating and suggesting ideas in an "idea brainstorming" group session, there should be no arguments or even discussions concerning the merit or lack of merit of any idea, but that every idea should be recorded, and all alternatives sought, to be evaluated later. Of course, Alex Osborn was right, as his great success confirms. The principle of not arguing about who is right and who is wrong, but to seek an alternative which is agreeable to both, is the most effective method of negotiating. Negotiators in all fields should learn from the successful "idea teams" of business. The usual form of negotiating is to start with two different "demands" or "offers" and argue, sometimes for months, trying to get the other side to "give in" and accept. Eventually, concessions must be made to "narrow the disagreement gap". Usually, after much antagonism and often open hostility, an agreement is reached which is not really satisfactory to either party. And the emotional and subconscious wounds never really heal.
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This kind of hostile arguing would not be tolerated for one minute by the successful "idea teams" of business. They know that arguing shuts off the How of ideas. Perhaps, what is the matter with the too costly and too divisive labor negotiations is that they create arguments instead of cooperatively creating ideas which would
be mutually beneficial. Instead of each side demanding that it must have its own way, both sides should stop arguing and seek a THIRD WAY which would be enthusiastically accepted by each. The THIRD WAY is simply a combination of only those ideas which are mutually beneficial. Note the essential elements of The Principle
of the THIRD WAY: ( 1) It consists of IDEAS-not demands! (2) Remember, the Principle of Ideas is that each idea must be accompanied by all possible alternatives so that every choice may be considered. ( 3 ) Only ideas which are mutually beneficial are acceptable. This eliminates the built-in antagonism of counter-balancing one side's "unacceptable" demand with an equally "unacceptable" demand of the other side. ( 4) The THIRD WAY is not bargaining; it is
cooperatively creating and combining ideas which will be mutually beneficial and which, therefore, will be enthusiastically accepted. So that business will be an "organized friendship", as economist Herbert N. Casson recommended. That's a better way to get richer . .. quicker!
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How Businesses Can Use The Success Psychology Of "Multiple Management" The proven success method of multiple management is not entirely psychological as the title of this chapter may imply. In addition to its psychological effect on the junior executives, production and service employees of a business, multiple management is a gold mine of practical ideas for improvement-from the employees who will actually use them. Also, multiple management is highly motivational and provides a cordial channel of two-way communication not possible in the usually adversary nature of management-labor union meetings. The always adversary and usually hostile atmosphere of management-union negotiating sessions has caused management to withdraw into its shell and to limit 293
the occupants of the shell to a carefully selected small group of top management executives. Multiple management is exactly the opposite. The proven success method of multiple management is to organize as many junior executives and especially~ regular production and service employees as possible into "Advisory Boards" (don't call them "Com-
mittees"). These "Employee Management AdVisory Boards" are adViSOry only; they have no authority. But they have employee prestige, recognition and, best of all, communication. Each "Board" should have a different and impressive name and its own letterheads. "Quick-Print" letterhead printing can provide 100 letterheads for several dollars and, for a few more dollars, you can list on the letterheads the names of all members. That may be the best few dollars your company ever will invest I Your company should establish "Employee Management Advisory Boards" for every conceivable company operation and function. The proven success method is to get as many employees as possible on some kind of "Board" relevant to their work-personaUy recognized and involved in a "management adVisory, operations improve-
ment" function. So, depending upon the size and type of business, your company could have such "Boards" as:
Accounting Systems AdvisOry Board Customer Relations AdvisOry Board Materials Handling AdvisOry Board Materials Receiving AdVisory Board 294
Product Packing Improvement Advisory Board Product Shipping Improvement Advisory Board Plant Appearance Improvement Advisory Board Employee Recreation Advisory Board Employee Library Facilities Advisory Board And, of course, the list is virtually unlimited. If your company is of sufficient size, you will need to assign a top personnel executive, perhaps with a full staff, to organize, to suggest projects and needs, to motivate and to help (as inconspicuously as possible) the "Boards» and to see that every idea, suggestion, activity and progressive attitude of every "Board" and each individual member is management-appreciated, acknowledged, recognized, commended, publicized, awarded and, if profitably valuable, financially rewarded. This, at whatever cost, is not an expense but is one of the most profitable company improvement investments your company can make. Multiple Management is not an "employee relations gimmick" but is a tremendously effective management method. Its motivational psychological impact is of incalculable value-but that is only the beginning. The ideas for improvements from the employees who actually do the work, see the errors, the waste, the accumulative annoyances and irritations-these ideas will be even greater benefits. And of even greater value is your making employees a cooperative, coordinated part of managementgaining and sharing the benefits-without relinquishing management authority and control.
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Most important, multiple management will achieve what the great economist and management consultant, Herbert N. Casson, recommended years ago:
E1XmJ budness should be an ORGANIZED FRIENDSHIP/ Multiple management need not and should not limit its various Management Admsory Boards to company employees.
If the company sells through dealers, there should be a Dealer Relations Improvement Admsory Board consisting of the company's most progressive dealers -with a rotating membership so that different dealers would serve a "term" and be replaced by other progressive dealers who would bring more new ideas and fresh points of view. Of course, the company would pay generous expense allowances and in some way impressively compensate the dealers for serving-a proper way to treat the company·s most valuable dealers. Every company serving consumers, should have a Consumer Admsory Board-the accepted recommendations of which would be valuable in advertising and promotion. And, there should be Management Admsory Boards representing every constituency which could provide useful communication and valuable ideas. The purpose of multiple management is to give management recognition to all segments of the total operation and to obtain the greatest possible idea Input. Multiple management will multiply the speed of getting RICHER ... QUICKER!
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Cooperation Is POWER! Get Together! ... Keep Together! ... Act Together! Is it possible to become a great success just by using your individual ability-without help from others? Lees ask Charles Steinmetz, the great mathematician who solved the most complex electrical problems with just a pencil and paper. He solved the problem of producing alternating current which made possible the transmission of electricity over unlimited distances. His mathematical ability was so advanced that no one else could even understand his complex calculationsl Surely, here is proof that an individual can succeed without the help of others. Yet what did Charles Steinmetz say? He said, "Cooperation is not sentiment-it is economic necessity." As an «economic necessity", cooperation should receive the study of those who would get richer quicker. 297
There are three parts of cooperation: ( 1) Get together. This is the beginning, the :first stage of any cooperative activity. (2) Keep together. Joyfully, if possible, but determinedly, if necessary. (3) Act together. That's what cooperation is -acting together to achieve a common goal. The "secret" of first getting in and then getting to the top in business, civic, social and political organizations is to offer your help (cooperation) in their chosen projects. Here's how: ( 1 ) Make a list of the organizations in which you want to become involved. (2) Under the name of each organization, make a list of its special projects and activities in which you can be helpful. (3) Offer your help eagerly and freely. ( 4) When accepted, help with willingness and enthusiasm-even when your personal inconvenience and sacrifice is required. ( 5) Make a special point of giving the credit for accomplishments to others-even if you deserve it, yourseH. Popularity has many doors, but the key which unlocks all of them is unselfish helpfulness. A truly unselfish offer to help will find welcome acceptance everywhere. Soon, your unselfish helpfulness will not only be welcomely accepted, but you will be sought, wanted, needed. Then your popularity will be automatic and inevitable. The "secret" ... unselfish helpfulness! 298
Remember, no person ever is honored for what he received. Honor is bestowed only for what he gave. Even in receiving honors, you must give. Share the honor and the recognition with as many others as you can. There is a wise proverb: "Half an orange tastes fust as sweet:~ Your cooperation, your unselfish helpfulness will get you in and get you to the top in business, civic, social and political organizations. But, there is a much more important form of unselfish helpfulness than that. It is expressed best in another proverb: "He is my friend that helps me, not he that pities me." People in trouble need, not pity, but tangible, practical help. This world already has too many "pious" people who go about proclaiming, "Holy, Holy, Holy! I pity the poor, the handicapped, the troubled." We need more people with ideas, plans, work and money to help the poor, the handicapped, the troubled
-in the manner of real charity. And, real charity is not just to give to the needy -but to see to it that there are no needy! Yet, even when they no longer need things, people always will need each other. That's what cooperation is all about. And, that may be the most challenging question in your life:
"Who NEEDS youP" It may come to you as a challenging, threaten-
ing roar: "Who NEEDS you?" Or, in the stillness of the night, it may come as a chilling whisper: "Who NEEDS you?"
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To know that some person NEEDS you, will give depth and meaning to your life. And, perhaps, that is enough. But if you want more-much more-here it is: The ultimate in managed cooperation is to cause hundreds, thousands, even millions to NEED you-then they will make you successful, wealthy, famous. So, let"s consider cooperation in terms of what YOU have to oHer. The value of your cooperation will be determined by: .(a) How intense and urgent is the need for your cooperation? (b) How easily can equivalent cooperation be obtained from others? From many others? ( c) Specifically, how indispensable is your cooperation in filling an important or urgent need? ( d) How many people will substantially benefit from your cooperation? A few, a hundred, or thousands, or millions? It is not necessary to establish that active cooperation is required for success in business and in life. What is necessary is to establish the value of YOUR cooperation. Your answers to the above questions will determine YOUR value. They also will be a guide for increasing your oolue-which is how you get richer . .. qUicker!
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Who Ought To Be Boss? Henry Ford settled, once and for all time, the often asked question: «Who ought to be BOSS?" Henry Ford said that was like asking who should sing tenor in a quartet. Then he gave the obvious answer: «The man who can sing tenor." Deciding who ought to be leader, or who ought to be aSSigned any job from president' to janitor-is Simply a matter of deciding who is best qualified to do that specific job. There is no such person as a "born leader" or a "born salesman" or even a "born failure". There only is a "born person". What each person makes of his or her developed or to-be-developed abilities is the sole responsibility of that individual. Skip the excuses and alibies. All of them have been surmounted millions of times by people who really wanted to be successful and, therefore, really tried. Every801
one knows that any person can succeed in less time than it takes to try to convince others of excuses for failure. Whatever you achieve in life will not be the result of your "born advantages," or "born environment," or «born opportunities"-but by your self-improved, selfdeveloped success qualities.
Whatever your failures, they will not be the result of your being a
methods which best qualify him or her for the position or achievements desired. You advance in any business-and you can advance all the way to the top-by learning and USING proven success methods so that: ( 1) You will be increasingly more useful, and therefore ... (2) You will be increasingly more valuableso much more valuable that you outgrow your present position to such an extent that your company must either promote you or lose you to a more progressive competitor. (3) You will be a constant source of IDEAS for improving products and/or services ... increasing production, sales, profits . . . reducing costs, errors, complaints (by your SPARKING IDEAS using the 61 Magic Questions in Chapter 13). ( 4 ) You will work eagerly and enthusiastically to give your company: (a) more of what it wants, and (b) less of what it does not want-from you as an employee. (5) You will accomplish this by always doing whatever should be done ... when it should be done ... whether you like it or not. ( 6) You will frequently ASK your employer how you can be more useful and do better work. Use the preceding six proven success methods constantly and review them often by marking this page or copying the six methods stated above and putting them where they will remind you that these are the proven methods to earn promotions-all the way to the top. And-the sure way to get richer . .. qUicker!
Chapter 92
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Always Offer INCENTIVES! Everybody Can Be Motivated By Irresistible Incentives! Many people are as ambitious and energetic as a canned sardine. Their lives are as meaningful as playing tennis with the net down. Psychologist Nathaniel Braden says, "Central to the science of psychology is the issue or problem of motivation. The base of the science is the need to answer two fundamental questions: "( 1) Why does a man act as he does?" "( 2) What would be required for a man to act differently?" When you can answer those two questions, you can deal successfully with people-problems. As John Hancock said, <"The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions:' This chapter-lesson wm deal with influenCing-and
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especially with stimulating the actions of people. Specifically, this chapter will deal with motivating people. And with good reason, because many people have the right aim in life, but they never pull the trigger! This chapter will explain how to get people to "puU the trigger" and get started. Motivation! Psychological research has revealed that it is impossible for an employee to work at 100% efficiency if his work is routine and he is not permitted-and speci'fi,cally asked-to contribute his own ideas and suggestions for improvements in the work he is aSSigned to do. This is a form of motivation. Add an incentive and the motivation is greatly increased. Most companies pay full-time wages to parttime employees. They get only the routine work, but not ideas for improvement which may be more valuable than routine work. So, we come right back to the central question: "How do you motivate people?" Napoleon had a method. He created the Legion of Honor, decorated 1,500 soldiers with Distinguished Service Medals, made eighteen of his generals "Marshals of France" and called his troops the "Grand Army." When Napoleon was criticized for trying to motivate war-hardened veterans with "toys", Napoleon replied, "Men are ruled by toys." Well, maybe. But, personally, I don't think a motivational program should be limited to incentives consisting of citations, certificates and trophies, although they should not be disregarded. 305
Let's look at the total motivational opportunity. The proven success method which motivates all people is incentive. Incentives for people-motivation should be selected with great care, especially if they consist only of "ego awards". It depends upon the personal interests of the people and how they are affected by "ego awards". In my own case, I happen to have collected a considerable assortment of framed cert:ifl.cates, service awards, plaques, trophies and miscellaneous trivia over a forty-year period beginning with sports, and continuing in business and finance. Yet, if I even have them, these awards are still in their original wrappings, stored somewhere in the attic. But the walls of my personal rooms are covered with my mounted trophy-size bassI And I eagerly look forward to adding to those trophies, with the self-imposed requirement that the bass must weigh nine pounds or more. At the risk of knowing most readers will exclaim: "Who wants to cover walls with old stuffed fish?", I have included this too-personal example just to show the problem of selecting desirable "ego awards." And to recommend the universally most powerful incentive . . . M0 NEYI In selecting the most universally wanted incentive-MaNEY-you have a wide range of choices: the cash, itself ... or bonuses ... or increased wages ... or promotions which include increased wages ... or many other ways to offer MONEY as a motivation to influence employees and others to do better, to do more, or to do what you want them to do.
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When you are selecting an incentive for motivation, remember . . . A golden hammer will open any door! When you offer MONEY as the incentive for motivation, you are offering whatever each possible recipient visualizes that amount of money will buy for him orms family-and that could be any of hundreds of different things, depending upon each individual's needs or desires. But whatever is visualized by each recipient becomes the objective and the incentive-which triggers and sustains much more motivation than if the prize or award was something which that possible recipient did not eagerly want. In one of the companies of which I was president before I retired, I conducted a sales contest among the company's route-salesmen. I selected as first prize a big, luxury speedboat because I reasoned that such a prestige symbol would provide "ego gratification" beyond the normal financial resources of the route-salesmen contestants. I visualized the winner proudly taking his family and friends on luxurious speedboat cruises and enjoying prestige otherwise beyond his means. But the route-salesmen contestants did not visualize it that way. The contest was considerably less than sensational. And the winner never took delivery of his luxury speedboat. He sold it back to the boat dealer for CASH. The most universally wanted incentive is MONEY. A golden hammer will open any doorl
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Chapter 98
Get Richer •.. Quicker!
Problems Are Like Knives! Grasp The Handle-Not The Blade! Problems are like knives. You have the choice of grasping them by the blade and being cut-or grasping the handle and having a useful tool. Learn how to grasp each problem so that it becomes your tool, not a cause of injury. Most of the problems in your lifetime will be people-problems. My other books deal with the successful handling of people-problems so we shall use but little of our remaining space in this book for details-but there are several basic prinCiples which you must use if you are to become the kind of person who will attract people and, through them, the means of getting richer quicker. ( 1) Stop "finding fault"-start finding solutions. A number of leading psychiatrists joined in a research project to find one Simple rule which would enable people to lead happier lives, maintain peace of mind, and
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be more attractive to others. They found itl Here it is: Stop finding fault! (2) Never attack the ego (self-image) of another. A survey was made of 10,000 arguments ranging from arguments between husbands and wives to debates at the United Nations. The most important single fact learned in this survey was: Never attack the ego (selfimage) of another. Never! This leads directly to a third principle: ( 3 ) Criticize the situation-not the person. The rule is: Never criticize. If you can follow that rule you will eliminate most of your people-problems. However, if a situation becomes so intolerable that it must be corrected, do not criticize the person or persons who caused the situation, but confine your criticism (preferably suggestions for improvements) to the situation, itseH. Never criticize people! By following these three principles, you always will grasp the dangerous people-problem knife, not by the blade and injure yourseH, but by the handle and make it a tool of success I
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Chapter 94
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No One Stumbles Over A Mountain! We Stumble Only Over Molehills! You will clearly see the "mountains" that block your road to success. Your awareness of them will enable you to use proven success methods to surmount, by-pass, or blast through big obstacles, and to continue toward your goal. It is the «molehills", the trivialities of life, which trip you up because you ignore them-and they send you sprawling in humiliation. Your success will not result from climbing mountains but from your day to day dealing successfully with «little things" which principally constitute your life. John D. Rockefeller saved half of his small beginning salary. He invested it. He saved all of his investment income and reinvested it. «Little things" which added up to the greatest fortune of his timel Its how you get richer . .. quicker! 810
Chapter 95
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Do Not STRUGGLE To Succeed! If You Have A "Struggle Complex", You Won't Live Long Enough To Succeed! Heart researchers have discovered that people who "struggle" to succeed, do not live long enough to reach their goal. Make no mistake about it-stress and mentalemotional struggle are deadly! Attaining success never should be a "struggle"; it should be a calm, calculated, deliberate use of proven success methods. Knowing HOW makes success easy. It is trying to succeed without knowing HOW which causes the "struggle". Not knowing HOW to succeed causes indecision. Indecision leads to doubt. Doubt leads to anxiety. Anxiety leads to fear. Fear leads to panic. Panic leads to 811
psychosomatic illness: mental-emotional and, finally, physical disorders which will ruin your life. All of which began with indecision resulting from not knowing HOW to succeed-when that information is readily available. Another cause of a "struggle personality" is the acceptance of pity. Never accept pity from others, no matter how well intentioned. As soon as you begin to accept pity, you increasingly feel that you deserve pity. When you increasingly feel that you deserve pity, you are headed for the depths of despair and a "struggle personality". Another cause of a "struggle personality" is mental-emotional depression. Instinctively, you want release, escape. So a mental-emotional "struggle" engulfs your personality. Psychiatrists affirm that such "struggles" result from loss-actual or threatened-of a loved one, or your job or other form of security, or your health. Your "struggle" and the loss-actual or threatened-may be very real, but famed psychiatrist, Dr. William C. Menninger of the Menninger Clinic in Kansas offers encouraging hope: "There is a superstition that most mental illness is incurable. The actual fact is that mental illness
has probably the highest potential recovery rate of any group of iUnesses-provided proper treatment is provided in time."
I want to emphasize here the difference between preventing the causes and thereby eliminating mental-emotional problems such as the "struggle-personality" BEFORE they become serious mental illnesses, as this and other chapter-lessons in my books are intended to do-and
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the necessary professional treatment of actual mental illnesses by qualified psychiatrists or mental health clinics. I receive telephone calls and letters from people who are tormented by "supernatural beings", and from people who are "contemplating suicide", and from other emotionally disturbed people who say my books have "saved their lives". I appreciate their calls and letters but my response must be, not gratification, but serious concern. I do, indeed, rush a proven success method to such mentally-ill people. It is: See a psychiatrist at once! Or, at least, see the nearest mental health clinic and follow its recommendations. My books are not for people who want to commit suicide. My books are for people who want to succeed in business and in life-and I guarantee that using proven success methods will enable them to do that.
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Chapter 96
Get Richer ••• Quickel'/
Here Is The ONE Skill All Successful People Have-Without Any Exception! A survey was made of thousands of very successful men and women to detennine if there was anyone skill which they had in common. It was discovered that there was one skill which aU very successful people had. Obviously, your learning that one skill is necessary for you to be very successful. That one skill is skill in using words. There may be very little difference between one person and another, but that little difference may be very important. And if that difference is that one person is skilled in the use of words and the other person is notthat will make a great difference in their rates of promotion and goal-achievement. Dr. Rollo May, the educational psychologist, said in a speech to the New York Academy of Medicine 814,
that there are two parts to everyone's personality: (1) How you aHect others (2) How you respond to others Your success in both of these parts of your personality requires that you develop skill in using words. In this book and in the other books whieh comprise the Proven Success Methods Library are many chapter-lessons which will improve your skill in using words. And there are many courses-in books and on cassettes-which are devoted entirely to skiU in using words. There is room here for only one more example but it is certain to produce such remarkable results that I must include it. Here it is: In my book, Thoughts To Build On, I teach a psychological technique for eliminating self-consciousness. I call it c
exist!" If there is a lull in the conversation, Simply ask a question which will start others talking about themselves some more. 815
If you are asked a direct question, simply respond by asking what the others think or how they feel about it. The skill in using this "don't exist" method is in not letting the others realize what you are dOing. Obviously, you cannot keep this up indefinitely, but the longer you can do this, the more skilled you will become in controlling conversations. When you eliminate your SELF from conversations, you eliminate your SELF-consciousness. You become OTHERS-conscious which will assure your instant and lasting popularity. Controlling conversations .. . leads to influencing people . . . which leads to mastering situations . . . which leads to getting richer . .. quicker!
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Chapter 97
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How You Can Use The ~~MAGIC MINUTE" To Win Goodwill The MAGIC MINUTE is the first minute you spend. with each person. The proven success method is to try very hard -do and say everything-to make that first minute you spend with each person the most enjoyable minute of that person's entire day! This book and my other books are filled with chapter-lessons on how-to-do-it so I will only add here the advice of John J. McGuirk: "The ability to form friendships, to make people believe in you and trust you is one of the absolutely fundamental qualities of success. Selling, buying, negotiating are so much smoother and easier when the parties enjoy each other's confidence. The person who can make friends quickly will find that he will glide instead of stumble through life." ... And get RICHER . .. QUICKER!
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Chapter 98
Get Richer ... Quicker!
How To Influence Multitudes: Stay On A ONE-To-ONE Basis! When you are speaking to hundreds or to thousands (or by television, to millions), and when you are writing to thousands or millions-you must speak or write only to ONE individual. This will eliminate the self-conscious fear of numbers which overwhelms inexperienced public speakers and writers. But that is not what this chapter-lesson is about. It is assumed that before you are asked to speak or write to large audiences, you will have acquired the ability and experience to do so. It is the purpose of this proven success method to emphasize that your large audience (of hundreds, thousands or millions) really is only one individual. The fact that the one individual happens to be multiplied by hundreds, thousands or millions-is completely irrelevant and must be ignored.
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You must keep your speaking or writing on a ONE-to-ONE basis. Just you speaking or writing to one individual. In my book, Here's Help!, there are lessons on eye-contact, eye-language, and actually projecting your voice through your eyes! The point is made that in speaking to large audiences (even smaller groups) you must constantly make eye-contact with numerous separate individuals throughout the entire audience and speak directly to them. You must not hurl your voice into space, hopefully to be tuned in by the audience. Unless your speech is made on a person-to-person basis, it will not project any personal communication. A public speech, or a book or article, must be a personal «conversation" on a ONE-to-ONE basis. Otherwise, it is wind blowing through a forest. Nothing personal. Just wind blowing through a forest. Personal influence must be personal. It must be individual. It must not be impartially and impersonally hurled into space in the hope that many people will tune it in, each feeling that it was meant for them. A few people may, but you will not influence many that way. The secret of influencing multitudes is: stay on a ONE-to-ONE basis. And, a sure way to get RICHER ... QUICKER-is to influence multitudes!
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Chapter 99
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Storage Earns Small Rent; Only Production Earns Great Fortunes! A storehouse merely stores; it does not produce anything. Storage space earns only small rent,. so do not use your mind merely as a storage space for facts. No matter how many facts you learn, if they are stored away, they are "dead storage"; they produce nothing, earn nothing except meager rent for storage space in your mind. You only can get richer quicker by producing -by using the facts you have learned as the materials to produce products and/or services which will give more and more people ... more and more of what they want ... and/or eliminate more and more of what they don't want. You will not get richer quicker because of what you know; you only will get richer quicker as the result of what you DO with what you know. 820
Chapter 100
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Your Success Will Depend Upon The Kind Of cCAdvice Seeker" You Are! There are three kinds of advice seekers: ( 1) People who ask for "advice" when all they really want is sympathy and an excuse to tell their troubles to others. (2) People who ask for "advice" when all they really want is to call attention to their "accomplishment" and to be praised for it. (3) People ask for advice because they want to learn, to be helped, to be guided, to improve, to achieve, to succeed. Those are the genuine advice seekers who will benefit by the more than a thousand proven success methods I have researched and tested during forty years and now have recorded in my books. Benjamin Franklin wrote, "They that will not be counselled, cannot be helped." But you must be more than "willing to receive" counsel-you must energetically
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and enthusiastically seek it! You must seek, learn and use proven success methods. It must become an obsession! It must be your first goal-because, until you learn HOW to succeed, you cannot succeed in achieving your main goal in life-or succeed in anything, for that matter. You have to learn HOW first. Pity the persons who do not learn HOW to succeed. They wear themselves out by struggling to do something they don't know HOW to do. Or they make themselves ridiculous by pretending that being successful doesn't matter-an excuse nobody believes. Yet, there is nothing difficult nor complicated about being successful. Success is simply learning HOW -then constantly USING what you have learned. The proven success methods of the men and women throughout history who achieved greatness, wealth, power and fame-all were Simple, practical commonsense methods. In my book, How To Get Whatever You Want, are the real life stories of fifteen famous men and women who achieved great successes in spite of enormous difficulties. How did they do it? By using exactly the same proven success methods which are available to you. In fact, all of their success methods-and hundreds more-are in my books. And all are easily within your own capabilities NOW!
So you have the methods NOW; you have the capabilities NOW! Do you have the ambition and determination NOW? Your answer will decide your future! 822
Chapter 101
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It Required A Billion Years To Develop Your Brain! For What Purpose? You have an obligation to mankind. It required a billion years of evolution to develop that brain of yoursl Then after a billion years of brain evolution, one cell divided, and by multiple division, increased to the 12 billion cells which constitute your own brain. You not only have an obligation to use your 12 billion brain cells to repay, in part, mankind's billion years of evolution to produce your brain-but you personally have the mental capacity to do it! Your brain has the capability-through combining thoughts-to put together several trillion thought associations . . . IDEAS! Out of your capacity to produce several trillion IDEAS, you should at least produce several hundred
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IDEAS, and some, perhaps many, of your IDEAS will improve the world in which you live and help your fellow man. You owe the world that much for the "!Jillion years it took to evolve your brain and the production of the 12 biUion cells which constitute your brain and give you the personal capability of combining thoughts into several trillion different thought combinations ... IDEAS I Otherwise, why were you born? Shouldn't you make the most use of that marvelous brain of yours? Yes, your brain is, indeed, marvelous-all 12 biUion cells of it! H your brain is not continuously producing useful and valuable IDEAS, maybe you haven't put enough thoughts into it to get IDEAS started. As wise, old Ben Franklin taught: "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." Which is how to get RICHER ... QUICKER!
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