8 – A Formula That Will Work Wonders For You
Remember that other people may be totally wrong. But they don’t
think so. Don’t condemn them. Any fool can do that. Try to
understand them. Only wise, tolerant, exceptional people even try to
do that.
There is a reason why the other man thinks and acts as he does.
Ferret out that reason – and you have the key to his actions, perhaps
to his personality. Try honestly to put yourself in his place.
If you say to yourself, “How would I feel, how would I react if I were
in his shoes?” you will save yourself time and irritation, for “by
becoming interested in the cause, we are less likely to dislike the
effect.” And, in addition, you will sharply increase your skill in human
relationships.
“Stop a minute,” says Kenneth M. Goode in his book How to Turn
People Into Gold, “stop a minute to contrast your keen interest in
your own affairs with your mild concern about anything else. Realize
then, that everybody else in the world feels exactly the same way!
Then, along with Lincoln and Roosevelt, you will have grasped the
only solid foundation for interpersonal relationships; namely, that
success in dealing with people depends on a sympathetic grasp of
the other persons’ viewpoint.”
Sam Douglas of Hempstead, New York, used to tell his wife that she
spent too much time working on their lawn, pulling weeds, fertilizing,
cutting the grass twice a week when the lawn didn’t look any better
than it had when they moved into their home four years earlier.
Naturally, she was distressed by his remarks, and each time he made
such remarks the balance of the evening was ruined.
After taking our course, Mr. Douglas realized how foolish he had
been all those years. It never occurred to him that she enjoyed doing
that work and she might really appreciate a compliment on her
diligence.
One evening after dinner, his wife said she wanted to pull some
weeds and invited him to keep her company. He first declined, but
then thought better of it and went out after her and began to help
her pull weeds. She was visibly pleased, and together they spent an
hour in hard work and pleasant conversation.
After that he often helped her with the gardening and complimented
her on how fine the lawn looked, what a fantastic job she was doing
with a yard where the soil was like concrete. Result: a happier life for
both because he had learned to look at things from her point of view
– even if the subject was only weeds.
In his book Getting Through to People, Dr. Gerald S. Nirenberg
commented: “Cooperativeeness in conversation is achieved when
you show that you consider the other person’s ideas and feelings as
important as your own. Starting your conversation by giving the
other person the purpose or direction of your conversation,
governing what you say by what you would want to hear if you were
the listener, and accepting his or her viewpoint will encourage the
listener to have an open mind to your ideas.” (*)
—-
[*] Dr Gerald S. Nirenberg, Getting Through to People (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 31.
—-
I have always enjoyed walking and riding in a park near my home.
Like the Druids of ancient Gaul, I all but worship an oak tree, so I
was distressed season after season to see the young trees and
shrubs killed off by needless fires. These fires weren’t caused by
careless smokers. They were almost all caused by youngsters who
went out to the park to go native and cook a frankfurter or an egg
under the trees. Sometimes, these fires raged so fiercely that the fire
department had to be called out to fight the conflagration.
There was a sign on the edge of the park saying that anyone who
started a fire was liable to fine and imprisonment, but the sign stood
in an unfrequented part of the park, and few of the culprits ever saw
it. A mounted policeman was supposed to look after the park; but he
didn’t take his duties too seriously, and the fires continued to spread
season after season. On one occasion, I rushed up to a policeman
and told him about a fire spreading rapidly through the park and
wanted him to notify the fire department, and he nonchalantly
replied that it was none of his business because it wasn’t in his
precinct! I was desperate, so after that when I went riding, I acted
as a self-appointed committee of one to protect the public domain.
In the beginning, I am afraid I didn’t even attempt to see the other
people’s point of view. When I saw a fire blazing under the trees, I
was so unhappy about it, so eager to do the right thing, that I did
the wrong thing. I would ride up to the boys, warn them that they
could be jailed for starting a fire, order with a tone of authority that
it be put out; and, if they refused, I would threaten to have them
arrested. I was merely unloading my feelings without thinking of
their point of view.
The result? They obeyed – obeyed sullenly and with resentment.
After I rode on over the hill, they probably rebuilt the fire and longed
to burn up the whole park.
With the passing of the years, I acquired a trifle more knowledge of
human relations, a little more tact, a somewhat greater tendency to
see things from the other person’s standpoint. Then, instead of
giving orders, I would ride up to a blazing fire and begin something
like this:
“Having a good time, boys? What are you going to cook for supper?
… I loved to build fires myself when I was a boy – and I still love to.
But you know they are very dangerous here in the park. I know you
boys don’t mean to do any harm, but other boys aren’t so careful.
They come along and see that you have built a fire; so they build
one and don’t put it out when they go home and it spreads among
the dry leaves and kills the trees. We won’t have any trees here at all
if we aren’t more careful, You could be put in jail for building this
fire. But I don’t want to be bossy and interfere with your pleasure. I
like to see you enjoy yourselves; but won’t you please rake all the
leaves away from the fire right now – and you’ll be careful to cover it
with dirt, a lot of dirt, before you leave, won’t you? And the next
time you want to have some fun, won’t you please build your fire
over the hill there in the sandpit? It can’t do any harm there.. . .
Thanks so much, boys. Have a good time.”
What a difference that kind of talk made! It made the boys want to
cooperate. No sullenness, no resentment. They hadn’t been forced to
obey orders. They had saved their faces. They felt better and I felt
better because I had handled the situation with consideration for
their point of view.
Seeing things through another person’s eyes may ease tensions
when personal problems become overwhelming. Elizabeth Novak of
New South Wales, Australia, was six weeks late with her car
payment. “On a Friday,” she reported, “I received a nasty phone call
from the man who was handling my account informing me if I did
not come up with $122 by Monday morning I could anticipate further
action from the company. I had no way of raising the money over
the weekend, so when I received his phone call first thing on Monday
morning I expected the worst. Instead of becoming upset I looked at
the situation from his point of view. I apologized most sincerely for
causing him so much inconvenience and remarked that I must be his
most troublesome customer as this was not the first time I was
behind in my payments. His tone of voice changed immediately, and
he reassured me that I was far from being one of his really
troublesome customers. He went on to tell me several examples of
how rude his customers sometimes were, how they lied to him and
often tried to avoid talking to him at all. I said nothing. I listened and
let him pour out his troubles to me. Then, without any suggestion
from me, he said it did not matter if I couldn’t pay all the money
immediately. It would be all right if I paid him $20 by the end of the
month and made up the balance whenever it was convenient for me
to do so.”
Tomorrow, before asking anyone to put out a fire or buy your
product or contribute to your favorite charity, why not pause and
close your eyes and try to think the whole thing through from
another person’s point of view? Ask yourself: “Why should he or she
want to do it?” True, this will take time, but it will avoid making
enemies and will get better results – and with less friction and less
shoe leather.
“I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two
hours before an interview,” said Dean Donham of the Harvard
business school, “than step into that office without a perfectly clear
idea of what I was going to say and what that person – from my
knowledge of his or her interests and motives – was likely to
answer.”
That is so important that I am going to repeat it in italics for the sake
of emphasis.
I would rather walk the sidewalk in front of a person’s office for two
hours before an interview than step into that office without a
perfectly clear idea of what I was going to say and what that persob
– from my knowledge of his or her interests and motives – was likely
to answer.
If, as a result of reading this book, you get only one thing – an
increased tendency to think always in terms of the other person’s
point of view, and see things from that person’s angle as well as
your own – if you get only that one thing from this book, it may
easily prove to be one of the stepping – stones of your career.
• Principle 8 – Try honestly to see things from the other person’s
point of view.
7 – How To Get Cooperation
Don’t you have much more faith in ideas that you discover for
yourself than in ideas that are handed to you on a silver platter? If
so, isn’t it bad judgment to try to ram your opinions down the
throats of other people? Isn’t it wiser to make suggestions – and let
the other person think out the conclusion?
Adolph Seltz of Philadelphia, sales manager in an automobile
showroom and a student in one of my courses, suddenly found
himself confronted with the necessity of injecting enthusiasm into a
discouraged and disorganized group of automobile salespeople.
Calling a sales meeting, he urged his people to tell him exactly what
they expected from him. As they talked, he wrote their ideas on the
blackboard. He then said: “I’ll give you all these qualities you expect
from me. Now I want you to tell me what I have a right to expect
from you.” The replies came quick and fast: loyalty, honesty,
initiative, optimism, teamwork, eight hours a day of enthusiastic
work, The meeting ended with a new courage, a new inspiration –
one salesperson volunteered to work fourteen hours a day – and Mr.
Seltz reported to me that the increase of sales was phenomenal.
“The people had made a sort of moral bargain with me, ” said Mr.
Seltz, “and as long as I lived up to my part in it, they were
determined to live up to theirs. Consulting them about their wishes
and desires was just the shot in the arm they needed.”
No one likes to feel that he or she is being sold some-thing or told to
do a thing. We much prefer to feel that we are buying of our own
accord or acting on our own ideas. We like to be consulted about our
wishes, our wants, our thoughts.
Take the case of Eugene Wesson. He lost countless thousands of
dollars in commissions before he learned this truth. Mr. Wesson sold
sketches for a studio that created designs for stylists and textile
manufacturers. Mr. Wesson had called on one of the leading stylists
in New York once a week, every week for three years. “He never
refused to see me,” said Mr. Wesson, “but he never bought. He
always looked over my sketches very carefully and then said: ‘No,
Wesson, I guess we don’t get together today.’ ”
After 150 failures, Wesson realized he must be in a mental rut, so he
resolved to devote one evening a week to the study of influencing
human behavior, to help him develop new ideas and generate new
enthusiasm.
He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished
artists’ sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer’s office.
“I want you to do me a little favor, if you will,” he said. “‘Here are
some uncompleted sketches. Won’t you please tell me how we could
finish them up in such a way that you could use them?”
The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word.
Finally he said: “Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and
then come back and see me.”
Wesson returned three davs later, got his suggestions, took the
sketches back to the studio and had them finished according to the
buyer’s ideas. The result? All accepted.
After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches from Wesson,
all drawn according to the buyer’s ideas. “I realized why I had failed
for years to sell him,” said Mr. Wesson. ” I had urged him to buy
what I thought he ought to have. Then I changed my approach
completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel
that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell
him. He bought.”
Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only
works in business and politics, it works in family life as well. Paul M.
Davis of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told his class how he applied this
principle:
“My family and I enjoyed one of the most interesting sightseeing
vacation trips we have ever taken. I had long dreamed of visiting
such historic sites as the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg,
Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and our nation’s capital. Valley
Forge, James-town and the restored colonial village of Williamsburg
were high on the list of things I wanted to see.
“In March my wife, Nancy, mentioned that she had ideas for our
summer vacation which included a tour of the western states, visiting
points of interest in New Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. She
had wanted to make this trip for several years. But we couldn’t
obviously make both trips.
“Our daughter, Anne, had just completed a course in U.S. history in
junior high school and had become very interested in the events that
had shaped our country’s growth. I asked her how she would like to
visit the places she had learned about on our next vacation. She said
she would love to.
“Two evenings later as we sat around the dinner table, Nancy
announced that if we all agreed, the summer’s vacation would be to
the eastern states, that it would he a great trip for Anne and thrilling
for all of us. We all concurred.”
This same psychology was used by an X-ray manufacturer to sell his
equipment to one of the largest hospitals in Brooklyn This hospital
was building an addition and preparing to equip it with the finest Xray
department in America. Dr. L—-, who was in charge of the X-ray
department, was overwhelmed with sales representatives, each
caroling the praises of his own company’s equipment.
One manufacturer, however, was more skillful. He knew far more
about handling human nature than the others did. He wrote a letter
something like this:
Our factory has recently completed a new line of X-ray equipment.
The first shipment of these machines has just arrived at our office.
They are not perfect. We know that, and we want to improve them.
So we should be deeply obligated to you if you could find time to
look them over and give us your ideas about how they can be made
more serviceable to your profession. Knowing how occupied you are,
I shall be glad to send my car for you at any hour you specify.
“I was surprised to get that letter,” Dr. L —- said as he related the
incident before the class. “I was both surprised and complimented. I
had never had an X-ray manufacturer seeking my advice before. It
made me feel important. I was busy every night that week, but I
canceled a dinner appointment in order to look over the equipment.
The more I studied it, the more I discovered for myself how much I
liked it.
“Nobody had tried to sell it to me. I felt that the idea of buying that
equipment for the hospital was my own. I sold myself on its superior
qualities and ordered it installed.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Self-Reliance” stated: “In every
work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come
back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
Colonel Edward M. House wielded an enormous influence in national
and international affairs while Woodrow Wilson occupied the White
House. Wilson leaned upon Colonel House for secret counsel and
advice more than he did upon even members of his own cabinet.
What method did the Colonel use in influencing the President?
Fortunately, we know, for House himself revealed it to Arthur D.
Howden Smith, and Smith quoted House in an article in The
Saturday Evening Post.
” ‘After I got to know the President,’ House said, ‘I learned the best
way to convert him to an idea was to plant it in his mind casually,
but so as to interest him in it – so as to get him thinking about it on
his own account. The first time this worked it was an accident. I had
been visiting him at the White House and urged a policy on him
which he appeared to disapprove. But several days later, at the
dinner table, I was amazed to hear him trot out my suggestion as his
own.’ ”
Did House interrupt him and say, “That’s not your idea. That’s mine”
? Oh, no. Not House. He was too adroit for that. He didn’t care about
credit. He wanted results. So he let Wilson continue to feel that the
idea was his. House did even more than that. He gave Wilson public
credit for these ideas.
Let’s remember that everyone we come in contact with is just as
human as Woodrow Wilson. So let’s use Colonel House’s technique.
A man up in the beautiful Canadian province of New Brunswick used
this technique on me and won my patronage. I was planning at the
time to do some fishing and canoeing in New Brunswick. So I wrote
the tourist bureau for information. Evidently my name and address
were put on a mailing list, for I was immediately overwhelmed with
scores of letters and booklets and printed testimonials from camps
and guides. I was bewildered. I didn’t know which to choose. Then
one camp owner did a clever thing. He sent me the names and
telephone numbers of several New York people who had stayed at
his camp and he invited me to telephone them and discover for
myself what he had to offer.
I found to my surprise that I knew one of the men on his list. I
telephoned him, found out what his experience had been, and then
wired the camp the date of my arrival.
The others had been trying to sell me on their service, but one let
me sell myself. That organization won. Twenty-five centuries ago,
Lao-tse, a Chinese sage, said some things that readers of this book
might use today:
” The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred
mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able
to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be
above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them,
he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above
men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them,
they do not count it an injury.”
• Principle 7 – Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
6 – The Safety Valve In Handling Complaints
Must people trying to win others to their way of thinking do too
much talking themselves. Let the other people talk themselves out.
They know more about their business and problems than you do. So
ask them questions. Let them tell you a few things.
If you disagree with them you may be tempted to interrupt. But
don’t. It is dangerous. They won’t pay attention to you while they
still have a lot of ideas of their own crying for expression. So listen
patiently and with an open mind. Be sincere about it. Encourage
them to express their ideas fully.
Does this policy pay in business? Let’s see. Here is the story of a
sales representative who was forced to try it.
One of the largest automobile manufacturers in the United States
was negotiating for a year’s requirements of upholstery fabrics.
Three important manufacturers had worked up fabrics in sample
bodies. These had all been inspected by the executives of the motor
company, and notice had been sent to each manufacturer saying
that, on a certain day, a representative from each supplier would be
given an opportunity to make a final plea for the contract.
G.B.R., a representative of one manufacturer, arrived in town with a
severe attack of laryngitis. “When it came my turn to meet the
executives in conference,” Mr. R—- said as he related the story
before one of my classes, “I had lost my voice. I could hardly
whisper. I was ushered into a room and found myself face to face
with the textile engineer, the purchasing agent, the director of sales
and the president of the company. I stood up and made a valiant
effort to speak, but I couldn’t do anything more than squeak.
“They were all seated around a table, so I wrote on a pad of paper:
‘Gentlemen, I have lost my voice. I am speechless.’
” ‘I’ll do the talking for you,’ the president said. He did. He exhibited
my samples and praised their good points. A lively discussion arose
about the merits of my goods. And the president, since he was
talking for me, took the position I would have had during the
discussion My sole participation consisted of smiles, nods and a few
gestures.
“As a result of this unique conference, I was awarded the contract,
which called for over half a million yards of upholstery fabrics at an
aggregate value of $1,600,000 -the biggest order I had ever
received.
“I know I would have lost the contract if I hadn’t lost my voice,
because I had the wrong idea about the whole proposition. I
discovered, quite by accident, how richly it sometimes pays to let the
other person do the talking.’
Letting the other person do the talking helps in family situations as
well as in business. Barbara Wilson’s relationship with her daughter,
Laurie, was deteriorating rapidly. Laurie, who had been a quiet,
complacent child, had grown into an uncooperative, sometimes
belligerent teenager. Mrs. Wilson lectured her, threatened her and
punished her, but all to no avail.
“One day,” Mrs. Wilson told one of our classes, “I just gave up.
Laurie had disobeyed me and had left the house to visit her girl
friend before she had completed her chores. When she returned I
was about to scream at her for the ten-thousandth time, but I just
didn’t have the strength to do it. I just looked at her and said sadly,
‘Why, Laurie, Why?’
“Laurie noted my condition and in a calm voice asked, ‘Do you really
want to know?’ I nodded and Laurie told me, first hesitantly, and
then it all flowed out. I had never listened to her. I was always
telling her to do this or that. When she wanted to tell me her
thoughts, feelings, ideas, I interrupted with more orders. I began to
realize that she needed me – not as a bossy mother, but as a
confidante, an outlet for all her confusion about growing up. And all I
had been doing was talking when I should have been listening. I
never heard her.
“From that time on I let her do all the talking she wanted. She tells
me what is on her mind, and our relationship has improved
immeasurably. She is again a cooperative person.”
A large advertisement appeared on the financial page of a New York
newspaper calling for a person with unusual ability and experience.
Charles T. Cubellis answered the advertisement, sending his reply to
a box number. A few days later, he was invited by letter to call for an
interview. Before he called, he spent hours in Wall Street finding out
everything possible about the person who had founded the business.
During the interview, he remarked: “I should be mighty proud to be
associated with an organization with a record like yours. I
understand you started twenty-eight years ago with nothing but desk
room and one stenographer. Is that true?”
Almost every successful person likes to reminisce about his early
struggles. This man was no exception. He talked for a long time
about how he had started with $450 in cash and an original idea. He
told how he had fought against discouragement and battled against
ridicule, working Sundays and holidays, twelve to sixteen hours a
day; how he had finally won against all odds until now the most
important executives on Wall Street were coming to him for
information and guidance. He was proud of such a record. He had a
right to be, and he had a splendid time telling about it. Finally, he
questioned Mr. Cubellis briefly about his experience, then called in
one of his vice presidents and said: “I think this is the person we are
looking for.”
Mr. Cubellis had taken the trouble to find out about the
accomplishments of his prospective employer. He showed an interest
in the other person and his problems. He encouraged the other
person to do most of the talking – and made a favorable impression.
Roy G. Bradley of Sacramento, California, had the opposite problem.
He listened as a good prospect for a sales position talked himself into
a job with Bradley’s firm, Roy reported:
“Being a small brokerage firm, we had no fringe benefits, such as
hospitalization, medical insurance and pensions. Every representative
is an independent agent. We don’t even provide leads for prospects,
as we cannot advertise for them as our larger competitors do.
“Richard Pryor had the type of experience we wanted for this
position, and he was interviewed first by my assistant, who told him
about all the negatives related to this job. He seemed slightly
discouraged when he came into my office. I mentioned the one
benefit of being associated with my firm, that of being an
independent contractor and therefore virtually being self-employed.
“As he talked about these advantages to me, he talked himself out of
each negative thought he had when he came in for the interview.
Several times it seemed as though he was half talking to himself as
he was thinking through each thought. At times I was tempted to
add to his thoughts; however, as the interview came to a close I felt
he had convinced himself, very much on his own, that he would like
to work for my firm.
“Because I had been a good listener and let Dick do most of the
talking, he was able to weigh both sides fairly in his mind, and he
came to the positive conclusion, which was a challenge he created
for himself. We hired him and he has been an outstanding
representative for our firm,”
Even our friends would much rather talk to us about their
achievements than listen to us boast about ours. La Rochefoucauld,
the French philosopher, said: “If you want enemies, excel your
friends; but if you want friends, let your friends excel you.”
Why is that true? Because when our friends excel us, they feel
important; but when we excel them, they – or at least some of them
– will feel inferior and envious.
By far the best-liked placement counselor in the Mid-town Personnel
Agency in New York City was Henrietta G —- It hadn’t always been
that way. During the first few months of her association with the
agency, Henrietta didn’t have a single friend among her colleagues.
Why? Because every day she would brag about the placements she
had made, the new accounts she had opened, and anything else she
had accomplished.
“I was good at my work and proud of it,” Henrietta told one of our
classes. ” But instead of my colleagues sharing my triumphs, they
seemed to resent them. I wanted to be liked by these people. I really
wanted them to be my friends. After listening to some of the
suggestions made in this course, I started to talk about myself less
and listen more to my associates. They also had things to boast
about and were more excited about telling me about their
accomplishments than about listening to my boasting. Now, when we
have some time to chat, I ask them to share their joys with me, and
I only mention my achievements when they ask.”
• Principle 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
5 – The Secret Of Socrates
In talking with people, don’t begin by discussing the things on which
you differ. Begin by emphasizing – and keep on emphasizing – the
things on which you agree. Keep emphasizing, if possible, that you
are both striving for the same end and that your only difference is
one of method and not of purpose.
Get the other person saying “Yes, yes” at the outset. Keep your
opponent, if possible, from saying “No.” A “No” response, according
to Professor Overstreet, (*) is a most difficult handicap to overcome.
When you have said “No,” all your pride of personality demands that
you remain consistent with yourself. You may later feel that the “No”
was ill-advised; nevertheless, there is your precious pride to
consider! Once having said a thing, you feel you must stick to it.
Hence it is of the very greatest importance that a person be started
in the affirmative direction.
—-
[*] Harry A. Overstreet, lnfluencing Humun Behavior (New York:
Norton, 1925).
—-
The skillful speaker gets, at the outset, a number of “Yes” responses.
This sets the psychological process of the listeners moving in the
affirmative direction. It is like the movement of a billiard ball. Propel
in one direction, and it takes some force to deflect it; far more force
to send it back in the opposite direction.
The psychological patterns here are quite clear. When a person says
“No” and really means it, he or she is doing far more than saying a
word of two letters. The entire organism – glandular, nervous,
muscular -gathers itself together into a condition of rejection. There
is, usually in minute but sometimes in observable degree, a physical
withdrawal or readiness for withdrawal. The whole neuromuscular
system, in short, sets itself on guard against acceptance. When, to
the contrary, a person says “Yes,” none of the withdrawal activities
takes place. The organism is in a forward – moving, accepting, open
attitude. Hence the more “Yeses” we can, at the very outset, induce,
the more likely we are to succeed in capturing the attention for our
ultimate proposal.
It is a very simple technique – this yes response. And yet, how much
it is neglected! It often seems as if people get a sense of their own
importance by antagonizing others at the outset.
Get a student to say “No” at the beginning, or a customer, child,
husband, or wife, and it takes the wisdom and the patience of angels
to transform that bristling negative into an affirmative.
The use of this “yes, yes” technique enabled James Eberson, who
was a teller in the Greenwich Savings Bank, in New York City, to
secure a prospective customer who might otherwise have been lost.
“This man came in to open an account,” said Mr. Eberson, “and I
gave him our usual form to fill out. Some of the questions he
answered willingly, but there were others he flatly refused to answer.
“Before I began the study of human relations, I would have told this
prospective depositor that if he refused to give the bank this
information, we should have to refuse to accept this account. I am
ashamed that I have been guilty of doing that very thing in the past.
Naturally, an ultimatum like that made me feel good. I had shown
who was boss, that the bank’s rules and regulations couldn’t be
flouted. But that sort of attitude certainly didn’t give a feeling of
welcome and importance to the man who had walked in to give us
his patronage.
“I resolved this morning to use a little horse sense. I resolved not to
talk about what the bank wanted but about what the customer
wanted. And above all else, I was determined to get him saying ‘yes,
yes’ from the very start. So I agreed with him. I told him the
information he refused to give was not absolutely necessary.
” ‘However,’ I said, ‘suppose you have money in this bank at your
death. Wouldn’t you like to have the bank transfer it to your next of
kin, who is entitled to it according to law?’
” ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied.
” ‘Don’t you think,’ I continued, ‘that it would be a good idea to give
us the name of your next of kin so that, in the event of your death,
we could carry out your wishes without error or delay?’
“Again he said, ‘Yes.’
“The young man’s attitude softened and changed when he realized
that we weren’t asking for this information for our sake but for his
sake. Before leaving the bank, this young man not only gave me
complete information about himself but he opened, at my
suggestion, a trust account, naming his mother as the beneficiary for
his account, and he had gladly answered all the questions concerning
his mother also.
“I found that by getting him to say ‘yes, yes’ from the outset, he
forgot the issue at stake and was happy to do all the things I
suggested.”
Joseph Allison, a sales representative for Westinghouse Electric
Company, had this story to tell: “There was a man in my territory
that our company was most eager to sell to. My predecessor had
called on him for ten years without selling anything When I took over
the territory, I called steadily for three years without getting an
order. Finally, after thirteen years of calls and sales talk, we sold him
a few motors. If these proved to be all right, an order for several
hundred more would follow. Such was my expectation,
“Right? I knew they would be all right. So when I called three weeks
later, I was in high spirits.
“The chief engineer greeted me with this shocking announcement:
‘Allison, I can’t buy the remainder of the motors from you.’
” ‘Why?’ I asked in amazement. ‘Why?’
” ‘Because your motors are too hot. I can’t put my hand on them,’
“I knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue. I had tried that sort of
thing too long. So I thought of getting the ‘yes, yes’ response.
” ‘Well, now look, Mr. Smith,’ I said. ‘I agree with you a hundred
percent; if those motors are running too hot, you ought not to buy
any more of them. You must have motors that won’t run any hotter
than standards set by the National Electrical Manufacturers
Association. Isn’t that so?’
“He agreed it was. I had gotten my first ‘yes.’
” ‘The Electrical Manufacturers Association regulations say that a
properly designed motor may have a temperature of 72 degrees
Fahrenheit above room temperature. Is that correct?’
” ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘That’s quite correct. But your motors are much
hotter.’
“I didn’t argue with him. I merely asked: ‘How hot is the mill room?’
” ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘about 75 degrees Fahrenheit.’
” ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘if the mill room is 75 degrees and you add 72 to
that, that makes a total of 147 degrees Fahrenheit. Wouldn’t you
scald your hand if you held it under a spigot of hot water at a
temperature of 147 degrees Fahrenheit?’
“Again he had to say ‘yes.’
” ‘Well,’ I suggested, ‘wouldn’t it he a good idea to keep your hands
off those motors?’
” ‘Well, I guess you’re right,’ he admitted. We continued to chat for a
while. Then he called his secretary and lined up approximately
$35,000 worth of business for the ensuing month.
“It took me years and cost me countless thousands of dollars in lost
business before I finally learned that it doesn’t pay to argue, that it is
much more profitable and much more interesting to look at things
from the other person’s viewpoint and try to get that person saying
‘yes, yes.’ ”
Eddie Snow, who sponsors our courses in Oakland, California, tells
how he became a good customer of a shop because the proprietor
got him to say “yes, yes.” Eddie had become interested in bow
hunting and had spent considerable money in purchasing equipment
and supplies from a local bow store. When his brother was visiting
him he wanted to rent a bow for him from this store. The sales clerk
told him they didn’t rent bows, so Eddie phoned another bow store.
Eddie described what happened:
“A very pleasant gentleman answered the phone. His response to my
question for a rental was completely different from the other place.
He said he was sorry but they no longer rented bows because they
couldn’t afford to do so. He then asked me if I had rented before. I
replied, ‘Yes, several years ago.’ He reminded me that I probably
paid $25 to $30 for the rental. I said ‘yes’ again. He then asked if I
was the kind of person who liked to save money. Naturally, I
answered ‘yes.’ He went on to explain that they had bow sets with all
the necessary equipment on sale for $34.95. I could buy a complete
set for only $4.95 more than I could rent one. He explained that is
why they had discontinued renting them. Did I think that was
reasonable? My ‘yes’ response led to a purchase of the set, and
when I picked it up I purchased several more items at this shop and
have since become a regular customer.”
Socrates, “the gadfly of Athens,” was one of the greatest
philosophers the world has ever known. He did something that only a
handful of men in all history have been able to do: he sharply
changed the whole course of human thought; and now, twenty-four
centuries after his death, he is honored as one of the wisest
persuaders who ever influenced this wrangling world.
His method? Did he tell people they were wrong? Oh, no, not
Socrates. He was far too adroit for that. His whole technique, now
called the “Socratic method,” was based upon getting a “yes, yes”
response. He asked questions with which his opponent would have
to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he
had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally,
almost without realizing it, his opponents found themselves
embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few
minutes previously.
The next time we are tempted to tell someone he or she is wrong,
let’s remember old Socrates and ask a gentle question – a question
that will get the “yes, yes” response.
The Chinese have a proverb pregnant with the age-old wisdom of
the Orient: “He who treads softly goes far.”
They have spent five thousand years studying human nature, those
cultured Chinese, and they have garnered a lot of perspicacity: “He
who treads softly goes far.”
• Principle 5 – Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
Use that formula which the businessman suggested and you will develop this brand of
powerful faith in God and in yourself. You will leam to know yourself, your own
ability, your power to do things. To the degree to which your attitude shifts from
negative to positive the mastery touch will come to you. Then, with assurance, you
can say to yourself under any and all circumstances and mean it, “I don’t believe in
defeat.”
Take the story of Gonzales, who won the national tennis championship a few years ago
in a grueling battle. He had been practically unknown, and because of wet weather he
had not been able to perfect his game prior to the tournament. The sports writer of
a metropolitan newspaper in analyzing Gonzales said that there were certain defects
in his techniques, and gave it as his opinion that probably greater champions had
played on the courts, however, he credited Gonzales with a marvelous serve and a
skillful volley. But the factor that won the championship, said the writer, was his
staying power and the further fact that “he was never defeated by the discouraging
vicissitudes of the game.”
That is one of the most subtle lines I have ever read in any sports story—”He was
never defeated by the discouraging vicissitudes of the game.”
It means, does it not, that when the game seemed to go against him he did not let
discouragement creep in nor negative thoughts dominate and thus lose the power
needed to win. This mental and spiritual quality made that man a champion. He was
able to face obstacles, to stand up to them and overcome them.
Faith supplies staying power. It contains dynamic to keep one going when the going
is hard. Anybody can keep going when the going is good, but some extra ingredient is
needed to enable you to keep fighting when it seems that everything is against you.
It is a great secret, that of never being “defeated by the discouraging vicissitudes
of the game,”
You may counter, “But you don’t know my circumstances. I am in a different situation
than anybody else and I am as far down as a human being can get.”
In that case you are fortunate, for if you are as far down as you can get there is
no further down you can go. There is only one direction you can take from this
position, and that is up. So your situation is quite encouraging. However, I caution
you not to take the attitude that you are in a situation in which nobody has ever
been before. There is no such situation,
Practically speaking, there are only a few human stories and they have all been
enacted previously. This is a fact that you must never forget—there are people who
have overcome every conceivable difficult situation, even the one in which you now
find yourself and which to you seems utterly hopeless. So did it seem to some
others, but they found an out, a way up, a path over, a pass through.
One of the most inspiring illustrations of this fact is the story of Amos Parrish
who twice every year brings together hundreds of leading department-store executives
and style experts in two huge clinics held in the Grand Ballroom of the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. At these clinics Mr. Parrish gives advice to
the merchants and their associates on business trends, on merchandise, on selling
methods, and other matters important to the conduct of their business. Having
attended a number of the clinics, however, I am convinced that the greatest values
Mr. Parrish transmits to his customers are courage and positive thinking, a deep
belief in themselves, and the confidence that they can overcome all difficulties.
He seems a living example of the philosophy which he teaches. As a boy he was
sickly. Moreover, he stuttered. He was sensitive and a victim of an inferiority
complex. It was thought that he would not live because of his weakened physical
condition, but one day Amos Parrish had a spiritual experience. Faith dawned in his
mind, and from then on he knew that with the help of God and the utilization of his
own powers he could achieve.
He developed a unique idea of service to businessmen, and so highly do they rate it
that they are willing to pay large fees to attend a two-day session twice a year
under the business wisdom and inspiration of Amos Parrish. To me it is a moving
experience to sit with that big crowd in a hotel ballroom and listen to “A. P.,” as
he is affectionately called, talk positive thinking to those important businessmen
and women.
Sometimes he has the greatest difficulty with his stuttering, but he is never
discouraged. He refers to it frankly snd with a sense of humor. One day, for
example, he was trying to say the word Cadillac. He tried several times snd was
unable to get it out, and finally did so with a powerful effort. Then he commented,
“I can’t even say C-C-C-Cadillac, let alone buy one.” The audience roared with
laughter, but I noted that they looked up at him with affection written on their
faces. Everyone leaves a meeting at which he speaks with the conviction that they,
too, can turn their obstacles into assets.
Again I repeat, there is no difficulty you cannot overcome. A wise and philosophical
Negro man once said to me, when asked how he overcame his difficulties, “How do I
get through a trouble? Well, first I try to go around it, and if I can’t go around
it, I try to get under it, and if I can’t get under it, I try to go over it, and if
I can’t get over it, I just plow right through it.” Then he added, “God and I plow
right through it.”
Take seriously that formula of a businessman given earlier in this chapter. Stop
reading for a moment and repeat it over to yourself five times, and each time you
say it conclude with this affirmation, “I believe that.” Here is the formula again,
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (Php 4:13) Say that
five times every day and it will release indomitable power in your mind.
Your subconscious, which always resents any change, may say to you, “You don’t
believe any such thing.” But remember that your subconscious mind in a sense is one
of the greatest liars in existence. It concurs in and sends back to you your own
errors about your abilities. You have created the negative attitude in your
subconscious and it gives this error back to you. So just turn on your subconscious
and say to it, “Now look here, I do believe that. I insist upon believing it.” If
you talk to your sub-conscious mind with that positiveness, in due course it will be
convinced. One reason is because you are now feeding it positive thoughts. In other
words, you are at last telling the truth to your subconscious. After a while your
subconscious mind will begin to send back the truth to you, the truth being that
with the help of Jesus Christ there isn’t any obstacle you cannot overcome.
An effective method for making your subconscious positive in character is to
eliminate certain expressions of thought and speech which we may call the “little
negatives.” These so-called “little negatives” clutter up the average person’s
conversation, and while each one is seemingly unimportant in itself, the total
effect of these attitudes is to condition the mind negatively. When this thought of
“little negatives” first occurred to me, I began to analyze my own conversational
habits and was shocked by what I found. I discovered that I was making such
statements as, “I’m afraid I’ll be late,” or “I wonder if I’ll have a flat tire,” or
“I don’t think I can do that,” or “I’ll never get through this job. There’s so much
to do.” If something turned out badly, I might say, “Oh, that’s just what I
expected.” Or, again, I might observe a few clouds in the sky and would gloomily
state, “I knew it was going to rain.”
These are “little negatives” to be sure, and a big thought is of course more
powerful than a little one, but it must never be forgotten that “mighty oaks from
little acoms grow,” and if a mass of “little negatives” clutter up your
conversation, they are bound to seep into your mind. It is surprising how they
accumulate in force, and presently, before you know it, they will grow into “big
negatives.” So I determined to go to work on the “little negatives” and root them
out of my conversation. I found that the best way to eliminate them was deliberately
to say a positive word about everything. When you keep asserting that things are
going to work out well, that you can do the job, that you will not have a flat tire,
that you will get there on time, by talking up good results you invoke the law of
positive effects and good results occur. Things do turn out well.
On a roadside billboard I saw an advertisement of a certain brand of motor oil. The
slogan read, “A clean engine always delivers power.” So will a mind free of
negatives produce positives, that is to say, a clean mind will deliver power.
Therefore flush out your thoughts, give yourself a clean mental engine, remembering
that a clean mind, even as a clean engine, always delivers power.
So to overcome your obstacles and live the “I don’t believe in defeat” philosophy,
cultivate a positive-idea pattern deeply in your consciousness. What we do with
obstacles is directly determined by our mental attitude. Most of our obstacles, as a
matter of fact, are mental in character.
“Ah,” you may object, “mine are not mental, mine are real.”
Perhaps so, but your attitude toward them is mental. The only possible way you can
have an attitude is by the mental process, and what you think about your obstacles
largely determines what you do about them. Form the mental attitude that you cannot
remove an obstacle and you will not remove it, not if you think you can’t. But get
the idea firmly fixed that the obstacle is not so great as you previously considered
it to be. Hold the idea that it is removable, and however faintly you entertain this
positive thought, from the very moment you begin to think in this manner, the
process is inaugurated which will lead to its ultimate removal.
It you have been long defeated by a difficulty, it is probably because you have told
yourself for weeks, months, and even for years that there is nothing you can do
about it. You have so emphasized your inability to yourself that your mind gradually
accepted the conclusion upon which you have insisted, and when your mind is
convinced, you are convinced, for as you think so are you.
But, on the contrary, when you employ this new and creative concept, “I can do all
things through Christ,” then you develop a new mental slant. Emphasize and
reemphasize that positive attitude and you will finally convince your own
consciousness that you can do something about difficulties. When at last your mind
becomes convinced, astonishing results will begin to happen. Of a sudden you
discover that you have the power you would never acknowledge.
I played golf with a man who was not only an excellent golfer but a philosopher as
well. As we went around the golf course the game itself drew out of him certain gems
of wisdom for one of which I shall ever be grateful.
I hit a ball into the rough, into some high grass. When we came up to my ball I said
in some dismay, “Now just look at that. I certainly am in the rough. I have a bad
lie. It is going to be tough getting out of here.”
My friend grinned and said, “Didn’t I read something about positive thinking in your
books?”
Sheepishly I acknowledged that such was the case.
“I wouldn’t think negatively about that lie of yours,” he said. “Do you think you
could get a good hit if this ball were lying out on the fairway on the short grass?”
I said I thought so.
“Well,” he continued, “why do you think you could do better out there than here?”
“Because,” I replied, “the grass is cut short on the fairway and the ball can get
away better.”
Then he did a curious thing. “Let’s get down on our hands and knees,” he suggested,
“and examine the situation. Let’s see just how this ball does lie.”
So we got down on our hands and knees, and he said, “Observe that the relative
height of the ball here is about the same as it would be on the fairway, the only
difference being that you have about five or six inches of grass above the ball.”
Then he did an even more whimsical thing. “Notice the quality and character of this
grass,” he said. He pulled off a blade and handed it to me. “Chew it,” he said.
I chewed, and he asked, “Isn’t that tender?”
“Why, yes,” I replied. “It certainly does seem to be tender grass.”
“Well,” he continued, “an easy swing of your number-five iron will cut through that
grass almost like a knife.” And then he gave me this sentence which I am going to
remember as long as I live, and I hope you will also.
“The rough is only mental. In other words,” he continued, “it is rough because you
think it is. In your mind you have decided that here is an obstacle which will cause
you difficulty. The power to overcome this obstacle is in your mind. If you
visualize yourself lifting that ball out of the rough, believing you can do it, your
mind will transfer flexibility, rhythm, and power to your muscles and you will
handle that club in such a manner that the ball will rise right out of there in a
beautiful shot. All you need to do is to keep your eye on that ball and tell
yourself that you are going to lift it out of that grass with a lovely stroke. Let
the stiffness and tension go out of you. Hit it with exhilaration and power.
Remember, the rough is only mental.”
To this day I remember the thrill, the sense of power and delight I had in the clean
shot that dropped the ball to the edge of the green.
That is a very great fact to remember in connection with difficult problems—”the
rough is only mental.”
Your obstacles are present all right. They are not fanciful, but they are not
actually so difficult as they seem. Your mental attitude is the most important
factor. Believe that Almighty God has put in you the power to lift yourself out of
the rough by keeping your eye firmly fixed on the source of your power. Affirm to
yourself that through this power you can do anything you have to do. Believe that
this power is taking the tension out of you, that this power is flowing through you.
Believe this, and a sense of victory will come.
Now take another look at that obstacle that has been? bothering you. You will find
that it isn’t so formidable| as you thought. Say to yourself, “The rough is only
mental. I think victory—get victory.” Remember that formula. Write it on a piece of
paper, put it in your wallet, stick it up on your mirror where you shave each
morning, put it over the kitchen sink, put it on your dressing table and on your
desk—keep looking at it until its truth drives into the depths of your
consciousness, until it permeates your whole mental attitude, until it becomes a
positive obsession—”I can do all things through Christ which strengthened! me.”
What may seem to be a difficult proposition is, as I have pointed out, hard or easy
in proportion to how we think about it. It may be said that three men vitally
affected the thought processes of Americans—Emerson, Thoreau, and William James.
Analyze the American mind even to this late date and it is evident that the
teachings of these three philosophers combined to create that particular genius of
the American who is not defeated by obstacles and who accomplishes “impossibles”
with amazing efficiency.
A fundamental doctrine of Emerson is that the human personality can be touched with
Divine power and thus greatness can be released from it. William James pointed out
that the greatest factor in any undertaking is one’s belief about it. Thoreau told
us that the secret of achievement is to hold a picture of a successful outcome in
mind.
Still another wise American was Thomas Jefferson, who, like Franklin, set for his
guidance a series of rules. Franklin had thirteen daily rules; Jefferson only ten.
One of Jefferson’s rules was this, and I think it is priceless, “Always take hold of
things by the smooth handle.” That K, go at a job or at your difficulty by the use
of a method that will encounter the least resistance. Resistance causes friction in
mechanics, therefore it is necessary in mechanics to overcome or reduce friction.
The negative attitude ls a friction approach. That is why negativism develops such
great resistance. The positive approach is the “smooth handle” technique. It is in
harmony with the flow of the universe. It not only encounters less resistance but
actually stimulates assistance forces. It is remarkable how from early life until
the end of your earthly existence the application of this philosophy will enable you
to attain successful results in areas where otherwise you would be defeated.
For example, a woman sent her fifteen-year-old son to us. She said she wanted him
“straightened out.” It annoyed her no end that her boy could never get over 70 in
any of his studies. “This boy has a great mind potentially,” she declared proudly.
“How do you know he has a great mind?” I asked. “Because he is my son,” she said. “I
graduated from college magna cum laude.”
The boy came in very glumly, so I asked, “What’s the matter, son?”
“I don’t know. My mother sent me to see you.” “Well,” I commented, “you don’t seem
to be burning with enthusiasm. Your mother says you get only 70’s.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s all I get, and,” he added, “that isn’t the worst of it. I’ve
even received less than that.”
“Do you think you have a good mind, son?” I asked.
“My mother says I have. I don’t know—I think I’m awful dumb. Dr. Peale,” he said
earnestly, “I study the stuff. At home I read it over once and then close the book
and try to remember it. I repeat this process about three times, and then I think
that if three times doesn’t get it into my head, how am I ever going to get it into
my head? And then I go to school thinking maybe I have it, and the teacher calls on
me to say something, and I stand up and can’t remember a thing. Then,” he said,
“examinations come along and I sit there and just get hot and cold all over and I
can’t think of the answers. I don’t know why,” he continued. “I know that my mother
was a great scholar. I guess I just haven’t got it in me.”
This negative thought pattern combined with the inferiority feeling stimulated by
his mother’s attitude was of course was defeating him. He froze up in his mind. His
mother had never told him to go to school and study for the wonder and glory of
learning knowledge. She was not wise enough to encourage him to compete with himself
rather than with others. And she was constantly insisting that he duplicate her
success in scholarship. Little wonder that under this pressure he froze mentally.
I gave him some suggestions that proved helpful. “Before you read your lessons,
pause a moment and pray in this manner, ‘Lord, I know I have a good mind and that I
can get my work.’ Then get yourself relaxed and read the book without strain.
Imagine you are reading a story. Do not read it twice unless you wish. Simply
believe that you got it on the first reading. Visualize the material as soaking in
and germinating. Then next morning, as you go to school, say to yourself, I have a
wonderful mother. She is very pretty and sweet, but she must have been an old
bookworm to get those high marks. And who wants to be an old bookworm anyway? I
don’t want to become magna cum nothing. I only want to get through school
creditably.”
“In class, when the teacher calls on you, quickly pray before answering. Then
believe the Lord will at that moment help your mind to deliver. When an examination
I copied it and am giving it to you: “A man who is self-reliant, positive,
optimistic, and undertakes his work with the assurance of success magnetizes his
condition. He draws to himself the creative powers of the universe.”
It is indeed a fact that the person who thinks with positive self-reliance and
optimism does magnetize his condition and releases power to attain his goal. So
expect the best at all times. Never think of the worst. Drop it out of your thought,
relegate it. Let there be no thought in your mind that the worst will happen. Avoid
entertaining the concept of the worst, for whatever you take into your mind can grow
there. Therefore take the best into your mind and only that. Nurture it, concentrate
on it, emphasize it, visualize it, prayerize it, surround it with faith. Make it
your obsession. Expect the best, and spiritually creative mind power aided by God
power will produce the best.
It may be that as you read this book you are down to what you think is the worst and
you may remark that no amount of thinking will affect your situation. The answer to
that objection is that it simply isn’t so. Even it you may be down to the worst, the
best is potentially within you. You have only to find it, release it, and rise up
with it. This requires courage and character, to be sure, but the main requirement
is faith. Cultivate faith and you will have the necessary courage and character.
A woman was compelled by adversity to go into sales work, a type of activity for
which she had no training. She undertook to demonstrate vacuum cleaners from house
to house. She took a negative attitude toward herself and her work. She “just didn’t
believe she could do this job.” She “knew” she was going to fail. She feared to
approach a house even though she came for a requested demonstration. She believed
that she could not make the sale. As a result, as is not surprising, she failed in a
high percentage of her interviews.
One day she chanced to call upon a woman who evidenced consideration beyond the
average. To this customer the saleswoman poured out her tale of defeat and
powerlessness. The other woman listened patiently, then said quietly, “If you expect
failure, you will get failure, but if you expect to succeed, I am sure you will
succeed.” And she added, “I will give you a formula which I believe will help you.
It will restyle your thinking, give you new confidence, and help you to accomplish
your goals. Repeat this formula before every call. Believe in it and then marvel at
what it will do tor you. This is it. ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ (Ro
8:31) But change it by personalizing it so that you say, ‘If God be for me, who can
be against me?’ If God be for me, then I know that with God’s help I can sell vacuum
cleaners. God realizes that you want security and support for your little children
and yourself, and by practicing the method I suggest you will be given power to get
what you want.”
She learned to utilize this formula. She approached each house expecting to make a
sale, affirming and picturizing positive, not negative, results. As the saleswoman
employed this principle she presently acquired new courage, new faith, and deeper
confidence in her own ability. Now she declares, “God helps me sell vacuum
cleaners,” and who can dispute it?
It is a well-defined and authentic principle that what the mind profoundly expects
it tends to receive. Perhaps this is true because what you really expect is what you
actually want. Unless you really want something sufficiently to create an atmosphere
of positive factors by your dynamic desire, it is likely to elude you. “It with all
your heart”ùthat is the secret. “If with all your heart,” that is to say, if with
the full complement of your personality, you reach out creatively toward your
heart’s desire, your reach will not be in vain.
Let me give you four words as a formulation of a great law—faith power works
wonders. Those tour words are packed with dynamic and creative force. Hold them in
your conscious mind. Let them sink into the unconscious and they can help you to
overcome any difficulty. Hold them in your thoughts, say them over and over again.
Say them until your mind accepts them, until you believe them—faith power works
wonders. I have no doubt about the effectiveness of this concept, for I have seen it
work so often that my enthusiasm for faith power is absolutely boundless. You can
overcome any obstacle.
You can achieve the most tremendous things by faith power. And how do you develop
faith power? The answer is: to saturate your mind with the great words of the Bible.
It you will spend one hour a day reading the Bible and committing its great passages
to memory, thus allowing them to recondition your personality, the change in you and
in your experience will be little short of miraculous.
Just one section of the Bible will accomplish this for you. The eleventh chapter of
Mark is enough. You will find the secret in the following words, and this is one of
the greatest formulas the Book contains: “Have faith in God (that’s positive, isn’t
it?) for verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain (that’s
specific) be thou removed (that is, stand aside) and be thou cast into the sea (that
means out of sight—anything you threw into the sea is gone for good. The Titanic
lies at the bottom of the sea. And the sea bottom is lined with ships. Cast your
opposition called a “mountain” into the sea) and shall not doubt in his heart (Why
does this statement use the word heart? Because it means you are not to doubt in
your subconscious, in the inner essence of you. It isn’t so superficial as a doubt
in the conscious mind. That is a normal, intelligent questioning. It’s a deep
fundamental doubt that is to be avoided) but shall believe that those things which
he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mr 11:22-23)
This is not some theory that I have thought up. It is taught by the most reliable
book known to man. Generation after generation, no matter what develops in the way
of knowledge and science, the Bible is read by more people than any other book.
Humanity rightly has more confidence in it than any other document ever written, and
the Bible tells us that faith power works wonders.
The reason, however, that great things do not happen to some people is that they are
not specific in their application of faith power. We are told, “Ye shall say to this
mountain.” That is to say, do not address your efforts to the entire mountain range
of all your difficulties, but attack one thing that may be defeating you at the
moment. Be specific. Take them one by one.
If there is something you want, how do you go about getting it? In the first place,
ask yourself, “Should I want it?” Test that question very honestly in prayer to be
sure you should want it and whether you should have it. If you can answer that
question in the affirmative, then ask God for it and don’t be backward in asking
Him. And if God, having more insight, believes that you shouldn’t have it, you
needn’t worry—He won’t give it to you. But if it is a right thing, ask Him for it,
and when you ask, do not doubt in your heart. Be specific.
The validity of this law was impressed upon me by something that a friend of mine, a
Midwestern businessman, told me. This man is a big, extrovertish, outgoing, lovable
gentleman, a truly great Christian. He teaches the largest Bible class in his state.
In the town where he lives he is Mr. “Town” himself. He is head of a plant employing
forty thousand people.
His office desk is full of religious literature. He even has some of my sermons and
pamphlets there. In his plant, one of the biggest in the United States, he
manufactures refrigerators.
He is one of those whole-souled, rugged individuals who has the capacity to have
faith. He believes that God is right there in his office with him.
My friend said, “Preach a big faith—not any little old watered-down faith. Don’t be
afraid that faith isn’t scientific enough. I am a scientist,” he said. “I use
science in my business every day, and I use the Bible every day. The Bible will
work. Everything in the Bible works if you believe in it.”
When he was made general manager of this plant it was whispered around town, “Now
that Mr. ——is general manager, we’ll have to bring our Bibles to work with us.”
After a few days he called into his office some of the men who were making this
remark. He uses language they understand, and he said, “I hear you guys are going
around town saying that now I am general manager, you will have to bring your Bibles
to work with you.”
“Oh, we didn’t mean that,” they said in embarrassment.
He said, “Well, you know, that’s a good idea, but I don’t want you to come lugging
them under your arms. Bring them here in your hearts and in your minds. If you come
with a spirit of good will and faith in your hearts and minds, believe me, we’ll do
business.”
“So,” he said, “the kind of faith to have is the specific kind, the kind that moves
this particular mountain.”
Suddenly he said to me, “Did you ever have a toe bother you?”
I was rather astonished by that, but before I could answer he said, “I had a toe
that bothered me and I took it to the doctors here in town, and they are wonderful
doctors, and they said there wasn’t anything wrong with the toe that they could see.
But they were wrong, because it hurt. So I went out and got a book on anatomy and
read up on toes. It is really a simple construction. There’s nothing but a few
muscles and ligaments and a bony structure. It seemed that anybody who knows
anything about a toe could fix it, but I couldn’t get anybody to fix that toe, and
it hurt me all the time. So I sat down one day and took a look at that toe. Then I
said, ‘Lord, I’m sending this toe right back to the plant. You made that toe. I make
refrigerators and I know all there is to know about a refrigerator. When we sell a
refrigerator, we guarantee the customer service. If his refrigerator doesn’t work
right and if our service agents can’t fix it, he brings it back to the plant and we
fix it, because we know how.” So I said, “Lord, you made this toe. You manufactured
it, and your service agents, the doctors, don’t seem to know how to get it working
right, and if you don’t mind, Lord, I would like to have it fixed up as soon as
possible, because it’s bothering me.”
“How is the toe now?” I asked.
“Perfect,” he replied.
Perhaps this is a foolish kind of story, and I laughed when he told it, but I almost
cried, too, for I saw a wonderful look on that man’s face as he related that
incident of a specific prayer.
Be specific. Ask God for any right thing, but as a little child, don’t doubt. Doubt
closes the power flow. Faith opens it. The power of faith is so tremendous that
there is nothing that Almighty God cannot do for us, with us, or through us if we
let Him channel His power through our minds.
So roll those words around on your tongue. Say them over and over again until they
lodge deeply in your mind, until they get down into your heart, until they take
possession of the essence of you: “. . .whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be
thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but
shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have
whatsoever he saith.” (Mr 11:23) I suggested these principles some months ago to an
old friend of mine, a man who perpetually expects the worst. Up to the time of our
discussion, never did I hear him say anything other than that things would not turn
out right. He took this negative attitude toward every project or problem. He
expressed vigorous disbelief in the principles outlined in this chapter and offered
to make a test to prove that I am wrong in my conclusions. He is an honest man, and
he faithfully tried these principles in connection with several matters and actually
kept a score card. He did this for six months. He volunteered the information at the
end of that period that 85 per cent of the matters under investigation had turned
out satisfactorily.
“I am now convinced,” he said, “although I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but
it is evidently a fact, that it you expect the best, you are given some strange kind
of power to create conditions that produce the desired results. From now on I am
changing my mental attitude and shall expect the best, not the worst. My test
indicates that this is not theory, but a scientific way to meet life’s situations.”
I might add that even the high percentage he attained can be raised with practice,
and of course practice in the art of expectation is as essential as practice on a
musical instrument or with a golf club. Nobody ever mastered any skill except
through intensive, persistent, and intelligent practice. Also it should be noted
that my friend approached this experiment at first in a spirit of doubt which would
tend adversely to affect his earlier results.
Every day as you confront the problems of life, I suggest that you affirm as
follows: “I believe God gives me power to attain what I really want.”
Never mention the worst. Never think of it. Drop it out of your consciousness. At
least ten times every day affirm, “I expect the best and with God’s help will attain
the best.”
In so doing your thoughts will turn toward the best and become conditioned to its
realization. This practice will bring all of your powers to focus upon the
attainment of the best. It will bring the best to you.
Footnotes
[1] I will be glad to send you a free copy ot Thought Conditioners, a. pocket sized
booklet containing forty of the most creative Scripture passages. Write: sermon
Publications, Marble Collegiate Church, 1 West 29th Street, New York 1, New York.
I Don’t Believe in Defeat
IF you ARE thinking thoughts of defeat, I urge you to rid yourself of such thoughts,
for as you think defeat you tend to get it. Adopt the “I don’t believe in defeat”
attitude.
I want to tell you about some people who have put this philosophy into effect with
excellent results and shall explain the techniques and formulas which they used so
successfully. If you read these incidents carefully and thoughtfully and believe as
they did and think positively and put these techniques into operation, you, too, can
overcome defeats which at the present moment may seem inevitable.
I hope you are not like an “obstacle man” of whom I was told. He was called an
obstacle man because, regardless of whatever suggestion was advanced, his mind
instantly went to all possible obstacles in connection with it, but he met his match
and learned a lesson which helped to change his negative attitude. It came about in
the following manner.
The directors of his firm had a project under consideration which involved
considerable expense and some definite hazards as well as success possibilities. In
the discussions regarding this venture the obstacle man would invariably say, and
always with a scholarly air (invariably this type acts wise, probably a cover-up for
inner doubt feelings), “Now just a moment. Let’s consider the obstacles involved.”
Another man, who said very little but who was respected by his associates for his
ability and achievements and for a certain indomitable quality which characterized
him, presently spoke up and asked, “Why do you constantly emphasize the obstacles in
this proposition instead of the possibilities?”
“Because,” replied the obstacle man, “to be intelligent one must always be
realistic, and it is a fact that there are certain definite obstacles in connection
with this project. What attitude would you take toward these obstacles, may I ask?”
The other man unhesitatingly replied, “What attitude would I take toward these
obstacles? Why, I would just remove them, that’s all, and then I would forget them.”
“But,” said the obstacle man, “that is easier said than done. You say you would
remove them and then you would forget them. May I ask if you have any technique for
removing obstacles and for forgetting them that the rest of us have never
discovered?”
A slow smile came over the face of the other man as he said, “Son, I have spent my
entire life removing obstacles and I never yet saw one that could not be removed
provided you had enough faith and guts and were willing to work. Since you want to
know how it’s done, I will show you.”
He then reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. Under the isinglass window
was a card on which were written some words. He shoved the wallet across the table
and said, “There, son, read that. That is my formula, and don’t give me the song and
dance that it won’t work either. I know better from experience.”
The obstacle man picked up the wallet and with a strange look on his face read the
words to himself. “Read them out loud,” urged the owner of the wallet. This is what
he read in a slow, dubious voice, “I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me.” (Php 4:13)
The owner of the wallet put it back in his pocket and said, “I have lived a long
time and have faced a lot of difficulties in my time, but there is power in those
words—actual power—and with them you can remove any obstacle.”
He said this with confidence and everybody knew he meant it. This positiveness,
together with the facts of his experience which were known to all, for he was a
remarkable man who had overcome many odds, and because of the further fact that he
was not in any sense “holier than thou,” made his words convincing to the men around
the table. At any rate, there was no more negative talk. The project was put into
operation and, despite difficulties and risks, turned out successfully.
The technique used by this man is based on the primary fact about an obstacle which
is—don’t be afraid of it. Practice believing that God is with you and that in
combination with Him you have the power to handle it.
So the first thing to do about an obstacle is simply to stand up to it and not
complain about it or whine under it but torthrightly attack it. Don’t go crawling
through life on your hands and knees half-defeated. Stand up to your obstacles and
do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think
they have.
A friend in England sent me a book by Winston Churchill entitled Maxims and
Reflections. In this book Churchill tells of the British General Tudor, who
commanded a division of the British Fifth Army which faced the great German assault
in March 1918. The odds were heavily against him, but General Tudor knew how to meet
an apparently immovable and undefeatable obstacle. His method was simple. He merely
stood and let the obstacle break on him and he, in turn, broke the obstacle.
Here is what Churchill said about General Tudor. This is a very great sentence and
it is filled with power: “The impression I had of Tudor was of an iron peg, hammered
into the frozen ground, immovable.”
General Tudor knew how to stand up to an obstacle. Just stand up to it, that’s all,
and don’t give way under it, and it will finally break. You will break it. Something
has to break, and it won’t be you, it will be the obstacle.
You can do this when you have faith, faith in God and faith in yourself. Faith is
the chief quality you need. It is enough. In fact, it is more than enough.
O’Reilly asked each player to lend him his two best bats. Then he asked the members
of the team to stay in the clubhouse until he returned. He put the bats in a
wheelbarrow and went off with them. He was gone for an hour. He returned jubilantly
to tell the players that Schlater, the preacher, had blessed the bats and that these
bats now contained a power that could not be overcome. The players were astounded
and delighted.
The next day they overwhelmed Dallas, getting 37 base hits and 20 runs. They
hammered their way through the league to a championship, and Hugh Fullerton said
that for years in the Southwest a player would pay a large sum for a “Schlater bat.”
Regardless of Schlater’s personal power, the fact remains that something tremendous
happened in the minds of those ballplayers. Their thought pattern was changed. They
began thinking in terms of expectation, not doubt. They expected not the worst, but
the best. They expected hits, runs, victories, and they got them. They had the power
to get what they wanted. There was no difference in the bats themselves, I am quite
sure of that, but there was certainly a difference in the minds of the men who used
them. Now they knew they could make hits. Now they knew they could get runs. Now
they knew they could win. A new thought pattern changed the minds of those men so
that the creative power of faith could operate.
Perhaps you have not been doing so well in the game of life. Perhaps you stand up to
bat and cannot make a hit. You strike out time and again and your batting average is
lamentably low. Let me give you a suggestion. I guarantee that it will work. The
basis for my assurance is the fact that thousands of people have been trying it with
very great results. Things will be very different for you if you give this method a
real trial.
Start reading the New Testament and notice the number of times it refers to faith.
Select a dozen of the strongest statements about faith, the ones that you like the
best .[1]then memorize each one. Let these faith concepts drop into your conscious
mind. Say them over and over again, especially just before going to sleep at night.
By a process of spiritual osmosis they will sink from your conscious into your
subconscious mind and in time will modify and reslant your basic thought pattern.
This process will change you into a believer, into an expecter, and when you become
such, you will in due course become an achiever. You will have new power to get what
God and you decide you really want from life.
The most powerful force in human nature is the spiritual-power technique taught in
the Bible. Very astutely the Bible emphasizes the method by which a person can make
something of himself. Faith, belief, positive thinking, faith in God, faith in other
people, faith in yourself, faith in life. This is the essence of the technique that
it teaches. “It thou canst believe,” it says, “all things are possible to him that
believeth.” (Mr 9:23) “If ye have faith . . . nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
(Mt 17:21) “According to your faith be it unto you.” (Mt 9:29) Believe-believe-so it
drives home the truth that faith moves mountains.
Some skeptical person who has never learned this powerful law of the effect of right
thinking may doubt my assertions regarding the amazing results which happen when
this technique is employed.
Things become better when you expect the best instead of the worst, for the reason
that being freed from self-doubt, you can put your whole self into your endeavor,
and nothing can stand in the way of the man who focuses his entire self on a
problem. When you approach a difficulty as a personal unity, the difficulty, which
itself is a demonstration of disunity, tends to deteriorate.
When the entire concentration of all your force—physical, emotional, and
spiritual—is brought to bear, the consolidation of these powers properly employed is
quite irresistible.
Expecting the best means that you put your whole heart (i.e., the central essence of
your personality) into what you want to accomplish. People are defeated in life not
because of lack of ability, but for lack of wholeheartedness. They do not
wholeheartedly expect to succeed. Their heart isn’t in it, which is to say they
themselves are not fully given. Results do not yield themselves to the person who
refuses to give himself to the desired results.
A major key to success in this life, to attaining that which you deeply desire, is
to be completely released and throw all there is of yourself into your job or any
project in which you are engaged. In other words, whatever you are doing, give it
all you’ve got. Give every bit of yourself. Hold nothing back. Life cannot deny
itself to the person who gives life his all. But most people, unfortunately, don’t
do that. In fact, very few people do, and this is a tragic cause of failure, or, if
not failure, it is the reason we only half attain.
A famous Canadian athletic coach, Ace Percival, says that most people, athletes as
well as non-athletes, are “holdouts,” that is to say, they are always keeping
something in reserve. They do not invest themselves 100 per cent in competition.
Because of that fact they never achieve the highest of which they are capable.
Red Barber, famous baseball announcer, told me that he had known few athletes who
completely give themselves.
Don’t be a “holdout.” Go all out. Do this, and life will not hold out on you.
A famous trapeze artist was instructing his students how to perform on the high
trapeze bar. Finally, having given full explanations and instruction in this skill,
he told them to demonstrate their ability.
One student, looking up at the insecure perch upon which he must perform, was
suddenly filled with fear. He froze completely. He had a terrifying vision of
himself falling to the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle, so deep was his fright.
“I—can’t do it! I can’t do it!” he gasped.
The instructor put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and said, “Son, you can do it,
and I will tell you how.” Then he made a statement which is of inestimable
importance. It is one of the wisest remarks I have ever heard. He said, “Throw your
heart over the bar and your body will follow.”
Copy that one sentence. Write it on a card and put it in your pocket. Place it under
the glass on your desk top. Tack it up on your wall. Stick it in your shaving
mirror. Better still, write it on your mind, you who really want to do something
with life. It’s packed with power, that sentence. “Throw your heart over the bar and
your body will follow.”
Heart is the symbol of creative activity. Fire the heart With where you want to go
and what you want to be. Get it so deeply fixed in your unconscious that you will
not take no for an answer, then your entire personality will follow where your heart
leads. “Throw your heart over the bar” means to throw your faith over your
difficulty, throw your affirmation over every barrier, throw your visualization over
your obstacles. In other words, throw the spiritual essence of you over the bar and
your material self will follow in the victory groove thus pioneered by your
faith-inspired mind. Expect the best, not the worst, and you will attain your
heart’s desire. It is what is in the heart of you, either good or bad, strong or
weak, that finally comes to you. Emerson said, “Beware of what you want for you will
get it.”
That this philosophy is of practical value is illustrated by the experience of a
young woman whom I interviewed a number of years ago. She made an appointment to see
me in my office at two o’clock on a certain afternoon. Being quite busy that day, I
had gotten a little behind schedule, and it was about five minutes after two when I
walked into the conference room where she was waiting. It was obvious that she was
displeased for her lips were pressed firmly together.
“It’s five minutes after two, and we had an appointment at 2 P. M.,” she said. “I
always admire promptness.”
“So do I. I always believe in being prompt, and I hope you will forgive me for my
unavoidable delay,” I said with a smile.
But she was not in a smiling mood, for she said crisply,
“I have a very important problem to present to you and I want an answer, and I
expect an answer.” Then she shot out at me: “I might as well put it to you bluntly.
I want to get married.”
“Well,” I replied, “that is a perfectly normal desire and I should like to help
you.”
“I want to know why I can’t get married,” she continued. “Every time I form a
friendship with a man, the next thing I know he fades out of the picture and another
chance is gone by, and,” she added, speaking frankly, “I am not getting any younger.
You conduct a personal-problem clinic to study people and you have had some
experience, and I am putting my problem right up to you. Tell me, why can’t I get
married?”
I studied her to see if she was the kind of person to whom one could speak frankly,
for certain things had to be said if she really meant business. Finally I decided
that she was of big enough caliber to take the medicine that would be required if
she was to correct her personality difficulties, so I said, “Well, now, let’s
analyze the situation. Obviously you have a good mind and a fine personality, and,
if I may say so, you are a very handsome lady.”
All of these things were true. I congratulated her in every way that I honestly
could, but then I said, “I think that I see your difficulty and it is this. You took
me to task because I was five minutes late for our appointment, You were really
quite severe with me. Has it ever occured to you that your attitude represents a
pretty serious fault? I think a husband would have a very difficult time if you
checked him up that closely all the time. In fact; you would so dominate him that,
even if you did marry, your marital life would be unsatisfactory. Love cannot live
under domination.”
Then I said, “You have a very firm way of pressing your lips together which
indicates a domineering attitude. The average male, I might as well tell you, does
not like to be dominated, at least so that he knows it.” Then I added, “I think you
would be a very attractive person if you got those too-firm lines out of your face.
You must have a little softness, a little tenderness, and those lines are too firm
to be soft.” Then I observed her dress, which was obviously quite expensive, but she
didn’t wear it very well, and so I said, “This may be a bit out of my line, and I
hope you won’t mind, but perhaps you could get that dress to hang a little better.”
I know my description was awkward, but she was a good sport about it and laughed
right out loud.
She said, “You certainly don’t use style phraseology, but I get the idea.”
Then I suggested, “Perhaps it might help to get your hair fixed up a little. It’s a
little—floaty. Then you might also add a little sweet-smelling perfume—just a whiff
of it. But the really important thing is to get a new attitude that will change the
lines on your face and give you that indefinable quality known as spiritual joy.
This I am certain will release charm and loveliness in you.” “Well,” she burst out,
“never did I expect to get this combination of advice in a minister’s office.”
“No,” I chuckled, “I suppose not, but nowadays we have to cover the whole field in a
human problem.” Then I told her about an old professor of mine at Ohio Wesleyan
University, “Rolly” Walker, who said, “God runs a beauty parlor.” He explained that
some girls when they came to college were very pretty, but when they came back. to
visit the campus thirty years later their beauty had faded. The moonlight-and-roses
loveliness of their youth did not last. On the other hand, other girls came to
college who were very plain, but when they returned thirty years later they were
beautiful women, “What made the difference?” he asked. “The latter had the beauty of
an inner spiritual life written on their faces,” and then he added, “God runs a
beauty parlor.”
Well, this young lady thought about what I told her for a few minutes and then she
said, “There’s a lot of truth in what you say. I’ll try it.”
Here is where her strong personality proved effective, for she did try it. A number
of years went by and I had forgotten her.
Then in a certain city, after making a speech, a very lovely-looking lady with a
fine-looking man and a little boy about ten years of age came up to me. The lady
asked smilingly, “Well, how do you think it hangs?” “How do I think what hangs?” I
asked, puzzled.
“My dress,” she said. “Do you think it hangs right?”
Bewildered, I said, “Yes, I think it hangs all right, but just why do you ask?”
“Don’t you know me?” she asked.
“I see a great many people in my life,” I said. “Frankly, no, I don’t think I have
ever seen you before.”
Then she reminded me of our talk of years ago which I have described.
“Meet my husband and my little boy. What you told me was absolutely true,” she said
very earnestly. “I was the most frustrated, unhappy individual imaginable when I
came to see you, but I put into practice the principles you suggested. I really did,
and they worked.”
Her husband then spoke up and said, “There was never a sweeter person in the world
than Mary here,” and I must say that she looked the part. She had evidently visited
“God’s beauty parlor.”
Not only did she experience a softening and mellowing of her inner spirit, but she
properly used a great quality which she possessed, namely, the driving force to get
what she wanted. This led her to the point where she was willing to change herself
so that her dreams could be realized. She had that quality of mind whereby she took
herself in hand, she applied the spiritual techniques, and she had a profound and
yet simple faith that what her heart told her she wanted could be obtained by the
proper creative and positive procedures.
So the formula is to know what you want, test it to see if it is a right thing,
change yourself in such a manner that it will naturally come to you, and always have
faith. With the creative force of belief you stimulate that particular gathering
together of circumstances which brings your cherished wish to pass.
Students of modern dynamic thought are realizing more and more the practical value
of the ideas and teachings of Jesus, especially such truths as the dictum,
“According to your faith, be it unto you.” (Mt 9:29) According to your faith in
yourself, according to your faith in your job, according to your faith in God, this
far will you get and no further. It you believe in your job and in yourself and in
the opportunities of your country, and if you believe in God and will work hard and
study and put yourself into it—in other words, if you “throw your heart over the
bar,” you can swing up to any high place to which you want to take your life and
your service and your achievement. Whenever you have a bar, that is to say a
barrier, in front of you, stop, close your eyes, visualize everything that is above
the bar and nothing that is below it, then imaginatively throw “your heart” over
that bar and see yourself as being given lifting power to rise above it. Believe
that you are experiencing this upthrust of force. You will be amazed at the lifting
force you will receive. It in the depth of your mind you visualize the best and
employ the powers of faith and energy, you will get the best.
Naturally in this process of achieving the best it is important to know where you
want to go in life. You can reach your goal, your best dreams can come true, you can
get where you want to go only if you know what your goal is. Your expectation must
have a clearly defined objective. Lots of people get nowhere simply because they do
not know where they want to go. They have no clear-cut, precisely defined purpose.
You cannot expect the best if you think aimlessly.
A young man of twenty-six consulted me because he was dissatisfied with his job. He
was ambitious to fill a bigger niche in life and wanted to know how to improve his
circumstances. His motive seemed unselfish and entirely worth while.
“Well, where do you want to go?” I asked. “I just don’t know exactly,” he said
hesitantly. “I have never given it any thought. I only know I want to go somewhere
other than where I am.”
“What can you do best?” I then asked. “What are your strong points?”
“I don’t know,” he responded. “I never thought that over either.”
“But what would you like to do if you had your choice? What do you really want to
do?” I insisted.
“I just can’t say,” he replied dully. “I don’t really know what I would like to do.
I never thought it over. Guess I ought to figure that one out too.”
“Now, look here,” I said, “you want to go somewhere from where you are, but you
don’t know where you want to go. You don’t know what you can do or what you would
like to do. You will have to get your ideas organized before you can expect to start
getting anywhere.”
That is the failure point with many people. They never get anywhere because they
have only a hazy idea where they want to go, what they want to do. No objective
leads to no end.
We made a thorough analysis, testing this young man’s capabilities, and found some
assets of personality he did not know he possessed. But it was necessary to supply a
dynamic to move him forward, so we taught him the techniques of practical faith.
Today he is on the way to achievement.
Now he knows where he wants to go and how to get there. He knows what the best is
and he expects to attain it and he will—nothing can stop him.
I asked an outstanding newspaper editor, an inspiring personality, “How did you get
to be the editor of this important paper?”
“I wanted to be,” he replied simply.
“Is that all there is to it?” I asked. “You wanted to be and so there you are.”
“Well, that may not be all of it, but that was a large part of the process,” he
explained. “I believe that if you want to get somewhere, you must decide definitely
where you want to be or what you want to accomplish. Be sure it is a right
objective, then photograph this objective on your mind and hold it there. Work hard,
believe in it, and the thought will become so powerful that it will tend to assure
success. There is a deep tendency,” he declared, “to become what your mind pictures,
provided you hold the mental picture strongly enough and it the objective is sound.”
So saying, the editor pulled a well-worn card from his wallet and said, “I repeat
this quotation every day of my life. It has become my dominating thought.”
should give time and planned effort to keeping the mind in a healthy state. One way
to do this is to sit quietly and pass a series of peaceful thoughts through the
mind. For example, pass through the thoughts the memory of a lofty mountain, a misty
valley, a sun-speckled trout stream, silver moonlight on water.
At least once in every twenty-four hours, preferably in the busiest part of the day,
deliberately stop whatever you are doing for ten or fifteen minutes and practice
serenity.
There are times when it is essential resolutely to check our headlong pace, and it
must be emphasized that the only way to stop is to stop.
I went to a certain city on a lecture date and was met at the train by a committee.
I was rushed to a bookstore where I had an autographing party and then to another
bookstore where another autographing party was held. Then they rushed me to a
luncheon. After rushing through the luncheon I was rushed to a meeting. After the
meeting I was rushed back to the hotel where I changed my clothes and was rushed to
a reception where I met several hundred people and drank three glasses of fruit
punch. Then I was rushed back to the hotel and told I had twenty minutes to dress
for dinner. When I was getting dressed the telephone rang and somebody said, “Hurry,
hurry, we must rush down to dinner.”
Excitedly I chattered, “I will rush right down.”
I rushed from the room and was so excited that I could scarcely get the key into the
lock. Hastily I felt myself, to be sure that I was completely dressed, and rushed
toward the elevator. All of a sudden I stopped. I was out of breath. I asked myself,
“What is this all about? What is the meaning of this ceaseless rush? This is
ridiculous!”
Then I declared independence, and said, “I do not care if I go to dinner. I do not
care whether I make a talk. I do not have to go to this dinner and I do not have to
make a speech.” So deliberately and slowly I walked back to my room and took my time
about unlocking the door. I telephoned the man downstairs and said, “If you want to
eat, go ahead. If you want to save a place for me, I will be down after a while, but
I am not going to rush any more.”
So I removed my coat, sat down, took off my shoes, put my feet up on the table, and
just sat. Then I opened the Bible and very slowly read aloud the 121st Psalm, “I
will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.” I closed the book
and had a little talk with myself, saying, “Come on now, start living a slower and
more relaxed life,” and then I affirmed, “God is here and His peace is touching me.
I do not need anything to eat,” I reasoned. “I eat too much anyway. Besides, the
dinner will probably not be very good, and I am quiet now. I will give a better
speech at eight o’clock.”
So I sat there resting and praying for fifteen minutes. I shall never forget the
sense of peace and personal mastery I had when I walked out of that room. I had the
glorious feeling of having overcome something, of having taken control of myself
emotionally, and when I reached the dining room the others had just finished the
first course. All I missed was the soup, which by general consent was no great loss.
This incident was an amazing experience of the healing presence of God. I gained
these values by simply stopping, by quietly reading the Bible, by sincerely praying,
and by thinking some peaceful thoughts tor a few moments.
Physicians generally seem to feel that much physical trouble could be avoided or
overcome by practicing the philosophy and methodology of not fuming or fretting.
A prominent citizen of New York told me that his doctor suggested that he come to
our clinic at the church “because,” said his physician, “you need to develop a calm
philosophy of living. Your power resources are played out.”
“My doctor says I am pushing myself to the limit. He tells me I’m too tense, too
high-strung, that I fume and fret too much, and,” he concluded, “my doctor declares
the only sure cure is for me to develop what he calls a calm philosophy of living.”
My visitor arose and paced the floor, then demanded, “But how in the world can I do
that? It’s a lot easier said than done.”
Then this excited gentleman went on to say that his doctor had given him certain
suggestions for developing this calm philosophy of living. The suggestions as
outlined were indeed wise. “But then,” he explained, “the doctor suggested that I
see you people here at the church, for he feels that if I learn to use religious
faith in a practical manner it will give me peace of mind and bring down my blood
pressure. Then I will feel better physically. While I realize the doctor’s
prescription is sensible,” he complained, “how can a man fifty years old, of a
high-strung nature such as mine, suddenly change the habits of a lifetime and
develop this so-called calm philosophy of living?”
That did indeed seem to be a problem, for he was a bundle of excitable and explosive
nerves. He paced the floor, he thumped the table, his voice was high-pitched. He
gave the impression of a thoroughly disturbed and baffled man. Obviously he was
showing up at his worst, but he was clearly revealing the inner state of his
personality, and the insight thus gained gave us a chance to , help him through
understanding him better.
As I listened to his words and observed his attitude, I again understood why Jesus
Christ retains his remarkable hold on men. It is because He has the answer to such
problems as this, and I proved that fact by suddenly changing the line of the
conversation. Without any introductory words I began to recite certain Bible texts
such as, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.” (Mt 11:28) And again, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid.” (Joh 14:27) And still again, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose
mind is stayed on thee.” (Isa 26:3)
I recited these words slowly, deliberately, reflectively. As this reciting went on,
I noticed that my visitor stopped being agitated. Quietness came over him and then
we both sat in silence. It seemed that we sat so for several minutes. Perhaps it
wasn’t that long, but finally he took a deep breath.
“Why, that’s funny,” he said. “I feel a lot better, Isn’t that queer? I guess it was
those words that did it.”
“No, not the words alone,” I answered, “though they do have a remarkable effect upon
the mind, but something deeper happened just then. He touched you a minute ago—the
Physician with the healing touch. He was present in this room.”
My visitor evidenced no surprise at this assertion, but eagerly and impetuously
agreed—and conviction was written on his face. “That’s right. He sure was. I felt
Him. I see what you mean. Now I understand—Jesus Christ will help me develop a calm
philosophy of living.”
This man found what increasing thousands are presently discovering, that a simple
faith in and practice of the principles and techniques of Christianity bring peace
and quietness and therefore new power to body, mind, and spirit. It is the perfect
antidote to fuming and to fretting. It helps a person to become peaceful and thus to
tap new resources of strength.
Of course it was necessary to teach this man a new pattern of thinking and acting.
This was done in part by suggesting literature written by experts in the field of
spiritual culture. For example, we gave him lessons in the skill of church going. We
showed him how to make church worship a therapy. He was instructed in the scientific
use of prayer and relaxation. And as a result of this practice eventually he became
a healthy man. Anyone willing to follow this program and sincerely put these
principles into day-by-day practice can, I believe, develop inner peace and power.
Many of these techniques are outlined in this book.
In attaining emotional control the daily practice of healing techniques is of first
importance. Emotional control cannot be gained in any magical or easy way. You
cannot develop it by merely reading a book, although that is often helpful. The only
sure method is by working at it regularly, persistently, scientifically, and by
developing creative faith.
I suggest that you begin with such a primary procedure as simply the practice of
keeping physically still. Don’t pace the floor. Don’t wring your hands. Don’t pound
or shout or argue or walk up and down. Don’t let yourself get worked up into a
dither. In excitement one’s physical movements become accentuated. Therefore begin
at the simplest place, that is by ceasing physical movement. Stand still, sit down,
lie down. Certainly keep the voice down to a low pitch.
In developing a calm control it is necessary to think calmness, for the body
responds sensitively to the type of thoughts that pass through the mind. It is also
true that the mind can be quieted by first making the body quiet. That is to say, a
physical attitude can induce desired mental attitudes.
In a speech I related the following incident which occurred in a committee meeting I
attended. A gentleman who heard me tell this story was greatly impressed by it and
took its truth to heart. He tried the technique suggested and reports that it has
been very effective in controlling his fuming and fretting.
I was in a meeting where a discussion was going on which finally became rather
bitter. Tempers were becoming frayed and some of the participants were decidedly on
edge. Sharp remarks were passed. Suddenly one man arose, deliberately took off his
coat, opened his collar, and lay down upon a couch. All were astonished, and someone
asked if he felt ill.
“No,” he said, “I feel fine, but I am beginning to get mad, and I have learned that
it is difficult to get mad lying down.”
We all laughed, and the tension was broken. Then our whimsical friend went on to
explain that he had “tried a little trick” with himself. He had a quick temper, and
when he felt himself getting mad he found that he was clenching his fist and raising
his voice, so he deliberately extended his fingers, not allowing them to form into a
fist. In proportion to the rising of his tension or anger, he depressed his voice
and talked in exaggerated low tones. “You cannot carry on an argument in a whisper,”
he said with a grin.
This principle can be effective in controlling emotional excitements, fretting, and
tension, as many have discovered by experimentation. A beginning step, therefore, in
achieving calmness is to discipline your physical reactions. You will be surprised
at how quickly this can reduce the heat of your emotions, and when emotional heat is
driven off, fuming and fretting subside. You will be amazed at the energy and power
you will save. You will be much less tired.
It is, moreover, a good procedure to practice being phlegmatic or apathetic, even
indifferent. To a certain extent even practice being sluggish. People thus
constituted are less likely to emotional breaks. Highly organized individuals may do
well to cultivate these reactions to a degree at least.
Naturally one does not want to lose the keen, sensitive responsiveness
characteristic of the highly organized individual. But the practice of being
phlegmatic tends to bring such a keyed-up personality to a balanced emotional
position.
Following is a technique consisting of six points which I have personally found of
great helpfulness in reducing the tendency to fume and fret. I have suggested its
use to countless people who practice it and find it of great value:
1. Sit relaxed in a chair. Completely yield yourself to the chair. Starting with
your toes and proceeding to the top of your head, conceive of every portion of the
body as relaxing. Affirm relaxation by saying, “My toes are relaxed—my fingers—my
facial muscles.”
2. Think of your mind as the surface of a lake in a storm, tossed by waves and in
tumult. But now the waves subside, and the surface of the lake is placid and
unruffled.
3. Spend two or three minutes thinking of the most beautiful and peaceful scenes you
have ever beheld, as, for example, a mountain at sunset, or a deep valley filled
with the hush of early morning, or a woods at noonday, or moonlight upon rippling
waters. In memory relive these scenes.
4. Repeat slowly, quietly, bringing out the melody in each, a series of words which
express quietness and peace, as, for example, (a) tranquillity (say it very
deliberately and in a tranquil manner); (b) serenity; (c) quietness. Think of other
such words and repeat them.
5. Make a mental list of times in your life when you have been conscious of God’s
watchful care and recall how, when you were worried and anxious, He brought things
out right and took care of you. Then recite aloud this line from an old hymn, “So
long Thy power hath kept me, sure it STILL will lead me on.”
6. Repeat the following, which has an amazing power to relax and quiet the mind:
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” (Isa 26:3)
Repeat this several times during the day, whenever you have a fraction of a moment.
Repeat it aloud if possible, so that by the end of the day you will have said it
many times. Conceive of these words as active, vital substances permeating your
mind, sending into every area of your thinking a healing balm. This is the
best-known medicine for taking tension from the mind.
As you work with the techniques suggested in this chapter, the tendency to fume and
fret will gradually be modified. In direct proportion to your progress the power
heretofore drawn off by this unhappy habit will be felt in your increased ability to
meet life’s responsibilities.
Expect the Best and Get it
“WHY DOES MY boy fail in every job he gets?” asked a puzzled father about his
thirty-year-old son.
It was indeed difficult to understand the failure of this young man, for seemingly
he had everything. Of good family, his educational and business opportunities were
beyond the average. Nevertheless, he had a tragic flair for failure. Everything he
touched went wrong. He tried hard enough, yet somehow he missed success. Presently
he found an answer, a curiously simple but potent answer. After practicing this
new-found secret for a while he lost the flair for failure and acquired the touch of
success. His personality began to focus, his powers to fuse.
Not long ago at luncheon I could not help admiring this dynamic man at the height of
his power. “You amaze me,” I commented. “A few years ago you were failing at
everything. Now you have worked up an original idea into a fine business. You are a
leader in your community. Please explain this remarkable change in you.”
“Really it was quite simple,” he replied. “I merely learned the magic of believing.
I discovered that if you expect the worst you will get the worst, and if you expect
the best you will get the best. It all happened through actually practicing a verse
from the Bible.”
“And what is that verse?”
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (Mr 9:23) “I
was brought up in a religious home,” he explained, “and heard that verse many times,
but it never had any effect upon me. One day in your church I heard you emphasize
those words in a talk. In a flash of insight I realized that the key I had missed
was that my mind was not trained to believe, to think positively, to have faith in
either God or myself. I followed your suggestion of putting myself in God’s hands
and practiced your outlined techniques of faith. I trained myself to think
positively about everything. Along with that I try to live right.” He smiled and
said, “God and I struck up a partnership. When I adopted that policy, things began
to change almost at once for me. I got into the habit of expecting the best, not the
worst, and that is the way my affairs have turned out lately. I guess it’s a kind of
miracle, isn’t it?” he asked as he concluded his fascinating story.
But it wasn’t miraculous at all. Actually what had happened was that he had learned
to use one of the most powerful laws in this world, a law recognized alike by
psychology and religion, namely, change your mental habits to belief instead of
disbelief. Learn to expect, not to doubt. In so doing you bring everything into the
realm of possibility.
This does not mean that by believing you are necessarily going to get everything you
want or think you want. Perhaps that would not be good for you. When you put your
trust in God, He guides your mind so that you do not want things that are not good
for you or that are inharmonious with God’s will. But it does definitely mean that
when you learn to believe, then that which has seemingly been impossible moves into
the area of the possible. Every great thing at last becomes for you a possibility.
William James, the famous psychologist, said, “Our belief at the beginning of a
doubtful undertaking is the one thing (now get that—is the one thing) that insures
the successful outcome of your venture.” To learn to believe is of primary
importance. It is the basic factor of succeeding in any undertaking. When you expect
the best, you release a magnetic force in your mind which by a law of attraction
tends to bring the best to you. But if you expect the worst, you release from your
mind the power of repulsion which tends to force the best from you. It is amazing
how a sustained expectation of the best sets in motion forces which cause the best
to materialize.
An interesting illustration of this fact was described some years ago by Hugh
Fullerton, a famous sports writer of a bygone era. As a boy, Hugh Fullerton was my
favorite writer of sports stories. One story which I have never forgotten concerned
Josh O’Reilly, one-time manager of the San Antonio Club of the Texas league.
O’Reilly had a roster of great players, seven of whom had been hitting over three
hundred, and everybody thought his team would easily take the championship. But the
club fell into a slump and lost seventeen of the first twenty games. The players
simply couldn’t hit anything, and each began to accuse the other of being a “jinx”
to the team.
Playing the Dallas Club, a rather poor team that year, only one San Antonio player
got a hit, and that, strangely enough, was the pitcher. O’Reilly’s team was badly
beaten that day. In the clubhouse after the game the players were a disconsolate
lot. Josh O’Reilly knew that he had an aggregation of stars and he realized that
their trouble was simply that they were thinking wrong. They didn’t expect to get a
hit. They didn’t expect to win. They expected to be defeated. They were thinking not
victory but defeat. Their mental pattern was not one of expectation but of doubt.
This negative mental process inhibited them, froze their muscles, threw them off
their timing, and there was no free flow of easy power through the team.
It so happened that a preacher named Schlater was popular in that neighborhood at
that time. He claimed to be a faith healer and apparently was getting some
astounding results. Throngs crowded to hear him and most everybody had confidence in
him. Perhaps the fact that they did believe in his power enabled Schlater to achieve
results.
4 – A Drop Of Honey
If your temper is aroused and you tell ’em a thing or two, you will
have a fine time unloading your feelings. But what about the other
person? Will he share your pleasure? Will your belligerent tones, your
hostile attitude, make it easy for him to agree with you?
“If you come at me with your fists doubled,” said Woodrow Wilson,
“I think I can promise you that mine will double as fast as yours; but
if you come to me and say, ‘Let us sit down and take counsel
together, and, if we differ from each other, understand why it is that
we differ, just what the points at issue are,’ we will presently find
that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we
differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that
if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get
together, we will get together.”
Nobody appreciated the truth of Woodrow Wilson’s statement more
than John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Back in 1915, Rockefeller was the most
fiercely despised man in Colorado, One of the bloodiest strikes in the
history of American industry had been shocking the state for two
terrible years. Irate, belligerent miners were demanding higher
wages from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company; Rockefeller
controlled that company. Property had been destroyed, troops had
been called out. Blood had been shed. Strikers had been shot, their
bodies riddled with bullets.
At a time like that, with the air seething with hatred, Rockefeller
wanted to win the strikers to his way of thinking. And he did it. How?
Here’s the story. After weeks spent in making friends, Rockefeller
addressed the representatives of the strikers. This speech, in its
entirety, is a masterpiece. It produced astonishing results. It calmed
the tempestuous waves of hate that threatened to engulf
Rockefeller. It won him a host of admirers. It presented facts in such
a friendly manner that the strikers went back to work without saying
another word about the increase in wages for which they had fought
so violently.
The opening of that remarkable speech follows. Note how it fairly
glows with friendliness. Rockefeller, remember, was talking to men
who, a few days previously, had wanted to hang him by the neck to
a sour apple tree; yet he couldn’t have been more gracious, more
friendly if he had addressed a group of medical missionaries. His
speech was radiant with such phrases as I am proud to be here,
having visited in your homes, met many of your wives and children,
we meet here not as strangers, but as friends … spirit of mutual
friendship, our common interests, it is only by your courtesy that I
am here.
“This is a red-letter day in my life,” Rockefeller began. “It is the first
time I have ever had the good fortune to meet the representatives of
the employees of this great company, its officers and
superintendents, together, and I can assure you that I am proud to
be here, and that I shall remember this gathering as long as I live.
Had this meeting been held two weeks ago, I should have stood here
a stranger to most of you, recognizing a few faces. Having had the
opportunity last week of visiting all the camps in the southern coal
field and of talking individually with practically all of the
representatives, except those who were away; having visited in your
homes, met many of your wives and children, we meet here not as
strangers, but as friends, and it is in that spirit of mutual friendship
that I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss with you our
common interests.
“Since this is a meeting of the officers of the company and the
representatives of the employees, it is only by your courtesy that I
am here, for I am not so fortunate as to be either one or the other;
and yet I feel that I am intimately associated with you men, for, in a
sense, I represent both the stockholders and the directors.”
Isn’t that a superb example of the fine art of making friends out of
enemies?
Suppose Rockefeller had taken a different tack. Suppose he had
argued with those miners and hurled devastating facts in their faces.
Suppose he had told them by his tones and insinuations that they
were wrong Suppose that, by all the rules of logic, he had proved
that they were wrong. What would have happened? More anger
would have been stirred up, more hatred, more revolt.
If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you,
you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in
Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and
husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want
to change their minds. They can’t he forced or driven to agree with
you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and
friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.
Lincoln said that, in effect, over a hundred years ago. Here are his
words:
It is an old and true maxim that “a drop of honey catches more flies
than a gallon of gall.” So with men, if you would win a man to you
cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a
drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the
great high road to his reason.
Business executives have learned that it pays to be friendly to
strikers. For example, when 2,500 employees in the White Motor
Company’s plant struck for higher wages and a union shop, Robert F.
Black, then president of the company, didn’t lose his temper and
condemn and threaten and talk of tryanny and Communists. He
actually praised the strikers. He published an advertisement in the
Cleveland papers, complimenting them on “the peaceful way in
which they laid down their tools.” Finding the strike pickets idle, he
bought them a couple of dozen baseball bats and gloves and invited
them to play ball on vacant lots. For those who preferred bowling, he
rented a bowling alley.
This friendliness on Mr. Black’s part did what friendliness always
does: it begot friendliness. So the strikers borrowed brooms, shovels,
and rubbish carts, and began picking up matches, papers, cigarette
stubs, and cigar butts around the factory. Imagine it! Imagine
strikers tidying up the factory grounds while battling for higher
wages and recognition of the union. Such an event had never been
heard of before in the long, tempestuous history of American labor
wars. That strike ended with a compromise settlement within a
week-ended without any ill feeling or rancor.
Daniel Webster, who looked like a god and talked like Jehovah, was
one of the most successful advocates who ever pleaded a case; yet
he ushered in his most powerful arguments with such friendly
remarks as: “It will be for the jury to consider,” “This may perhaps
be worth thinking of,” ” Here are some facts that I trust you will not
lose sight of,” or “You, with your knowledge of human nature, will
easily see the significance of these facts.” No bulldozing. No highpressure
methods. No attempt to force his opinions on others.
Webster used the soft-spoken, quiet, friendly approach, and it helped
to make him famous.
You may never be called upon to settle a strike or address a jury, but
you may want to get your rent reduced. Will the friendly approach
help you then? Let’s see.
0. L. Straub, an engineer, wanted to get his rent reduced. And he
knew his landlord was hard-boiled. “I wrote him,” Mr. Straub said in
a speech before the class, “notifying him that I was vacating my
apartment as soon as my lease expired. The truth was, I didn’t want
to move. I wanted to stay if I could get my rent reduced. But the
situation seemed hopeless. Other tenants had tried – and failed.
Everyone told me that the landlord was extremely difficult to deal
with. But I said to myself, ‘I am studying a course in how to deal
with people, so I’ll try it on him – and see how it works.’
“He and his secretary came to see me as soon as he got my letter. I
met him at the door with a friendly greeting. I fairly bubbled with
good will and enthusiasm. I didn’t begin talking about how high the
rent was. I began talking about how much I liked his apartment
house. Believe me, I was ‘hearty in my approbation and lavish in my
praise.’ I complimented him on the way he ran the building and told
him I should like so much to stay for another year but I couldn’t
afford it.
“He had evidently never had such a reception from a tenant. He
hardly knew what to make of it.
“Then he started to tell me his troubles. Complaining tenants. One
had written him fourteen letters, some of them positively insulting.
Another threatened to break his lease unless the landlord kept the
man on the floor above from snoring. ‘What a relief it is,’ he said, ‘to
have a satisfied tenant like you.’ And then, without my even asking
him to do it, he offered to reduce my rent a little. I wanted more, so
I named the figure I could afford to pay, and he accepted without a
word.
“As he was leaving, he turned to me and asked, ‘What decorating
can I do for you?’
“If I had tried to get the rent reduced by the methods the other
tenants were using, I am positive I should have met with the same
failure they encountered. It was the friendly, sympathetic,
appreciative approach that won.”
Dean Woodcock of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the superintendent of
a department of the local electric company. His staff was called upon
to repair some equipment on top of a pole. This type of work had
formerly been performed by a different department and had only
recently been transferred to Woodcock’s section Although his people
had been trained in the work, this was the first time they had ever
actually been called upon to do it. Everybody in the organization was
interested in seeing if and how they could handle it. Mr. Woodcock,
several of his subordinate managers, and members of other
departments of the utility went to see the operation. Many cars and
trucks were there, and a number of people were standing around
watching the two lone men on top of the pole.
Glancing around, Woodcock noticed a man up the street getting out
of his car with a camera. He began taking pictures of the scene.
Utility people are extremely conscious of public relations, and
suddenly Woodcock realized what this setup looked like to the man
with the camera – overkill, dozens of people being called out to do a
two-person job. He strolled up the street to the photographer.
“I see you’re interested in our operation.”
“Yes, and my mother will be more than interested. She owns stock in
your company. This will be an eye-opener for her. She may even
decide her investment was unwise. I’ve been telling her for years
there’s a lot of waste motion in companies like yours. This proves it.
The newspapers might like these pictures, too.”
“It does look like it, doesn’t it? I’d think the same thing in your
position. But this is a unique situation, . . .” and Dean Woodcock
went on to explain how this was the first job of this type for his
department and how everybody from executives down was
interested. He assured the man that under normal conditions two
people could handle the job. The photographer put away his camera,
shook Woodcock’s hand, and thanked him for taking the time to
explain the situation to him.
Dean Woodcock’s friendly approach saved his company much
embarrassment and bad publicity.
Another member of one of our classes, Gerald H. Winn of Littleton,
New Hampshire, reported how by using a friendly approach, he
obtained a very satisfactory settlement on a damage claim.
“Early in the spring,” he reported, “before the ground had thawed
from the winter freezing, there was an unusually heavy rainstorm
and the water, which normally would have run off to nearby ditches
and storm drains along the road, took a new course onto a building
lot where I had just built a new home.
“Not being able to run off, the water pressure built up around the
foundation of the house. The water forced itself under the concrete
basement floor, causing it to explode, and the basement filled with
water. This ruined the furnace and the hot-water heater. The cost to
repair this damage was in excess of two thousand dollars. I had no
insurance to cover this type of damage.
“However, I soon found out that the owner of the subdivision had
neglected to put in a storm drain near the house which could have
prevented this problem I made an appointment to see him. During
the twenty-five-mile trip to his office, I carefully reviewed the
situation and, remembering the principles I learned in this course, I
decided that showing my anger would not serve any worthwhile
purpose, When I arrived, I kept very calm and started by talking
about his recent vacation to the West Indies; then, when I felt the
timing was right, I mentioned the ‘little’ problem of water damage.
He quickly agreed to do his share in helping to correct the problem.
“A few days later he called and said he would pay for the damage
and also put in a storm drain to prevent the same thing from
happening in the future.
“Even though it was the fault of the owner of the subdivision, if I had
not begun in a friendly way, there would have been a great deal of
difficulty in getting him to agree to the total liability.”
Years ago, when I was a barefoot boy walking through the woods to
a country school out in northwest Missouri, I read a fable about the
sun and the wind. They quarreled about which was the stronger, and
the wind said, “I’ll prove I am. See the old man down there with a
coat? I bet I can get his coat off him quicker than you can.”
So the sun went behind a cloud, and the wind blew until it was
almost a tornado, but the harder it blew, the tighter the old man
clutched his coat to him.
Finally, the wind calmed down and gave up, and then the sun came
out from behind the clouds and smiled kindly on the old man.
Presently, he mopped his brow and pulled off his coat. The sun then
told the wind that gentleness and friendliness were always stronger
than fury and force.
The use of gentleness and friendliness is demonstrated day after day
by people who have learned that a drop of honey catches more flies
than a gallon of gall. F. Gale Connor of Lutherville, Maryland, proved
this when he had to take his four-month-old car to the service
department of the car dealer for the third time. He told our class: “It
was apparent that talking to, reasoning with or shouting at the
service manager was not going to lead to a satisfactory resolution of
my problems.
“I walked over to the showroom and asked to see the agency owner,
Mr. White. After a short wait, I was ushered into Mr. White’s office. I
introduced myself and explained to him that I had bought my car
from his dealership because of the recommendations of friends who
had had previous dealings with him. I was told that his prices were
very competitive and his service was outstanding. He smiled with
satisfaction as he listened to me. I then explained the problem I was
having with the service department. ‘I thought you might want to be
aware of any situation that might tarnish your fine reputation,’ I
added. He thanked me for calling this to his attention and assured
me that my problem would be taken care of. Not only did he
personal get involved, but he also lent me his car to use while mine
was being repaired.”
Aesop was a Greek slave who lived at the court of Croesus and spun
immortal fables six hundred years before Christ. Yet the truths he
taught about human nature are just as true in Boston and
Birmingham now as they were twenty-six centuries ago in Athens.
The sun can make you take off your coat more quickly than the
wind; and kindliness, the friendly approach and appreciation can
make people change their minds more readily than all the bluster
and storming in the world.
Remember what Lincoln said: “A drop of honey catches more flies
than a gallon of gall.”
• Principle 4 – Begin in a friendly way.
3 – If You’re Wrong, Admit It
Within a minute’s walk of my house there was a wild stretch of virgin
timber, where the blackberry thickets foamed white in the
springtime, where the squirrels nested and reared their young, and
the horseweeds grew as tall as a horse’s head. This unspoiled
woodland was called Forest Park – and it was a forest, probably not
much different in appearance from what it was when Columbus
discovered America. I frequently walked in this park with Rex, my
little Boston bulldog. He was a friendly, harmless little hound; and
since we rarely met anyone in the park, I took Rex along without a
leash or a muzzle.
One day we encountered a mounted policeman in the park, a
policeman itching to show his authority.
“‘What do you mean by letting that dog run loose in the park without
a muzzle and leash?” he reprimanded me. “Don’t you know it’s
against the law?”
“Yes, I know it is,” I replied softy, “but I didn’t think he would do any
harm out here.”
“You didn’t think! You didn’t think! The law doesn’t give a tinker’s
damn about what you think. That dog might kill a squirrel or bite a
child. Now, I’m going to let you off this time; but if I catch this dog
out here again without a muzzle and a leash, you’ll have to tell it to
the judge .”
I meekly promised to obey.
And I did obey – for a few times. But Rex didn’t like the muzzle, and
neither did I; so we decided to take a chance. Everything was lovely
for a while, and then we struck a snag. Rex and I raced over the
brow of a hill one afternoon and there, suddenly – to my dismay – I
saw the majesty of the law, astride a bay horse. Rex was out in
front, heading straight for the officer.
I was in for it. I knew it. So I didn’t wait until the policeman started
talking. I beat him to it. I said: “Officer, you’ve caught me redhanded.
I’m guilty. I have no alibis, no excuses. You warned me last
week that if I brought the dog out here again without a muzzle you
would fine me.”
“Well, now,” the policeman responded in a soft tone. “I know it’s a
temptation to let a little dog like that have a run out here when
nobody is around.”
“Sure it’s a temptation,” I replied, “but it is against the law.”
“Well, a little dog like that isn’t going to harm anybody,” the
policeman remonstrated.
“No, but he may kill squirrels,” I said.
“Well now, I think you are taking this a bit too seriously,” he told me.
“I’ll tell you what you do. You just let him run over the hill there
where I can’t see him – and we’ll forget all about it.”
That policeman, being human, wanted a feeling of importance; so
when I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his
self-esteem was to take the magnanimous attitude of showing
mercy.
But suppose I had tried to defend myself – well, did you ever argue
with a policeman?
But instead of breaking lances with him, I admitted that he was
absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong; I admitted it quickly,
openly, and with enthusiasm. The affair terminated graciously in my
taking his side and his taking my side. Lord Chesterfield himself
could hardly have been more gracious than this mounted policeman,
who, only a week previously, had threatened to have the law on me.
If we know we are going to be rebuked anyhow, isn’t it far better to
beat the other person to it and do it ourselves? Isn’t it much easier
to listen to self-criticism than to bear condemnation from alien lips?
Say about yourself all the derogatory things you know the other
person is thinking or wants to say or intends to say – and say them
before that person has a chance to say them. The chances are a
hundred to one that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and
your mistakes will be minimized just as the mounted policeman did
with me and Rex.
Ferdinand E. Warren, a commercial artist, used this technique to win
the good will of a petulant, scolding buyer of art.
“It is important, in making drawings for advertising and publishing
purposes, to be precise and very exact,” Mr. Warren said as he told
the story.
“Some art editors demand that their commissions be executed
immediately; and in these cases, some slight error is liable to occur. I
knew one art director in particular who was always delighted to find
fault with some little thing. I have often left his office in disgust, not
because of the criticism, but because of his method of attack.
Recently I delivered a rush job to this editor, and he phoned me to
call at his office immediately. He said something was wrong. When I
arrived, I found just what I had anticipated – and dreaded. He was
hostile, gloating over his chance to criticize. He demanded with heat
why I had done so and so. My opportunity had come to apply the
self-criticism I had been studying about. So I said: ”Mr. So-and-so, if
what you say is true, I am at fault and there is absolutely no excuse
for my blunder. I have been doing drawings for you long enough to
know bet-ter. I’m ashamed of myself.’
“Immediately he started to defend me. ‘Yes, you’re right, but after
all, this isn’t a serious mistake. It is only -‘
“I interrupted him. ‘Any mistake,’ I said, ‘may be costly and they are
all irritating.’
“He started to break in, but I wouldn’t let him. I was having a grand
time. For the first time in my life, I was criticizing myself – and I
loved it.
” ‘I should have been more careful,’ I continued. ‘You give me a lot
of work, and you deserve the best; so I’m going to do this drawing
all over.’
” ‘No! No!’ he protested. ‘I wouldn’t think of putting you to all that
trouble.’ He praised my work, assured me that he wanted only a
minor change and that my slight error hadn’t cost his firm any
money; and, after all, it was a mere detail – not worth worrying
about.
“My eagerness to criticize myself took all the fight out of him. He
ended up by taking me to lunch; and before we parted, he gave me
a check and another commission”
There is a certain degree of satisfaction in having the courage to
admit one’s errors. It not only clears the air of guilt and
defensiveness, but often helps solve the problem created by the
error.
Bruce Harvey of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had incorrectly
authorized payment of full wages to an employee on sick leave.
When he discovered his error, he brought it to the attention of the
employee and explained that to correct the mistake he would have to
reduce his next paycheck by the entire amount of the overpayment.
The employee pleaded that as that would cause him a serious
financial problem, could the money be repaid over a period of time?
In order to do this, Harvey explained, he would have to obtain his
supervisor’s approval. “And this I knew,” reported Harvey, “would
result in a boss-type explosion, While trying to decide how to handle
this situation better, I realized that the whole mess was my fault and
I would have to admit I it to my boss.
“I walked into his office, told him that I had made a mistake and
then informed him of the complete facts. He replied in an explosive
manner that it was the fault of the personnel department. I repeated
that it was my fault. He exploded again about carelessness in the
accounting department. Again I explained it was my fault. He blamed
two other people in the office. But each time I reiterated it was my
fault. Finally, he looked at me and said, ‘Okay, it was your fault. Now
straighten it out.’ The error was corrected and nobody got into
trouble. I felt great because I was able to handle a tense situation
and had the courage not to seek alibis. My boss has had more
respect for me ever since.”
Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes – and most fools do –
but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility
and exultation to admit one’s mistakes. For example, one of the most
beautiful things that history records about Robert E. Lee is the way
he blamed himself and only himself for the failure of Pickett’s charge
at Gettysburg.
Pickett’s charge was undoubtedly the most brilliant and picturesque
attack that ever occurred in the Western world. General George E.
Pickett himself was picturesque. He wore his hair so long that his
auburn locks almost touched his shoulders; and, like Napoleon in his
Italian campaigns, he wrote ardent love-letters almost daily while on
the battlefield. His devoted troops cheered him that tragic July
afternoon as he rode off jauntily toward the Union lines, his cap set
at a rakish angle over his right ear. They cheered and they followed
him, man touching man, rank pressing rank, with banners flying and
bayonets gleaming in the sun. It was a gallant sight. Daring.
Magnificent. A murmur of admiration ran through the Union lines as
they beheld it.
Pickett’s troops swept forward at any easy trot, through orchard and
cornfield, across a meadow and over a ravine. All the time, the
enemy’s cannon was tearing ghastly holes in their ranks, But on they
pressed, grim, irresistible.
Suddenly the Union infantry rose from behind the stone wall on
Cemetery Ridge where they had been hiding and fired volley after
volley into Pickett’s onrushing troops. The crest of the hill was a
sheet of flame, a slaughterhouse, a blazing volcano. In a few
minutes, all of Pickett’s brigade commanders except one were down,
and four-fifths of his five thousand men had fallen.
General Lewis A. Armistead, leading the troops in the final plunge,
ran forward, vaulted over the stone wall, and, waving his cap on the
top of his sword, shouted: “Give ’em the steel, boys!”
They did. They leaped over the wall, bayoneted their enemies,
smashed skulls with clubbed muskets, and planted the battleflags of
the South on Cemetery Ridge. The banners waved there only for a
moment. But that moment, brief as it was, recorded the high-water
mark of the Confederacy.
Pickett’s charge – brilliant, heroic – was nevertheless the beginning of
the end. Lee had failed. He could not penetrate the North. And he
knew it.
The South was doomed.
Lee was so saddened, so shocked, that he sent in his resignation and
asked Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to appoint
“a younger and abler man.” If Lee had wanted to blame the
disastrous failure of Pickett’s charge on someone else, he could have
found a score of alibis. Some of his division commanders had failed
him. The cavalry hadn’t arrived in time to support the infantry attack.
This had gone wrong and that had gone awry.
But Lee was far too noble to blame others. As Pickett’s beaten and
bloody troops struggled back to the Confederate lines, Robert E. Lee
rode out to meet them all alone and greeted them with a selfcondemnation
that was little short of sublime. “All this has been my
fault,” he confessed. “I and I alone have lost this battle.”
Few generals in all history have had the courage and character to
admit that.
Michael Cheung, who teaches our course in Hong Kong, told of how
the Chinese culture presents some special problems and how
sometimes it is necessary to recognize that the benefit of applying a
principle may be more advantageous than maintaining an old
tradition. He had one middle-aged class member who had been
estranged from his son for many years. The father had been an
opium addict, but was now cured. In Chinese tradition an older
person cannot take the first step. The father felt that it was up to his
son to take the initiative toward a reconciliation. In an early session,
he told the class about the grandchildren he had never seen and how
much he desired to be reunited with his son. His classmates, all
Chinese, understood his conflict between his desire and longestablished
tradition. The father felt that young people should have
respect for their elders and that he was right in not giving in to his
desire, but to wait for his son to come to him.
Toward the end of the course the father again addressed his class. “I
have pondered this problem,” he said. “Dale Carnegie says, ‘If you
are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.’ It is too late for me to
admit it quickly, but I can admit it emphatically. I wronged my son.
He was right in not wanting to see me and to expel me from his life.
I may lose face by asking a younger person’s forgiveness, but I was
at fault and it is my responsibility to admit this.” The class applauded
and gave him their full support. At the next class he told how he
went to his son’s house, asked for and received forgiveness and was
now embarked on a new relationship with his son, his daughter-inlaw
and the grandchildren he had at last met.
Elbert Hubbard was one of the most original authors who ever stirred
up a nation, and his stinging sentences often aroused fierce
resentment. But Hubbard with his rare skill for handling people
frequently turned his enemies into friends.
For example, when some irritated reader wrote in to say that he
didn’t agree with such and such an article and ended by calling
Hubbard this and that, Elbert Hubbard would answer like this:
Come to think it over, I don’t entirely agree with it myself. Not
everything I wrote yesterday appeals to me today. I am glad to learn
what you think on the subject. The next time you are in the
neighborhood you must visit us and we’ll get this subject threshed
out for all time. So here is a handclasp over the miles, and I am,
Yours sincerely,
What could you say to a man who treated you like that?
When we are right, let’s try to win people gently and tactfully to our
way of thinking, and when we are wrong – and that will be
surprisingly often, if we are honest with ourselves – let’s admit our
mistakes quickly and with enthusiasm. Not only will that technique
produce astonishing results; but, believe it or not, it is a lot more
fun, under the circumstances, than trying to defend oneself.
Remember the old proverb: “By fighting you never get enough, but
by yielding you get more than you expected.”
• Principle 3 – If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Self Improvement Books 