Argument
Not once in a thousand times will one man convince another in an argument, and the benefits you get if you do convince the other fellow will not compensate you for the waste of energy expended on the other nine hundred and ninety-nine times when your efforts failed.
You convince a man against his will and he is of the same opinion still.
There is a mighty lot of difference between argument and reason. You may accomplish more by dividing your case into one or two good reasons and telling your adversary that you will not argue the case, but you will let him look at these reasons, and when he takes it up logically you will have no fear of his conclusion, for truth must triumph.
While argument itself is a footless proposition, it is infinitely more so if your argument is with those of less mental calibre than your own, for by the law of compensation, in proportion as a man is ignorant, he makes up in perversity and lack of analytical ability.
Do not stoop to contend with those who have no standing, mentally, morally or physically. It is a waste of time.
If it is your purpose to change a man's opinion, do not try to do it by argument. Study the ground carefully. State your points with preciseness, make careful analysis of every phase of the situation, take up the matter point by point. Start with your adversary by getting on ground on which you both will agree. Take up the points on which there can be little chance for differences of opinion. You will find the other man will get in the habit of agreeing with your propositions and that his antagonism weakens. State facts that are right and truthful, and are so plain that the truth will be self-evident.
After you have made several propositions on which the other man agrees with you wholly, then make a proposition that is ninety per cent. his way and ten per cent. your way. Gradually increase that ten per cent. until you swing him around so that he sees the truth. He then imagines that he has made the deduction himself.
Remember, you can swing the biggest ship around by a steady, slow, gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser would produce no effect whatever on the ship.
The man who wishes to convert another to his way of thinking must be a diplomat if he is successful. Do not get excited, keep cool and collected, be sure of your ground, be positive in your assertions, make the whole matter clear, and use good judgment, sound reason and clear logic.
Speculation
You are playing against odds when you speculate.
The only man who has a sure thing on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange or the race track is the man with the "Wienerwurst" privilege.
The successful business man some day wakes up to the fact that his bills are paid, and that he has surplus money. This surplus money should be used for investment purposes and not for speculation. Of course, it is hard to draw the line where investment leaves off and speculation begins.
When you speculate on margins you are like the fellow holding on a bear's tail as it runs around a tree—if you lose your hold the bear will get you.
The man who makes an investment, buying stocks or real estate and paying cash for them does not have to worry about the market. Prices may be up or down, but the man who has paid for what he has bought will sleep well.
You can't beat the speculation game. The only ones who make a success, and their success is ephemeral, are those who make speculation their whole occupation. The professional speculator is merely a high grade gambler, and he always winds up a loser.
Go to the Stock Exchange or the Board of Trade and you will see at either place a half a dozen old fellows hanging around. They are all men who have seen better days. A little inquiry and diplomacy on your part will bring forth the fact that these men were once prominent figures on 'Change.
When you have more money than you need in your business buy good farm lands out west, or good timber lands. No man ever bought good farm land or good timber land at the prevailing market price and lost money eventually. Of course, at different seasons of the year the price of land may go down a little temporarily, but the moment a good crop comes in, the price goes up again.
With good clear farm land you can always go to the nearest bank and borrow from sixty to seventy-five per cent. of its value.
Real estate is the true basis of wealth, and if you want to play a sure game, buy land that produces things.
When you buy vacant property in a large city, it is mere speculation. The land does not bring in any remuneration, and you are simply betting that the prices will increase.
Every large city has abundant instances of vacant property that is not worth as much now as it was ten or twenty years ago. Real estate booms come in cycles. Prices go up and men get the fever and buy vacant property. The boom explodes, property goes down and you can't get your money back. The chances are you have bought the property on two or three years' time, and it certainly is paying for a white elephant when you are paying for land that is worth less than what it cost you. You cannot get out, however, because the original payment has already been made, and your only hope is to save something on your investment.
Notwithstanding the fact that certain business sections and certain residence sections in any city steadily increase in price, yet the average real estate in the city increases by very slow percentage. The same amount of money, put out in mortgages, with the interest added and compounded, will develop wealth greater than the average vacant property investment, for where one lot soars up to a high price there are a hundred that don't increase at all, and the picking out of the lot that is going to increase in value is as hard as picking out the horse that is going to win the race. It is because the vacant city property has only speculative value that the business man should not touch it.
Buy farm property that you can rent. It will bring you interest on your money right along, and the tendency of farm land is and always has been steadily forward.
Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, was a speculator who made millions in the street-car system. He was thoroughly familiar with Hydraulics, and he soaked the stocks as full of water as possible and then unloaded on the investors who speculated in street-car stocks. These speculators are now holding the bag. When Mr. Yerkes closed out his holdings in Chicago he granted an interview, and one truth he uttered in that interview has ever been remembered by the writer. It is so valuable an expression coming from such a successful speculator that we are going to give it to you. It is as follows: "I have never known a business man to successfully speculate in grains or stocks for two years."
The business man who is watching the ticker or calling up the Stock Exchange every day, who takes little flyers, is skating on mighty thin ice.
When you buy farms you are exchanging your money for the most certain thing in the world, for the basis of all wealth is land, and money simply represents the things which come out of the land. The things that grow on the land are exchanged for gold, and the gold is exchanged for things that come out of the land. The Government exchanges the gold for pieces of paper called money, which in reality means that you can exchange these pieces of paper for gold, and you can exchange the gold for the things that come out of and grow upon the land.
The stock broker may not like this chapter because the more speculation the more he benefits. He gets a rake-off every time a man buys and every time a man sells. He plays a sure thing. He is like the man with the Wienerwurst privilege.
Don't Speculate. Invest.
Elimination
One of the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences and all things that fret him.
Do not look for trouble. Do not concern yourself too much over disagreeable things over which you have no control.
Do not build up an intricate system in your business. Have simplicity your ideal. Eliminate all useless moves. If you have disturbing influences in your institution, such as an employe who is continually causing friction, eliminate that employe. The man who causes friction is pulling back on the forward impulses of your business, and he is holding back one or more men who are trying to help you forward.
Get rid of useless things that take your time or cause you worry.
Remember that as you grow successful people will come to you under various excuses to get your aid financially or morally. They want you to go into new companies. The officers of the Club to which you belong will ask you to be a director. You will be invited to dinners, asked to speak, asked to do a thousand and one things, and in proportion as you accede to these demands you will find the demands increasing until finally you have little time to attend to your own affairs or to attend to your family.
Have as your center idea—elimination. Everything that takes your time from your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength.
Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfits you for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that is not necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain.
The Specialist
When this nation of ours was born nearly every one was a generalist.
The merchant sold a general line of merchandise. The doctor was also a farmer and a horse trader. In those days there were very few specialists.
As time passed some of the wiser individuals turned specialist and succeeded.
The doctor who is a generalist cannot excel in any one branch of medicine, or compete with the specialist who devotes all his time and study and practice towards one point and towards the treatment of a specific ailment. The merchant who sells everything cannot compete with the man who makes it his business to sell one class of goods. This is an age of specialists, and what we considered a specialist twenty-five years ago is only a generalist from the present standpoint. The specialist of twenty-five years ago has been divided again and again. The best doctor today is one who doctors the eye alone, the stomach alone, or the nerves alone. He can do more for you and knows more of your case in five minutes' observation than the generalist would in three months.
With the keen competition of these days it is necessary for the individual to be a specialist in business.
Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should be a generalist.
Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, little of electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little of advertising, little of anything else. It is because individuals have made a speciality of one thing, because they have concentrated their energies and their brain power on one thing that the world has progressed.
Recreation is for relaxation, and the business man should see to it that he gets the full benefit of recreation. If he carries specialism into recreation, recreation is spoiled, for the moment a man is a specialist in recreation he strives to excel, and this striving to excel is hard work, and that is the same thing he is doing in business.
The business man who plays billiards and no other game doubtless will play a better game than the generalist who indulges in all sorts of games and recreations, but the man who makes a specialty of billiards finds his powers centered on this game of billiards. He puts his thought on it and wishes to excel, he wishes to make a record, and billiards then become business.
This striving to excel in a game brings forth the same gambling instinct manifested in business. It is his "I will." The business man who plays a good game of billiards some day meets his superior, and the superior is the individual who does nothing but play billiards.
If a man tries to be a specialist in billiards and a specialist in business, even though both callings commence with "B," he will find that a division of effort is a division of results, and he will not be a success in either business or billiards. In proportion as he excels in billiards he will be lacking in business, and vice versa.
We remember the story of a young friend of Herbert Spencer who joined the great philosopher in a game of billiards. The young man played a most excellent game. When they had finished Spencer remarked: "Young man, your education has been greatly neglected, you play billiards too well."
Be a specialist in business and a generalist in pleasure. Play billiards, swim, ride, play golf and indulge in all athletic sports and so long as you get uniform pleasure and recreation from these things you are doing right, you are helping your mind and developing your body and letting your brain rest, so that it may be keen and a greater help in your specialty, which is business.
The world needs specialists, and it needs specialists in recreation as well as business, but the man who tries to be a specialist in business as well as a specialist in recreation will fail in both, or, at least, his success will be only moderate.
It is necessary for life's scheme that we have individuals who have steady incomes so that they do not require to enter the strenuous business life. It is necessary to have such individuals, so that they may devote themselves to being specialists in recreation, otherwise the sports would die out.
If you go in for sport do not expect you can compete with anybody who goes in for sport exclusively. You can't win in two callings or occupations.
The String
There is a string to every proposition, and it behooves you to look out for the string before acceding to the requests that are made of you.
When a stranger comes and offers to do things for you, to let you in on the ground floor, or assures you that he is working for your interest, you may be sure there is a string to his proposition, and the string is that, as a matter of fact, it is himself instead of you he is looking out for.
Don't bite at the chance that is offered you to get something for nothing. The biggest kind of a string is always in such a proposition.
Remember this, that people are selfish. Each man looks out for his own interest, and even if he is protecting your interest, it is because his own interest will be better conserved by looking out for yours.
Don't decide on important matters too quickly. Don't get tied up in big contracts with strangers until you have found every strand of the string.
Don't be too suspicious but hunt for the string. It pays to be very conservative on all matters in which others are interested.
Sometimes the string in the proposition is legitimate and the other fellow may be more interested than you are, but it certainly behooves you to see what this string is and to understand exactly where the end of the string is tied.
Don't draw up in your shell and look upon every man with a proposition as trying to take advantage of you, but put down this as a truth—There is a string to every proposition, and you must find that string before you close the deal.
Horse Sense
Just how the expression "horse sense" came into use is not known, but the meaning of the combination means good reason, old fashioned logic, simple analysis and actual truth, and the basing of your actions upon simple things rather than complex things.
The man who uses horse sense in his transactions gets along further and faster than the man who uses selfishness and smartness.
To be possessed of horse sense is a most valuable asset. It is something you can use every day of your life.
Horse sense is really one of the things that makes up the law of compensation. The law of compensation itself is the quintessence of horse sense.
Luck is the gambling chance, and horse sense is the investment and security chance.
The man with horse sense may not go as far in a day as the man with luck, but he will progress more days and go further eventually than the lucky man.
Horse sense is one of the most valuable things in the business world, and it is one of the rarest things. It is so valuable because it is so rare.
In the business world today the men who are doing great things are the men who have horse sense. We call these men wonderful and look upon their accomplishments as the result of some mysterious, wonder-working power that they possess. Wonder workers are only flashes in the pan.
Do not hire your employes on account of your preference for a certain color hair or certain colored eyes. Do not hire your employes on account of their physical appearance, or on account of their ability to dress in the height of fashion. Get down to their net worth. Find out how much horse sense they have. Hire employes, as far as possible, who are blessed with old fashioned horse sense.
The Manager
The good manager is one who commands respect, not through his authority but because those under him appreciate that he has more ability and experience than they have.
The selection of a good manager is very important, for the success of one's business depends upon its management. The proprietor cannot do all the things himself, and he must rely upon his lieutenants.
Give a certain class of work to ten girls. Put them in a room by themselves with no one in authority. Come back next day and you will find that there is one girl who is laying out the work for the others. There is something in this girl that makes her a natural manager, and there is a certain instinct amongst the rest of the girls that makes them acknowledge this one girl as their superior, and the one to go to for advice. This natural leadership is the quality the manager should possess.
Above all, the manager, like the boss, must know how to do things he hires others to do, and the things we have said concerning the boss is likewise true of the manager, for the manager is the next step below the boss. The successful boss would not have obtained his present position if he had not been a good manager previously.
Let the manager read thoroughly our chapter on the boss if he has ambition to be boss some day.
The mistake frequently made by the manager is to take credit himself for the work done by those under him, for such a manager may be sure that sooner or later his position in this respect will be found out, and to his surprise he will find that the employe who has been doing the things for which he has taken credit will take the manager's place. Employes are quick to detect this spirit in the manager. They see that their own efforts are not known to the boss, and it makes them indifferent, because they see no appreciation for what they are doing. On the other hand, if the manager says a good word to the boss concerning an employe who has shown marked ability, it redounds to the manager's credit that he is liberal enough to give credit where it properly belongs.
Truth will out as sure as the sun will shine, and the manager cannot conceal his subordinates' abilities and pass them off as his own for any length of time.
The good manager will say a kind word to the boss about the employe, if he is the right sort. It makes an employe feel confidence in the manager when he knows that the manager is appreciative and ready to tell his superior of good things in the employe's favor. The manager who is bad tempered, suspicious and tries to take credit that does not belong to him is only holding his position temporarily, and some day he will be let out of the institution for which he is working, and will find himself forced to the extremity of getting a place somewhere else back in the ranks from which he had temporarily risen.
Selling
Time was when the best salesman was the one who could tell the biggest lies, drink the most whiskey and show his customers the liveliest time.
Today the best salesman is distinguished by the following attributes: Truth, trustworthiness, together with a fine knowledge of the goods he is selling.
The man who sells goods must be prepared to hear from nearly every man that his price is too high. If the buyers would always tell the truth, then the salesman who sold the most goods would simply be the one who actually sold at the lowest price.
Price does not mean anything. Price is high or low only when quality is taken into consideration.
The man who sells merchandise, or advertising, for instance, must be thoroughly acquainted himself with the thing he sells. He must be reliable, he must give good measure, he must keep his word.
We hear a good deal about the live-wire, rapid-fire salesman, who goes out on his initial trip and comes back with a bagful of orders. It must be remembered that ever and always there is the law of compensation to take into consideration. The salesman who bags a lot of orders on the first trip does not get so many the second time. He has colored his picture too highly on the first trip. He has made too many side promises, too many mis-statements, and the customer finds out he cannot be believed, and this smooth article of a salesman is not as welcome in the buyer's office the second trip.
On the other hand and in strict accordance with the law of compensation, the salesman who tells the truth, who moves quickly, who does what he agrees to and knows what he is talking about, who talks convincingly and attends strictly to business will eventually succeed.
The great house of Marshall Field & Co. of Chicago have operated along the line of fairness, good treatment and willingness to right a wrong and correct a mistake quickly. Marshall Field had horse sense when he inaugurated his business.
Wonder workers who start out with a burst of speed and smash records in the matter of selling will still be salesmen at fifty years of age, for you can't go fast far.
Those wonder workers change frequently. They flit from house to house. They work because they need the money to have a good time with, and as soon as they get the money they proceed to have a good time until their little pile runs out, and then they get another job. Business men know this wonder worker well. Go into any wholesale house and you will find them. They are living in the past and relating their conquests. They never speak of the present but always of the past. They have done things they can't do again. The good salesman is doing things now better than he has done in the past.
The permanently successful salesman does not cut much of a figure in the matter of dress. He is not as handsome as the wonder worker. In fact, he may be physically uncouth, but he has a heart under his rough exterior. The customers he mingles with have confidence in him. They know he will do what he promises, and finally this man is the one who builds up a good trade and at fifty years of age he has a place of his own, sends salesmen on the road, and his house does a good business because his policy permeates the institution, and the customers have confidence in the house because he is at the head of it, and they are familiar with his methods and practice.
Some buyers seem to think that it is necessary for them to give the impression to the seller that they are buying at lower prices than the seller quotes. The wonder worker tries to make each customer believe that he is buying at the lowest price. The common sense salesman does not resort to such tactics.
The average buyer does not concern himself so much about being able to buy cheaper as he does to feel sure that his competitor does not get better treatment than he does.
In the matter of selling there is no one thing that ultimately proves so successful as the one price plan. By that we mean the same price to all who purchase the same quantity or the same amount in a given time.
The more elastic and variable your prices, the more ingenuity required to keep these cut prices from getting into the hands of your customers. This matter of cutting prices causes no end of worry. In proportion as you indulge in cutting prices, so in proportion you will receive an increased number of cut price offers.
Let it be known that your prices are subject to reduction at the hands of a smooth buyer, and the news will travel fast.
Let it be known that you don't cut prices, and that news will gain currency in the trade, and you will not have cut prices offered you.
There is something in the matter of selling beyond dollars and cents, and that is dollars and sense.
Remember this, when you sell goods you are also selling reputation. If your goods are bad your reputation will be bad too. You can't have a good reputation and sell bad goods and make a permanent success.
Remember, every sale you make is an advertisement.
Remember, you can take advantage of the buyer once or twice, but if you want to hold his trade you must be fair with him.
Smooth tactics that bring in present money react and lose trade for you later on.
Vacations
Every man owes it to himself and to his family to take a vacation each year.
Vacate means to get out or away from, and if you take your so called vacation by a trip to another city and spend your time in the whirl of industry, you are not helping yourself, you are not taking a vacation. Neither are you resting your mind and body if you go to a swell summer resort where white duck trousers in the day and full dress in the evening is the rule.
The real vacation you get is when you take yourself away from the business marts of trade, and go to a place where you can get your feet on good old mother earth. Go where fences are unknown, where there are no "keep off the grass" signs, climb the hills, walk through the forests, fill your lungs with good ozone, say to yourself "all these beautiful things are mine."
Nature has arranged it so that the poorest man in the world can get the most priceless things as easily as the multi-millionaire. The four most precious things in the world are good air, good food, good water and good health. Money cannot buy any one of these things. The man with millions cannot get any better air, or more nourishing food, or purer water, or better health than can the poor man.
The man who goes to the big woods for his vacation, who lives out of doors, who gets near to nature, is putting by a reserve in his constitution and brain that he will draw upon for the remainder of the year. Such vacations will clear the cobwebs from your brain. It will give you ability to do greater things, and make you see the beautiful side of life.
A man should not depend wholly on his two or three weeks in the woods, however. He should take a little vacation every day. He should arrange to get some benefit for his brain and body in each twenty-four hours. He should take a few moments each day and devote it to mental and physical relaxation. And, above all, he can get a good vacation every twenty-four hours if he sleeps properly.
Our good friend Grizzly Pete, of Frozen Dog, understands the real vacation when he says.
Mighty pleasin' sport, you bet, sittin' on a rock;Beats a store or office an' workin' by a clock.Clears away the cobwebs from your weary brain;Gives you inspiration; makes you a man again.There ain't no medicine I know for the appetiteLike a summer mornin', waitin' fer a bite.Lazy summer days are here—ain't you kind o' wishin'That you had your old clothes on, an' was settin here a-fishin'?
Mighty pleasin' sport, you bet, sittin' on a rock;Beats a store or office an' workin' by a clock.Clears away the cobwebs from your weary brain;Gives you inspiration; makes you a man again.
Mighty pleasin' sport, you bet, sittin' on a rock;
Beats a store or office an' workin' by a clock.
Clears away the cobwebs from your weary brain;
Gives you inspiration; makes you a man again.
There ain't no medicine I know for the appetiteLike a summer mornin', waitin' fer a bite.Lazy summer days are here—ain't you kind o' wishin'That you had your old clothes on, an' was settin here a-fishin'?
There ain't no medicine I know for the appetite
Like a summer mornin', waitin' fer a bite.
Lazy summer days are here—ain't you kind o' wishin'
That you had your old clothes on, an' was settin here a-fishin'?
Health
There is no misfortune, no real hard luck except sickness and poor health.
If you find your health is becoming impaired, change your methods and vocation. Change before it is too late. A stitch in time saves nine times nine in matters of health.
Get plenty of exercise, good air, good water, sleep with your windows open in winter as well as summer, walk over two miles every day. Avoid worry. Do good deeds. Help others. Eliminate evil thoughts and deterrent influences.
If your health is impaired, forsake dollars if necessary and make health your first concern.
Dollars are worth having, but sense is infinitely better to be possessed of.
If your health will not permit you to get dollars and cents, then make it your object to get health and sense.
Rockefeller would give his millions if he could have the health of nearly any of the thousand of employes who work for him. A good stomach is rather to be chosen than great riches.
Patience
Supposin' fish don't bite at first,What are you goin' to do?Throw down your pole, chuck out your bait,An' say your fishin's through?You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,An' fish, an' fish, an' waitUntil you've ketched a basketfulOr used up all your bait.Suppose success don't come at first,What are you goin' to do?Throw up the sponge and kick yourself?An' growl, an' fret, an' stew?You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,An' bait, an' bait agin,Until success will bite your hook,For grit is sure to win.
Supposin' fish don't bite at first,What are you goin' to do?Throw down your pole, chuck out your bait,An' say your fishin's through?You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,An' fish, an' fish, an' waitUntil you've ketched a basketfulOr used up all your bait.
Supposin' fish don't bite at first,
What are you goin' to do?
Throw down your pole, chuck out your bait,
An' say your fishin's through?
You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,
An' fish, an' fish, an' wait
Until you've ketched a basketful
Or used up all your bait.
Suppose success don't come at first,What are you goin' to do?Throw up the sponge and kick yourself?An' growl, an' fret, an' stew?You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,An' bait, an' bait agin,Until success will bite your hook,For grit is sure to win.
Suppose success don't come at first,
What are you goin' to do?
Throw up the sponge and kick yourself?
An' growl, an' fret, an' stew?
You bet you ain't; you're goin' to fish,
An' bait, an' bait agin,
Until success will bite your hook,
For grit is sure to win.
Patient effort and hard work each day, properly directed, will surely bring success.
Failure comes to those who grow weary in the struggle, and to those who overwork themselves and overtax their abilities.
Such persons hope that by large sacrifices of sleep and happiness, and by extra application and hard work, they will build for themselves fortune, that they may be happy at some future time. They make a great mistake in this respect.
Divide your energies so that each individual day is successful, no matter how much the success may be.
It is the men who are doing little things today who will be picked out to do great things tomorrow.
And while you are making a little success each day, be sure that your heart sings while your hands work.
Men who can do things are discovered. They need not push themselves to the front. Good men are scarce, and the great successful business men of today are the ones who know how to do the work that they are hiring employes to do. Talent in this direction will surely attract the attention of your superiors.
Learn to master the details of your business yourself. Use conscientious effort and painstaking effort. Make a round-up each night of what you have done during the day. See wherein you have been in error and wherein you could have improved the day's work and you will be better fitted for tomorrow's duties. After closing your day's business, devote a part of the evening to your family and friends, and a part of it to some good book.
It is not the clock that strikes the loudest that keeps the best time. The expensive chronometer works steadily along doing its work well and faithfully. It does not attract as much attention as the gilt clock with its sweet chimes, but men who know things are aware that the chronometer has the more real merit. Have the chronometer for your ideal and not the fancy clock, for true merit will certainly receive due reward.
We should all have some ideal which we hope to attain tomorrow, but let us remember that the way to reach the ideal tomorrow is to make today successful.
Patience is a virtue few of us are possessed of, but the story of every successful business has written on every page of its history patience and perseverance.
Do not get discouraged if your rate of progress each day is not as much as you hoped for, but, so long as you are going forward and are patient, you may be sure that you are gaining.
Hard Times
Hard times follow good times with unerring regularity and certainty; this is in perfect accordance with the rule of compensation.
In good times we should prepare ourselves and erect strong guards around our business, so that when hard times come we may find ourselves able to go through the troublous times.
If prosperity ran on unchecked, the ordinary, well-established business would soon be a thing of the past, for people would speculate instead of work.
When the manufacturer has his bills paid and finds a surplus in the bank, that surplus is likely to be turned into speculation. When everyone speculates values rise, and continue to rise until prices reach fictitious altitudes, and then comes about the cashing in. It so happens that the cashing in is a general movement, and when this happens hard times quickly follow.
The successful business man should keep his money where it is get-at-able, and when hard times come and the prices go away down to low water mark, then he should buy. Later on prosperity will return, as sure as the sun will rise, and the things bought during the hard times will greatly increase in value.
Hard times and prosperity rotate several times in a man's business career.
Hard times are necessary to the general scheme, for with continuous prosperity business would increase to such a momentum that there is no telling what the results would be.
In times of prosperity you must make preparations for the hard times that are sure to come. If your pumps are greater than your leaks, your craft won't sink when the storm of adversity and hard times breaks across your ship.
Sleep
No one can do his best work if his mind is wool gathering. If an employe is thinking about the races, he is cheating his boss, for he cannot give him his best service. If the employe is in the habit of being up late nights, he cannot concentrate his mind nor bring out the best there is in him. Nothing is so good for the hard worker, nothing will stand him in such good stead, as plenty of sleep.
Go to bed early. Get lots of sleep every night and you will be ready and strong for the fray of the morrow. If you get plenty of sleep you are far ahead of your fellow employe who does not get enough sleep.
Sleep smooths out the wrinkles, builds up a storage battery in you and gives you confidence in yourself. You hold your head higher, your step is more elastic, your eyes are clearer, your mind works better, and your stomach does its full duty if you have taken plenty of time for sleep, for sleep is the plan of nature to restore the mind and the body.
Lack of sleep means wilful waste of your energies and a dulling of your abilities.
Business men pay for ability, keenness, alertness and capacity, and in proportion as you limit these qualifications by lack of sleep, so in proportion will your salary be kept down.
Grumbling
Grumbling kills friends. The business man who is ever grumbling and growling about things makes a blue atmosphere about him. People somehow or other seem to prefer a rosy atmosphere to a blue.
There is no good in grumbling. It gains nothing. Grumbling is an evidence that you have not sized things up correctly. That you are laboring under a delusion; that you are looking at the world through blue glasses, that you are not making proper estimates of other people.
Grumbling is an advertisement to the world that you are not well balanced. Grumbling won't help things a bit. The more you indulge in the habit the more firmly it becomes fixed upon you, and later you will find it almost impossible to shake it off. The grumbler grows to be a pessimist; he says disagreeable things; he makes his friends feel ill at ease. The grumbler gradually loses his acquaintances and even his close friends.
If you are starting on the grumbling path, pull yourself together and cut the habit quick and short. Grumbling and indigestion go hand in hand. If you have indigestion, square yourself against it, make up your mind you will not indulge yourself and vent your ill feelings in grumbling.
If you can start out each day with a resolve not to grumble you will find the proposition not difficult. The first two or three hours of the day is the time when your resistance is called into play. There is no better antidote or cure for the poisonous grumbling disposition than the following, which has been for many years a pet sermonette of the writer: Be pleasant in the morning until ten o'clock, the rest of the day will take care of itself.
Associates
"Birds of a feather flock together." "A man is known by the company he keeps." "Like begets like." "We are creatures of environment."
All these truthful sayings have been preserved as proverbs simply because they are simon pure truths.
The matter of associates is most important for the business man or employe to consider. The young man who spends his time in gambling, drinking or dissipation cannot do his best work. He can no more hide these practices than the clouds can obscure the sun permanently, for evil, as well as truth, is sure to come out.
One of the best attributes a man can possess is character. Character gives him credit at the bank, it gives him a standing among men. If the employe ever expects to be a boss he must have character, and he must associate with men of ideas who will be helpful to him.
A man will never improve his game of billiards if he always associates and plays with an inferior. He may satisfy himself for the time being that he is a big toad in a little puddle, but if he plays with a poorer player than he is he is bound to retrograde.
The only way we can advance is to surround ourselves and associate with uplifting influences and healthful individuals. Our eyes should be turned forward and not backward.
It will make several seconds difference in the speed of a horse whether he is running against a horse he can beat or running against a horse that can beat him. Race horse men have reduced this truth to actual practice. They have what is called a pace maker. When they want a horse to trot fast they mount a boy on a running horse just ahead of the trotter.
If a man associates with his inferiors, the association will surely keep him from progressing.
If you want to make money, if you want to progress in the business world, go where money is being made and mix with people who are making money.
No man is naturally bad. No man gives himself over to criminal acts or hurtful habits solely upon his own instincts. These actions and habits come about through associations.
Go to the criminal court any day and you will see evidences of the man who is pulled down on account of his associates.
Mix with your superiors in matters of business and morals and you will unconsciously absorb qualities and ideas that will push you to the front.
Hitch your wagon to a star. Aim high. Pick out ideals in business, and eliminate from your path all deterrent influences. There is no hold-back like harmful associations. You will be judged by the company you keep.
Old dog Tray was really a good dog, but he suffered because of his propensity to associate with bad dogs.
Fixed Charges
Fixed charges are sums you have to pay out regularly, week after week, or year after year. When you buy materials and supplies, when you lease property or hire employes, or pay interest on borrowed money all such things are fixed charges, and it calls for the best there is in a man to keep these fixed charges down as low as possible. When you buy a single item, such as a desk or a chair or a waste basket, do not lose a lot of valuable time trying to save too much on those articles.
When you go to New York once a year, do not stay at a second class hotel for the several days you are in New York, when by the expenditure of fifty cents a day more you could stop at a good hotel.
It is false economy to spend five dollars' worth of time to save fifty cents.
When you are buying single articles that are not fixed charges you have a little more leeway in the matter of price than when you are buying things that come under the head of fixed charges.
In the matter of fixed charges the penny you save on the unit assumes vast proportions in the many multiples.
Some men will deny themselves a respectable desk because they can buy a cheaper one for ten dollars less, and this same person will lose a thousand dollars through laxity in buying things that come under the head of fixed charges.
If you buy one lead pencil never mind whether the price is five or ten cents, but if you buy great gross lots every few weeks you can afford to be very circumspect and painstaking in the matter of price.
If you are buying a shirt, fifty cents one way or the other does not make much difference, but if you are in the furnishing goods business and buying thousands of shirts at a time, twenty-five cents a dozen means quite a lot.
The matter of stationery and printing comes under the head of fixed charges. If you are buying letter paper for your personal use and you require but three or four hundred sheets in the course of a year, don't bother very much about the price per quire. The stationery you use in your business, which you buy in large quantities, you should be careful of. Plain, respectable, good quality letter paper is the kind used by successful concerns. The fancy-colored, freakish paper is nearly always used by the four-flusher in business. He is trying to put on a good front. He uses hand made paper and hand made envelopes. All the get-rich-quick people use fancy, high-priced stationery.
The successful house uses a good quality of linen or bond paper, and a medium grade, regular stock size envelope. Envelopes are thrown away; letters are saved. That is why an envelope does not require to be as good quality as the letter. It is the letter and what you put on the letter that cuts the ice.
Fixed charges usually hide a lot of little leaks. Stop them. Many little leaks make a big aggregate in the course of a year, and there is no place where these leaks start as easily as in the matter of fixed charges.