Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale Audiobook

look at it this way your goal is in the future your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you now are and the goal you intend to reach this is the problem to solve robert seashore then chairman of the department of psychology at northwestern university pointed out that successful people are not people without problems they’re simply people who’ve learned to solve their problems and there you have it living successfully getting the things we want from life is a matter of solving the problems which stand between where we now are and the point we wish to reach no one is without problems they’re part of living but let me show you how much time we waste in worrying about the wrong problems here’s a reliable estimate of the things people worry about things that never happen forty percent things over and past that can never be changed by all the worry in the world 30 needless worries about our health 12 petty miscellaneous worries 10 real legitimate worries 8 percent in short 92 percent of the average person’s worries take up valuable time cause painful stress even mental anguish and are absolutely unnecessary and of the real legitimate worries there are two kinds there are the problems we can solve and there are the problems beyond our ability to personally solve but most of our real problems usually fall into the first group the ones we can solve if we learn how there must be millions of people today who feel they’re being barred from the life they want because they look upon problems not as challenges to be met but as wide chasms beyond their ability to bridge a little research proves that successful people have the same kinds of problems one of the very real benefits of working with a psychologist or psychiatrist comes from learning that there are hundreds of thousands even millions of other people with problems identical to our own so the whole thing boils down to a matter not of problems which are common to us all but to our ability to solve them now i’m going to assume you’ve decided on a goal remember you will become and you will achieve what you think about that is if you stay with it you’ll reach your goal but how it’s right here that your mind comes into play what is your mind really nobody knows for sure perhaps the best way to describe it is to quote pulitzer prize-winning playwright archibald mcleish in his play the secret of freedom a character says the only thing about a man that is a man is his mind everything else you can find in a pig or a horse that’s uncomfortably true the human mind is the one thing that separates us from the rest of the creatures on earth everything that means anything to us comes to us through our minds our love of our families our beliefs all of our talents knowledge abilities everything is reflected through our minds anything that comes to us in the future will almost certainly come to us as a result of the extent to which we use our minds and yet is the last place on earth the average person will turn to for help do you know why you know why people don’t automatically turn their own vast mental resources on when faced with a problem it’s because they never learned to think now that is a fact believe it or not most people never think at all during the entire course of their lives they remember but that’s not thinking creatively or in new directions they react to stimuli but again that’s not thinking remembering to set the alarm at night and getting up when it rings in the morning does not take thought nor does showering shaving getting dressed eating breakfast going to work at work we once again fall into comfortable routines at quitting time we go home and start repeating the process most people let me say it again do not know how to think when they’re faced with a problem they will go to any length to avoid thinking they will ask advice from the most illogical people usually people who don’t know any more than they do next door neighbors members of their families very few of them have reference books but much more important than that only one in i don’t know how many thousands will take a large notepad write the problem at the top of the page and then deliberately turn on his or her thinking apparatus but some people do think they do indeed in order to reflect a moment on the human mind consider what it’s accomplished as you do realize that we are developing so rapidly that we’ve come further in the realm of progress in the past 50 years than on all the preceding 10 000 years of human civilization of all the scientists who ever lived it’s estimated that 90 of them are alive today we’ve reached in the area of ideas and human advancement of plateau so high it was undreamed of by even the most optimistic forecasters as recently as 30 years ago but every new idea triggers additional ideas so that now we’re in an era of compounding advancement on every front and in every area that stagger the imagination the harnessing of the power of the sun in our atomic plants and ships the speed of light computers which in minutes save months and years of calculating drudgery every man-made thing you see and touch spawned from the most powerful agency in the world the human mind dr harlow shapley of harvard has said that we’re now entering an entirely new age of man he calls it the psychozoic age the age of the mind and you my friend own one free and clear now let’s look at a few facts the 40-hour week long standard is an imminent likelihood of being even further shortened this means that the average working person has at his disposal an enormous amount of free time in fact if you’re totally hours and a year and subtract the sleeping hours if he or she sleeps eight hours every night you’ll find that this person has about 6 000 waking hours of which less than 2 000 are spent on the job now this leaves 4 000 hours a year when a person is either working or sleeping these can be called discretionary hours with which that person can do pretty much as he or she pleases so that you can see the amazing results in your own life i want to recommend that you take just one hour a day five days a week and devote this hour to exercising your mind you don’t even have to do it on weekends pick one hour a day on which you can fairly regularly count the best time for me is an hour before the others are up in the morning the mine’s clear the house is quiet and if you like with a fresh cup of coffee this is the time to start the mind going and here’s one good way to do it during this hour every day take a completely blank sheet of paper at the top of the page write your present primary goal clearly simply then since our future depends upon the way in which we handle our work write down as many ideas as you can for improving that which you now do try to think of 20 possible ways in which the activity that fills your day can be improved you won’t always get twenty but even one idea is good now remember two important points with regard to this one this is not particularly easy and two most of your ideas won’t be any good when i say it’s not easy i mean it’s like starting in the other habit at first you’ll find your mind a little reluctant to be hauled up out of that old familiar bed but as you think about your work and ways in which it might be improved write down every idea that pops into your head no matter how absurd it might seem let me tell you what’ll happen some of your ideas will be good and worth testing the most important thing however that this extra hour accomplishes is that it deeply embeds your goal into your subconscious mind starts the whole vital machinery working the first thing every morning and 20 ideas a day if you can come up with that many total 100 a week even skipping weekends an hour a day five days a week totals 260 hours a year and still leaves you 3740 hours of free leisure time now this means you’ll be thinking about your goal and ways of improving your performance increasing your service six and a half full extra working weeks a year six and a half 40 hour weeks devoted to thinking and planning can you see how easy it is to rise above that so-called competition and it’ll still leave you with seven hours a day to spend as you please starting each day thinking you’ll find that your mind will continue to work all day long and you’ll find that at odd moments when your least expected really great ideas will begin to bubble up from your subconscious when they do write them down as soon as you can just one great idea can completely revolutionize your work and as a result your life if you want to develop the muscles of your body you take daily exercise of some sort the mind is developed in the same way except that the returns are out of all conceivable proportion to the time and energy spent the mind of man can lift anything his muscles even the best developed are puny alongside those of some of the dumbest animals on earth if men had depended on his muscles for survival he probably would have disappeared as did the dinosaurs which were incidentally the most physically powerful and most successful creatures that ever lived let me give you just some of the results people have reported to me as a consequence of following this one hour a day routine an office equipment salesman sold more of his company’s product in one month than he informally sold an entire year during the four years he’d been with his company a sunday school teacher with five pupils set a goal of 30 pupils her last letter told me she now is a class of 25 she’s almost reached her goal i’ve used this system for years and has given me some of the most gratifying and rewarding experiences of my life and it costs only five hours a week five hours out of 168.

is it worth it it’s like spending five hours a week digging in a solid vein of pure gold because your mind is all of that and much more each time you write your goal at the top of the sheet of paper don’t worry or become concerned about it think of it as only waiting to be reached a problem only waiting to be solved face it with faith and bend all the great powers of your mind towards solving it and believe me solve it you will you know this puts each of us in the driver’s seat now let’s briefly recap one this week start spending one hour a day getting as many ideas as you can try for 20 a day on ways to improve what you’re now doing don’t become discouraged remember the achievement of your goal very likely depends upon it as does your whole future once you start exercising your mind in this way i know you’ll want to continue the practice two if everything you now have is the result of using say five to ten percent of your mental ability you can imagine what life will be like if you can increase this figure to 20 or more three successful people are not people without problems they’re simply people who’ve learned to solve their problems four don’t waste time and energy worrying about needless things forty percent of them will never happen thirty percent have already happened and can’t be changed 12 percent are needless worries about our health 10 of petty miscellaneous worries and only 8 percent are genuine try to separate the real from the unnecessary and solve those which are within your ability to solve five the human race has advanced farther during the past 50 years than in all the preceding 10 000 years of human civilization we’re now living right in the middle of the golden age man has been dreaming of and praying for for centuries and it’s going to get better last of all the only thing in the world that can take you to your goals in life is your mind its effective use and following through on the good ideas it supplies you each of us has a tendency to underestimate his or her own abilities we should realize that we have deep within ourselves deep reservoirs of great ability even genius that can be tapped if we just dig deep enough it’s the miracle of your mind i’m sure you find it as amazing as to the rest of us that the great majority of people have to learn things the hard way it’s only natural to think that if a great discovery were made in a particular generation all the succeeding generations would know about it and utilize it for their own good but in many things such is not the case it’s true with most inventions and discoveries which obviously affect our lives but it frequently is not true when it comes to the great laws which determine the directions of our individual destinies in one of the so-called third world countries a group of laborers was hired to work on a farm and these people came from a small very remote village where motor vehicles were virtually unknown they were enjoying the new experience of being transported on the back of a truck when they came to the place where they thought they were supposed to get off without giving it a thought apparently they just stepped off the back of the speeding truck fortunately they fell on a soft dirt road not a paved highway but even so the results of their unconventional method of disembarking were to say the least astonishing at least to them they went bounding spinning sliding and cartwheeling along the dusty road for quite a distance before gravity and friction working together finally brought them to a halt none was seriously injured in fact by the time the terrified driver got back to them they were laughing uproariously about the whole thing the truck driver in explaining the incident later put the blame on their never having ridden in trucks before now that’s the obvious answer but it’s really not the true one the amazing circus tumbling act on a remote farm road had been caused by ignorance of a law a law that operates the same whether a truck a boat an airplane or any moving body is involved sir isaac newton gave us the law and it goes like this a body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force when the workers stepped off the back of the speeding truck they were going the same speed as the truck itself the outside force was gravity which pulled them down to the road still traveling at the same speed and well you get the idea they had been hurt confused frightened and turned upside down because they didn’t understand the principal law on which everything in the universe operates the laws of cause and effect this law has been written thousands of times by the greatest minds the world has produced and as a result has appeared in many forms for our purposes it might best be put this way our rewards in life will always match our service it’s another way of saying as you sow so shall you reap and it’s been written in many ways in every language on earth sir isaac newton in promoting his laws of physics put this one in this way for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction in saying our rewards in life will always match our service you’ll almost always get general agreement people will nod their heads and say yes that’s certainly true then they will go their ways and never realize for the most part how close they came to a truth so great and all enveloping that their every thought and action is affected by it i like to think of this law in the form of a giant apothecary scale a kind with the cross arm from which hang two bowls on chains now one of the bowls is marked rewards the other is marked service whatever we put into the bowl mark service the world will match in the bowl marked rewards how we think work talk and conduct ourselves is what we have to put in the bold marx service and the extended nature of our service will determine our rewards if any person alive is discontented with his rewards he needs to examine his service action reaction as you sow so shall you reap what you put out will determine what you must get back in return so simple so basic so true and so misunderstood if a business is not expanding to the quick and exciting temple of the times it must examine its contribution is service if a person is unhappy with his income he must examine and re-evaluate his service now whom do we serve each of us serves a portion of humanity and humanity to any given person is the people with whom he or she comes in contact it’s family friends neighbors co-workers customers prospects employer all those he or she has chosen to serve everyone everyone with whom we have any kind of contact is to us humanity and to the extent that we serve will our rewards be determined never before in the history of the world have human beings been so interdependent it’s as impossible to live without serving others as it would be to live if others were not constantly serving us and this is good the more closely knit this interdependence becomes the greater will be human achievement we need each other and we literally cannot live without one another every time we strike a match drink a glass of water turn on the lights pick up the phone drive our car put on our clothes take a bath mow the lawn go fishing try making your own fish hook sometime we’re being served by other human beings every time you look at your watch you’re being served by a great industry and by efforts of thousands of human beings we all seek rewards and we should understand that rewards come in two forms there are tangible rewards and intangible that is rewards include the money we earn the home we buy the car we drive the clothes we wear but it also includes our happiness our peace of mind our inner satisfaction the people we meet and enjoy but remember this whatever it is you seek in the form of rewards you must first earn in the form of service to others all attempts to sidestep this law will end in failure frustration and if main date long enough ultimate demoralization we can see this frustration on every side we can see it in the tense strained and nervous faces in the mountains of tranquilizers which are consumed every day and we can also see it in the slack bovine-like faces of those who have found the whole game too complicated and have simply given up surrendered to the push and pull of circumstances how much of this do you suppose is due to misunderstanding or ignorance of the simple and wonderful law of nature it’s my belief that a great deal can be traced to this cause now do you understand this law fully understand it intellectually and emotionally if you do you can chart a wonderful course through life just as the field workers stepped off a speeding truck just as a child will put its fingers in the way of a closing door just as a speeding driver discovers he’s not going to make the curve how many times have you been confounded because you acted contrary to the rules not just the rules of man but the rules of nature how many times have you been in the position of the man who sat in front of the empty fireplace and said give me heat and then i’ll give you some wood people seem to be divided into those who understand that the wood must be put in before they can expect warmth and those who feel they should get warmth whether they do anything about it or not or who feel they should get maximum heat from too small a supply of wood a person’s discontent can be said to be represented by the distance between what he or she has and what he or she wants once that which is wanted has been achieved the odds are good that still more will be wanted because that’s the way of people and that’s good that’s a healthy sign constructive discontent is what gives us our continuing upward spiral of civilization so do this if you haven’t already let’s assume you’ve determined what it is you want look objectively at the place in which you now find yourself consider the distance separating you from your goal and determine ways of increasing your service so you’ll build a bridge across it this puts thinking and creative activity into living it also assures us that our goals can be achieved by individual effort and in the shortest possible time one morning i was having breakfast in a restaurant in monterey california one of the most naturally beautiful places in the world suddenly i was aware of the young people sitting in the booth next to mine it was obvious that they were very unhappy and the young man they couldn’t have been over 25 was saying well i’ve tried everywhere but no one wants to give me a job i guess we’ll have to go back home it was apparent from their attitudes that they wanted to live on the monterey peninsula but were about out of money and unable to find a job but he had said nobody wants to give me a job he wanted someone to give him something in this case a job what might have happened if you turned the whole idea around what if he had said instead what do i know how to do that will serve some of the people of this beautiful part of the world or how can i or we be of value to this community the people here will be happy to supply us with the living we need if we can think of some way to serve them if we can think of some way to serve them what do they need or want that we can supply do they need a handyman a first-class housekeeper or both can we wash and wax cars right in their driveways detail them so that they look like showroom display models let’s buy a pad of paper and ballpoint pen and start thinking of all the things we can do to earn a living here it’ll give us time to think of other ways more profitable ways but that wash and wax idea might grow into quite a service for the community but let’s don’t stop there let’s think of some more ways we can start right here to be of service to the people who live here right there in the restaurant instead of being depressed and considering themselves failures they could have come up with a dozen or so ways in which they could have remained on the monterey peninsula and build a fine business for themselves they didn’t need a job they needed to think but they had never thought before it was as foreign to them as speaking urdu there they were two fine bright good-looking young people with a world of opportunity beckoning to them with two fine minds and they were going to go back home no one had ever told them about the gold mines they carried between their ears do you know how many people would have reacted the same way these young people had reacted they are most of the people in the united states or any other country for that matter people will do everything in the world even turn to crime before they will think george bernard shaw once commented i’ve become rich and famous by thinking a couple of times a week most people never think at all the young couple in monterey conscientious as they were were not sowing therefore they could not reap they were putting nothing into the community therefore they could expect nothing in return to some this seems unfair but it isn’t it’s imminently and wonderfully and abundantly fair our job is to do the sewing that’s our department that’s all the rest will take care of itself we’ve been given the equipment free and clear all we are asked to do is use it unfortunately thinking is not taught in the public schools or most of the private schools for that matter thinking is the subject incredible as it may seem that is totally ignored a person’s world can be compared to a plot of ground it exists it’s there it has inherent within itself an astonishing potential and is prepared to react to a person’s every action in fact it must whatever your job happens to be think of it for a moment as this part of ground in the beginning there’s nothing there but earth if a person sits and watches it nothing will happen to it if a few seeds are tossed on it the rain and the soil’s natural fertility will combine to reward that person with a few results for limited efforts action reaction it all depends on just what’s wanted from this plot of earth it’s what is wanted that must first be decided let’s say what’s wanted is a beautiful lawn bordered by flower gardens with a big tree in the shade of which he or she can sit one day and admire the work so the areas for the garden are marked off the sword is cultivated smoothed and cleaned of stones and trash the lawn and flowers and the tree are planted and from this point on anyone observing this part of land can evaluate in a second the amount of service the contribution this person is giving to the project how can you tell you can tell by seeing what the land is giving back to the person planting the plot is only the first step we’re given the plot that’s all we should be given it’s what we do with it that will determine its degree of greatness and success it’s like the story of the preacher who is driving by a beautiful farm the fields were beautifully cultivated and abundant with well cared for crops the fences house and vine were clean neat freshly painted a row of fine trees led from the road to the house where there were shaded lawns and flower beds it was a beautiful sight to behold so when the farmer working in the field got to the end of a row near the road the preacher had stopped his car and hailed him and he said god has blessed you with a beautiful farm and the farmer stopped and thought a moment and he replied yes sir he has and i’m grateful but you should have seen this place when he had it all to himself you see the farmer understood that he had been blessed with a fine farm but he was also aware that it was his own love and labor which had brought it to its present state each of us is given a plot to work a lifetime and the work we’ve chosen like the farmer we’ll be grateful if we have the vision imagination and intelligence to build well and successfully upon the seemingly unimpressive land of our beginnings or we can let it fall into a haphazard condition with no real continuity or purpose behind it with unpainted ramshackle buildings surrounded by weeds and debris it’s the same land it’s what we do with it that makes the difference the miracle is there if only we’re wise enough to see it and to realize that our fulfillment as persons depends upon our reaction to what we’ve been given in thinking of ways of increasing your service read books on your specialty read what others have found to work well for them listen to these tape cassette programs of ours but at the same time think of original and creative ways of increasing your service ways that are unique with you and the way you are going at it strong for a week or a month and then falling back into old habits is just like working for a week or a month on that plot of ground and then abandoning it before long it’ll be no better than before each morning and during the day ask yourself this question how can i increase my service today knowing that my rewards in life must be an exact proportion of my service now do this every day and you’ll have started to form one of life’s most valuable habits horace mann wrote if any man seeks for greatness let him forget greatness and ask for truth and he’ll find both you see you can cut away all the confusion and complications and nagging worries and vague half-formed fears by returning to the great truths the great laws the great verities on which all success all accomplishment in which the whole world is built drive down any street in the country any street in any neighborhood or farm community any street at all and you can quickly see what the people on that street are doing for the good of the community by observing what the community is doing for them have you ever looked at it that way we can tell by looking at a place of business what it’s doing for the community by observing what the community has done for the place of business is it thriving and growing or is it just holding its own or soon to go out of business whatever the situation it’s a reflection of its service how well its service whatever it may be is being accepted by the people is it meeting their needs and wants it’s the same with families in their places of residence that’s why i said you could drive down any street some streets are lined with beautiful expensive homes while some neighborhoods are obviously suffering from poverty ramshackle with weeds growing in the yards tin cans and rubble strewn everywhere rusted cars it’s a reflection of what the people living in those homes beautiful and expensive or run down and filthy are doing for them and for the community that’s it it’s always been a matter of interest to me that in neighborhoods with high unemployment the people there don’t seem to have enough time to keep their homes and yards tidy while those working the hardest while those doing the most have the cleanest most attractive homes with well-manicured lawns and flower gardens environment is a mirror of the people in that neighborhood change the people and the environment will change accordingly it reminds me the old saying what you are speak so loudly i can’t hear what you’re saying one day a man was watching a professional football game on television his five-year-old son kept bothering him so he took a page of the sunday paper with a full-page airline ad on it showing a picture of the world the planet earth is seen from space he tore the page up into a dozen pieces and gave them to his son he said here put this together with his cellophane tape and show daddy how smart you are then he went back to watching his football game but in a surprisingly short time the youngster had the picture all taped back together it wasn’t very neat but it was a very good job indeed for once so young hey that’s amazing the father said how did you put that world together so quickly and the little boy said there was a picture of a man on the other side i just put the man together and then the world was all together the youngster was no doubt surprised by the big warm hug he got that’s right son the father said when the man’s all together his world is all together too being together is understanding how things work working hard won’t do it that isn’t enough we have to work intelligently how often have we heard someone say my father worked hard all his life but never had anything to show for it it’s another way of saying my father may he rest in peace never quite figured out how things work he worked hard all his life but it was a job with very limited service what another case that goes like this my father was a very bright person but he kept jumping from one thing to another he was always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but he never stayed with one thing long enough to work it out succeeding takes time it takes dedication 100 commitment and creative thought we must keep asking ourselves how can i broaden my service and by so doing increase my harvest my rewards all right how can we correct the situation william james gave us the answer he wrote either some unusual stimulus fills them with emotional excitement or some unusual idea of necessity induces them to make an extra effort of will excitements ideas and efforts in a word are what carry us over the dam all right let your goal represent the excitement your ideas and efforts will weigh down the service end of the scale and the rewards must and will follow they’ll be yours they are yours the moment you realize the truth as you sow so shall you reap all the years of your life if you’re worried about your income or your future you’re concentrating on the wrong end of the scale look at the other end concern yourself only with increasing your service with becoming great where you are and your income and your future will take care of themselves don’t be the person sitting in front of that empty fireplace and asking for heat you’re asking for the impossible pile in the wood first and the heat will come as a result next time you’re off by yourself in a quiet place contemplate your plot of ground your life and begin to sow the seeds which will yield to a rich and abundant harvest in william james essay on vital reserves he wrote compared with what we ought to be we’re only half awake our fires are damned our drafts are checked we’re making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources stating the thing broadly he went on to write the human individual thus lives usually far within his limits he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use he energizes below his maximum and he behaves below his optimum it is our intention that each of these messages be built upon a major principle one of the great ideas which automatically produces the results we seek in this message let’s talk about a principle that never fails following this particular idea gives quality and richness to life it will also produce a peace of mind that never wavers and the principle is integrity like other great ideas it gets a lot of lip service but it’s seldom a true way of life how people love and value a person of integrity integrity in everything we do and all of our relationships with others integrity and what we say integrity in our work but the word integrity often conjures up a person of stern and sober visage who walks the straight and narrow that’s not the kind of integrity i’m talking about i’m talking about integrity with a sense of humor integrity with understanding integrity with kindness and gentleness but integrity all the same never expediency never saying well everybody else is doing it i guess it won’t hurt if i do it too but it does hurt if it’s wrong and we know it’s wrong it does hurt the seed for achievement is integrity integrity means honesty and the truth perhaps it was best put in the famous line by shakespeare when in hamlet he has polonius say and this above all to thine own self be true and it must follow as the night today thou canst not then be false to any man if we’re true to ourselves we cannot be false to anyone else if our word to live by is integrity we have what we need in a pinch our sleep is untroubled and we’re respected wherever we go during the korean war the chinese communists overran an american position and captured an american general he was subjected to weeks of the worst kind of treatment brainwashing and questioning he never gave in finally he was told that unless he answered their questions he would be executed the following morning that night he wrote a letter to his wife and at the end of the letter he said tell johnny the word is integrity as it turned out he was not executed and he was later repatriated to american forces but thinking he was going to die he told his son that the word is integrity integrity means to try as best we can to know ourselves to examine ourselves as socrates advised and make a true assessment of ourselves and inventory of our abilities our talents what we want our goals not long ago i received a letter from scott d palmer in which he said i came across some advice about happiness from my mentor dr brand blanchard that i published in my newsletter some time back blanchard is one of the greatest men of our century even though few people have ever heard of him he celebrated his 93rd birthday last year with the publication of his latest book four reasonable men a biographical book on marcus aurelius ernest reynon john stuart mill and henry siegwick appropriate for blanchard the key virtue that leads to all the others is reasonableness bran blanchard is sterling professor emeritus of philosophy at yale university and on the subject of happiness he wrote one it is important to happiness not to think too much about it the person who continually asks himself if he’s happy is apt to miss his end our happiness as aristotle thought is a byproduct of healthful and successful activity bertrand russell who wrote the conquest of happiness remarked that scientists are generally happier than artists since they’re commonly lost in objective tasks and not examining their own navels what is important is to find what one can do best generally alter the line most useful to others and then to do it with all one’s might happiness will come unsought if one seeks it directly one will be like the discontented old ladies who want miami hotels number two the main principle of my ethics is brand blanchard rights to act as to make the world as much better as possible i’ve not lived up to it no one has there i disagree with dr blanchard he has made the world better and so many others but trying to live up to it he writes involves constantly looking forward to the consequences of one’s actions choosing those that are likely to be fruitful and inhibiting action from impulse many people think of course that acting on impulse is a requirement of happiness and i agree that impulse must be there the stronger the better provided is under control but seeking happiness directly by blindly following one’s impulses is too likely to end in hippie them drugs in the gutter and the distinguished yale professor wrote the most important thing i’ve learned is the necessity of reasonableness the person who has the least regret who does most for his community whose judgment carries the most weight and is the most trusted is the person who is steadfastly and on principle reasonable i don’t mean the intellectual who’s often an impractical boar i mean the person who in matters of belief and matters of action takes us his principle adjust your belief or decision to the evidence and he completes his small essay on happiness by writing there’s no one meaning of life no two lives have the same value the richness of a life depends not on the amount of happiness it achieves but on finding out who one is that is about one’s unique combination of powers and then discovering through experiment and reflection what course of life will fulfill those powers most completely end of quote you’ll never get better advice i agree with scott palmer that brand blanchard sterling professor emeritus of philosophy at yale university in his 93 years most of them devoted to study and teaching and observing the human species knows what he’s talking about and to me reasonableness is another word for integrity integrity to truth to the evidence no matter where it leads and i especially like this saying the richness of a life depends not on the amount of happiness it achieves but on finding out who one is that is about one’s unique combination of powers and then discovering through experiment and reflection what course of life will fulfill those powers most completely what are your powers there’s something probably several things that you can do especially well that you must enjoy doing and which will automatically provide the greatest service to others are you ready to discover through experiment and reflection what course of life will fulfill those powers most completely now that’s being true to yourself that’s integrity that’s reasonableness as a radio listener wrote to me one day there’s little we cannot accomplish as persons if we manage the conquest of inner space being truthful with ourselves means taking the responsibility of making the best use of what we have and what do we have we have our underutilized minds our abilities our talents and time these are our possessions this is really an immense amount of wealth that belongs to each of us and it’s the investment of our wealth which will determine our rate of return our mind our abilities our talents and time no one can take those away from us we take them with us wherever we go and they represent our true wealth that’s what makes the human being autonomous although most people don’t know it they remind me of the horse or elephant that meekly does what is told or directed to do it’s completely unaware of its own strength it doesn’t know how easily it can do what it wants to do and millions of miraculous human creatures live in tiny prisons of their own fashioning completely unaware of their powers to be free to do what they would most love to do and in so doing reaper harvest beyond their wildest imaginings they are slaves to their ignorance and follow each other around and around like so many precessionary caterpillars how have they invested their wealth their minds their abilities their talents and time they’re not even aware of it as with the ownership of wealth of any kind it’s left to us to decide what use we’ll make of it we can squander it until it’s gone spend it in a helter skelter hit or miss fashion without much purpose or meaning or we can invest it with intelligence and purpose and receive an abundant return a return which will more than provide for our families all the years of our lives the choice is ours and it’s here that integrity comes into the picture but we’re the only ones from whom we can steal time talent ability and the use of our minds it’s making the best use of what we have what we are in the time that’s been granted us sounds simple well truth is always simple and uncomplicated as soon as we properly invest our true wealth we place ourselves above competition we’re no longer competing we’re creating we’re understanding something that the great majority of people have never known here is the foundation upon which every great career has been built in every field so invest in that yellow legal pad and a few ballpoint pens and in your own best quiet time start making notes here are some givens in the success department success has nothing at all to do with the size of the brain the largest brain on record was the brain of an idiot the smallest the brain of anatole friends who won the nobel prize in literature in 1921 some of the world’s greatest people in every field are or were short bald and fat some tall and skinny some were brilliantly educated some had little or no schooling the person destined for greatness is the person who decides for himself to follow his or her strongest suit but truly successful people all have one thing in common they all follow consciously or unconsciously the law of cause and effect they’re true to themselves although most people will give lip service to the idea of integrity they’re really not at all sure about it with a great majority it’s often a matter of expediency if it’s expedient to be honest fine they’re honest if it’s more expedient to realize a quick profit in some way by not disposing the whole truth or by shading it a bit well let’s shade it a bit they tend to live on the basis of short-term or even instant gratification they don’t see succeeding as a long-range program they don’t know about what i like to call the unfailing boomerang every time a person does something dishonest whether it’s small or large whether it’s stealing a pair of pliers from the plant or embezzling ten thousand dollars he’s throwing the boomerang it’s the same with small dishonesties with manipulating the truth how far the boomerang will travel no one can tell or how great or small a circle it will traverse only time will tell but it will eventually inevitably come around full circle and deliver its never failing and painful blow honesty unfailing integrity is good business in fact mirabeau wrote if honesty did not exist we ought to invent it as the best means of getting rich did you know that well believe me it’s absolutely true and all we have to do under every circumstance is ask ourselves is this true is this honest is this the best i can do and if it is go ahead with a happy realization that we’ve put in motion the right cause and know that the effect will take care of itself our only hope of real success of winning the hearts and minds of the people we serve is in helping them in some way and thus improving their standard of living but if we’re content to give less than our best we’re actually working against ourselves the average working person in our society is paid for about 40 hours a week this leaves 120 hours a week to do as we please never before in the history of humankind have we had so much free time that’s 120 hours a week if we sleep eight hours every night three times as much time as we spend on the job how much is all that time worth we want our leisure time of course time to relax take it easy we charge our batteries but do we need 120 hours for that our greatest enemy is never changed and his name is ignorance and the greatest ignorance of all is the mistaken belief that we can ever receive more than we truly earn sooner or later there will be an accounting every day for good or bad we’re throwing the boomerang and just as the punishment always seems to be greater than the offense the rewards are also out of all proportion to our honest efforts so let’s summarize what do we mean by integrity it means giving everything we do our very best it means being true to ourselves and every other person with whom we come in contact this gives meaning and comfort to our leisure time our rest has been earned we know we’ll move ahead toward our goals simply because we become remarkable people we cannot go unnoticed the person of integrity is always needed in every undertaking it means the willingness to keep an open mind to look for truth wherever it leads all the years of our lives to check things out for ourselves to weigh what others tell us and make our own judgments it’s knowing that there’s always a better way to do everything and then a better way still to do that it’s looking for that better way in everything we do it’s realizing that the person who does not read is no better off than the person who cannot read and that a person who does not continue to learn and grow as a person is no better off than one who cannot it means that we must walk with integrity every day of our lives if we’re to truly reap the abundant harvest all the years of our lives it’s realizing that the greatest joy a human being can experience is the joy of accomplishment remember to think of your life as that plot of rich soil waiting to be seeded it can only return to you that which you sow and what do you have to sow you have great wealth you have a mind you can think you have many abilities you have talents that you still may not have explored and you have time time which cannot be saved stop nor held back for a second make full use of these riches it’s never too late use truth as your guide integrity is your banner and your plot of ground will return to you and yours in abundance that will amaze and delight you and if days come in which you find yourself depressed or confused remember this comment by dean briggs he wrote do your work not just your work and no more but a little more for the lavishing’s sake that little more which is worth all the rest and if you suffer as you must and if you doubt as you must do your work put your heart into it and the sky will clear and then out of your very doubt and suffering will be born the supreme joy of life all kinds of studies have been made with regard to factors which motivate people to live as they do we’ve already covered enough ground in this program to establish the fact that people are responsible for their personal lives barring some act of god or government catastrophe or war that might intervene to change things permanently or temporarily for example a lot of my friends many of them very good friends of mine were killed during world war ii when they were in their 20s and 30s the lives of others have been unalterably modified by injury or serious illness but for most of us we have our health which is the natural inclination of all nature and we have our lives to live sometimes believe it or not that’s a personal handicap it often takes the physically handicapped to demonstrate for us the unlimited possibilities that exist as an option for those willing to set goals and stay with them until they’re achieved while the healthy among us often take the path of least resistance i think it was bill veck when he had the chicago white sox who said i don’t want the natural athlete i want a guy who’ll go after the hard ones it’s the people in this world willing to go after the hard ones who achieve greatness they’re motivated there’s that word again they’re motivated to give the last ounce of themselves in the achievement of their goals now let’s look at some acts of life only about five percent of the people achieve unusual success during their lives these are the people who earn larger incomes live in better neighborhoods in better larger homes have better education more of the good things of life and make a correspondingly larger contribution to their communities they tend to speak better english and send their kids to better schools there are always exceptions to any rule and there are many exceptions to this five percent group i know a man who said of one of the largest best known companies in the united states who can hardly put ten words together in their proper order if murdering the english language were a misdemeanor he’d be on death row yet he has mansions yachts private jets the works why with no more than perhaps a sixth grade education and the apparent determination to assiduously avoid any improvement to it has this man and his family enjoyed such spectacular financial success answer he knows how to serve the people his organization serves millions of people every day of the week he’s worked hard all of his life to build the great organization he has and he’s done a fine job of it so he can buy three million dollar yachts and pay cash for them and when he wants to go someplace in a hurry there’s his gulf stream three warmed up and ready for him when a chauffeur takes him to the airport but most people in that top five percent fit the earlier description many of them are not rich by the standards of our mega millionaire friend but they’re in the top five percent of american incomes they’re set for life and they as a group tend to enjoy themselves very much they play a better game of golf for tennis than most of the country’s hackers and they love their lifestyles now a child is born in the united states the odds because of the statistics we’ve been talking about are 95 to 5 that he will not be born into this top five percent like most children he’ll soon take his environment for granted let’s assume he’s a boy although it works the same way for a girl it will save my having to say he or she all the way through this interesting example he grows up accepting his environment his world and his world is his environment as it is without giving it a single thought his environment becomes a natural part of him everything about his environment is a conditioning factor the speech of his parents and relatives and neighbors becomes his speech what he learns in school will have very little effect on it that’s why you hear grown-up men and women who’ve gone through the american school system saying such things as ain’t and where’s it at they didn’t learn those locutions in school they were the habitual pattern of speech they heard in their environment i know an attorney who still says where is it at anyone’s speech habits are an immediate tip-off as to his upbringing the only reason mine tend to be rather good is because from the time i was a small child i wanted to be a writer and words were of great interest to me words are the tools of a writer’s trade and a good writer will have a decent inventory of them and tend to keep them well oiled and shiny i was the only person in our family so affected the rest had other interests education not being one of them if the statistics were reversed it would be wonderful if 95 percent of the people were successful to the degree the 5 are the odds of a child being raised by the right group would be reversed but that’s not the case so our typical young man or young woman grows up to mirror his or her environment he thinks as they think he takes that life for granted all the people he loves are in that group it’s his group too and if he doesn’t come across some unusual motivation along the way he’ll become an indistinguishable part of it he does that because it’s the perfectly natural thing to do their goals or the lack of them become his goals a nice house on a nice street a steady job of some kind a good steady income a good wife and good kids so the story goes he operates on minimums all the years of his life he never except while playing his sports or getting ready for a date as a young man gets out of low gear it isn’t necessary in the united states this country is so affluent so vital and so perennially booming that people don’t have to shift into second or third gear in order to meet average requirements and neither do most of the people throughout the world nor should they have to if they don’t want to his wife while the children are small is the hardest working human being in our society she has no eight hour day or five day a week system she works 16 hours a day seven days a week and according to a recent survey if she had to do it all over again she’d think twice about it more than fifty percent of her number also hold down a regular paying job she didn’t know about the five percent either no one ever said to this young man or this young woman now look here there are two very distinct groups of people in our society they’re in different layers of this socio-economic pyramid and here the parent or teacher would have sketched a pyramid now there’s the top five percent who live and work in this top section here and the person would have drawn a line under what represents the top five percent of the pyramid now here’s what we call the great middle class in america it’s divided into two main groups the upper middle class another line would be drawn on the pyramid and the lower middle class the united states has the largest middle class of any country in the world and then down here at the bottom these few lower layers these are the people who because of a thousand perfectly good reasons need to be helped by all the rest of us they have difficulty coping many of them are too old or sick to help themselves we have some 25 million functional illiterates and so on so these young people would see very clearly their options it would be made clear to them that they have the freedom thank god and our forefathers to choose they have the option if they so choose to live and work on virtually any layer of that pyramid and it should be pointed out to them that the higher up on that pyramid you climb the better the view the fresher the air the smaller the crowd now that’s important to know but it takes more effort to climb higher on a pyramid it’s much easier to settle for these lower layers you don’t have to learn so much and so on now the peridot teacher might continue we live right here at this level on the pyramid and then the parent or teacher might say it’s not in the higher levels but it’s certainly not in the lower levels either it’s where i wanted to be your mother and i’ve been quite happy here well i hope you get the picture wouldn’t it be wonderful if we would be shown that when we’re about 12 or 13 wouldn’t it be great to know we had that option and to see that pyramid well this program is for the people who want to be in the top five percent and it has a great deal of what we need to know to get into and stay in the top five percent and while getting into the top five percent may be one’s goal it’s good to remember that like any destination on planet earth there are a million ways to get there any road will do any calling will do if we go about it the right way you can get rich hauling garbage and many have already done so it’s a vital service to the community but you have to go about it in a certain way this young man and now that we’ve brought his wife into the picture this fine young woman because of their past environment their conditioning come under the statistics of average americans because they live their lives in an average way but of course they’re not really average people with the right motivation they could become very uncommon people and do very uncommon things they could render much greater service to their community and reap a much more abundant harvest as a result if they knew what we’re talking about on this program now what are the odds that they will ever come across dr brent blanchard’s advice about happiness do they know what happiness is and where it comes from has either of them ever truly explored his and her potential strong point what is it that your original genetic pattern makes you especially qualified to do young man and young woman what do you most want to do what brings you the greatest joy do you know your rewards all the years of your life will be determined by the extent of your contribution your service to others do you know why some people are paid twenty thousand dollars a week while others are paid the minimum wage bill cosby earned 12 million dollars in 1986.

do you know why it’s because of the people he serves there’s an investment banker in los angeles who earns about 40 million dollars a year do you know that as far as is known there’s no limit on earnings what would you like to earn how about a thousand a week that’s 52 000 a year or twice that that’s not all there is to living by any means far from it but it does pay the bills and if you earn an income in the upper five percent of the population there you are in that top five percent of the pyramid that the sun hits first as the earth does its daily rollover act and the sun is still shining on it later in the day when the rest of the plane is dark it’s nice up there and shooting for it will bring out the best that’s in you you’ll do more for others you’ll make a greater contribution you’ll give more to charities you’ll help more people so how about it there’s a talk i’d like to give to young people some would say i’d stir discontent among them but i would reply that discontent is the greatest motivator of them all and is responsible for every great boon to humankind from running water in the inside toilet to the supermarket a little discontent is a good thing especially when it’s discontent with ourselves the effective environment is an incalculably powerful force the deepest craving of young people is to be liked by their fellow students acceptance and esteem in the eyes of their contemporaries is their deepest craving so they begin to do what the other kids are doing and the other kids begin doing what they’re doing and everyone acts just like everyone else they dress alike they talk alike they laugh at the same things even when it isn’t funny it’s at this critical age that they begin to play not follow the leader that would be all right the game they play is called follow the follower day after day week after week month after month year after year these young wonderful impressionable people conform to one another they never ask are the people to whom i’m conforming qualified to lead me it’s belonging that’s important belonging to the group and that’s the subtle trap that gets practically everybody if we don’t break out of that trap sooner or later we’ll end in it millions no billions do it’s astonishing how many adults never break out we see them in their 50s and 60s still playing to the wrong crowd still trying to be one of the boys do you remember what willie lowman said in arthur miller’s great play death of a salesman he said the important thing is to be liked willie lowman never grew up you never knew who he was his story is a modern tragedy it’s always been a tragedy it’s the story of the mob that’s why so many young healthy women are smoking today it’s their way of going counter to what they know is the intelligent thing to do it’s their small and very pitiful rebellion when a person has no identity of his or her own that person will seek to find that identity in a larger group that’s why joining groups of various kinds is so popular in that way we get a badge a label that tells us what we are now we’re properly labeled this is not to say that successful men and women do not belong to organizations they certainly do and they make major contributions to their organizations but they don’t need the organization for identity they’re quite aware of who and what they are and if their organizations did not exist they would be successful independent performers in society they would never feel lost successful people follow independent paths this is the important point to remember at some point in their lives they break away from the crowd and start on a path of their own that’s the adult the intelligent thing for a human creature to do in striking off on an independent path they’re not necessarily alone it’s just that they join the much smaller group of like-minded people they can’t take the whole crowd into that top five percent the ancient romans had their circus modern americans have their television it’s far superior to the old roman circus and they don’t even have to leave the comfort of their living rooms it’s true that there are many wonderful things on television and an eclectic approach that is selecting those programs in which you’re really interested makes sense but millions of families have the television sets on all day they’re mesmerized by it and when one thinks of what they could be doing with some of that time it makes one realize that it’s much easier to win one of the best things about getting in that top five percent is that as we get older life need not become less interesting for us or more laborious we become more productive as we approach our 60s and 70s and often many years beyond and it’s nice to grow older with all the goodies of life it’s more comfortable one can spend one’s winters in florida or somewhere south of the equator and one summer is in the cooler healthier climates and one can enjoy all the benefits of the good life but perhaps most importantly of all one can say i gave it my best and i’m not through yet it’s been a wonderful experience this this holiday on earth and i’ve enjoyed it very very much now let’s see what we can do with the rest of it yes i think it’s actually easier to win there’s less competition up there where the view is so much better and the air is so fresh and clean and it’s almost never too late for with a purpose a worthy goal and the motivation to reach those upper layers on the pyramid a person can travel farther in a few years than he might otherwise travel in a lifetime like most writers when i see something i wrote 10 years ago i invariably see ways it could have been improved i didn’t see those possibilities 10 years ago but it’s easier to see them today it means i’ve grown as a writer that i’m better that i’m a more effective writer today than i was 10 years ago i’m worth more today and if i continue as i have been doing i’ll be much better and worth a lot more 10 years from now before the atomic age chemistry professors used to say that a person’s worth from a strictly chemical standpoint was about 32 on the going market in recent years this view has undergone a startling change scientists now calculate that if the electronic energy in the hydrogen atoms of your body could be utilized you could supply all the electrical needs of a large highly industrialized country for nearly a week a dupont scientist said that the atoms of your body contain a potential energy of more than 11 million kilowatt hours per pound the average person by this estimate is worth about 85 billion dollars moreover the electrons in the atoms of your body are not just particles of matter they’re waves of living energy and these waves ripple out and spread themselves in patterns of light and as they move they sing if you had the proper hearing aid you could hear a great flow merging with the waves of neighboring atoms and they not only sing they shine if you stand in front of an infrared television camera in a completely dark room the screen will show you from top to toe as a glistening radiating gleaming form in short you’re a whole lot more than meets the casual eye add to all this the fact that to try to reproduce your mind mechanically would cost many billions of dollars and you begin to see yourself for what you really are an amazing infinitely valuable creature and not only are you immensely valuable as a human being you’re unlike any other human being who ever lived or ever will live you are unique now what are you selling all this for all human beings are priceless but the payments tangible and intangible they receive from life vary greatly the purpose of this message is to help you decide just what you’re worth as a human being right now on the market in today’s society and what you intend to be worth say oh five years from now in the last analysis every person is in reality in business for himself or herself in that they’re building their own lives regardless of who happens to write their paycheck so for the purpose of this particular message i’d like you to think of yourself as a business let’s say a corporation you hold the office of president of this corporation and that you’re responsible for his success or failure you and the members of your family are stockholders in your corporation and it’s your responsibility to see that the value of the stock increases in the years ahead your family has evidenced faith in you and is your responsibility to prove their faith is justified this is the job of any employed family member now while the operations of a corporation are multitudinous and complex they can be reduced to four basic functions number one finance two production three sales or research without proper financing there would be no production without production the company would have nothing to sell without sales it would have to completely stop production without research it could not hope to keep abreaster ahead of our rapidly changing times now slight any one of these four vital functions and you have a deformed a crippled company and if you slide it long enough you’ll commit corporate suicide unless you want to cop out for that average business we discussed finance the money part of the whole thing on another cassette for now let’s concentrate on research production and sales they are the head hands and legs of a company we could say that the head handles research the hands take care of production and the legs handle sales cut off any one of these parts and you’re left with a shocked staggering organization how many once large companies and trade names can you think of which became giants and then disappeared entirely from the economic scene names which once were world leaders in their fields and are now only memories they failed to keep in balance these four crucial functions what about research for your personal corporation research can be said to exist in two areas present and future that is the research of a company should be devoted to ways and means of improving its present products or services present production and present sales future research is concerned with ways and means of developing new products and services new methods of production and new methods of marketing but while this research is going on present production must continue at as high a level as sales warrant in short a corporation your corporation has two factors to consider the present and the future how successful we are in meeting these challenges will determine our present profits and our future growth now why are all companies concerned with growth even when they seem to be doing well today it’s because of a law which operates with companies just as it does with human beings nothing in the world stands still nothing in the entire universe stands still a law of physics goes a body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force a company which is growing has a tendency to continue to grow in other words just doing things right conversely a company which is going backwards or shrinking has a tendency to continue to go backwards or shrink until acted upon by an outside force all responsible company officers know that unless a company is growing it’s developing the first signs of death well you’re the head of your personal corporation and you should realize that this same law applies to you as well and just for a minute let’s take a look at the next 10 years before we do keep this in mind if anyone had predicted just 10 years ago that we would be living in the kind of world we have today he would have been ridiculed now this includes everything from our basic industrial technology to the luxuries and new products we take for granted along with our present average income we’re reaching a point in the expansion of human knowledge for our advance is more than dynamic it’s explosive any prediction for the next 10 years is very likely to be far on the ultra-conservative side but let’s take a look at what the experts have to say according to many recent research studies the next 10 years are going to offer business and the individual unlimited rewards in the next eight to ten years the bulk of spending in the highly developed nations will be for things products and services over and above the necessities far above them the necessities for your food clothing shelter transportation and medical care imagine most of the spending will be for things above and beyond the necessities this will be the first time this has happened in the entire history of the human race it’s estimated the consumer market will expand 50 and more in the next generation or so an astonishing increase soaring into the hundreds of billions of dollars in the next 30 years alongside every building now in existence a new building must be built and what about research and development which is the future of our economy today more money is being spent on r d in a single year than was spent during the past 150 years think a moment what does all this mean to you and your own individual company the one of which you’re the president it means your future is unlimited if you’ll see yourself in relation to the present and the future never before throughout all the centuries of man has a person based as brighter future as yours our population too is getting a lot smarter educational advances during the past 30 years have been remarkable during the next 30 they’ll probably be amazing the customer is getting smarter every day and if we’re going to continue to meet his or her demands and sell him or her our products we better get smarter every day too the market of the next 10 years will be characterized by diversity not uniformity it will also be dominated by taste not necessity there will be a great increase in the quality as well as the quantity of consumer choices there are many signs of the rising urge for the better things in life many millions of adults are currently interested in after hour study programs and this number is growing by millions each year well that’s just a glance at a few of the things going on around us and what life will be like in eight to ten years now each of us as president and unquestioned manager of his own corporation can decide what to do about it we can either grow with it or go backward we cannot stand still even if we’d like to this gives us an opportunity to stand back and look at ourselves and our futures objectively as an intelligent stranger might ask yourself how much am i worth right now today as a corporation what’s my value today to myself my family my company if i were an outside investor a stranger would i invest in this corporation a company growing at the rate of 10 a year will double in size in about eight years what attention are you giving to the production of your personal corporation can you grow and improve as a person at least 10 percent a year of course you can in fact if we go along with the experts estimates a person can increase his effectiveness anywhere from 50 to 100 percent and more within 30 days our files are filled with reports from people who exceeded their previous performance to an almost unbelievable extent people in management and in production who multiplied their effectiveness many times students who moved from failing grades to straight a’s in the dean’s list people in sales who found they could through the proper management of their abilities minds and time sell as much of their company’s products in a single month as they previously sold in an entire year think what that means it means being 12 times as effective as a human being and getting back to the law of cause and effect it means putting out 12 times as much service which must and will guarantee our receiving eventually 12 times the reward we formally knew 12 times the reward remember please if we do twice as much we have to receive twice as much and nothing on earth can keep it from us and the same thing applies if we triple our effectiveness you and i know this everyone should know it but remember that fully 95 of the people do not know this think of the advantage this gives us it isn’t that we want to take advantage of anyone and we’re not but it dramatically demonstrates the truth of the saying knowledge is power you’d be amazed by the great numbers of people who stop learning when school is over aside from company manuals and such internal literature they read very little of anything of real value the introduction to recorded learning pioneered by this company has made substantial gains and is growing rapidly but as yet has only scratched the surface an ongoing education is vital if we’re to stay vital there’s so much to learn and our school curriculum touched only a fraction of it one of the most important subjects is getting along with people we can only do things we can only win through people and that subject isn’t taught at all in school the great ideas we’re talking about on this program are seldom taught in the home and almost never in school go through our catalog of programs carefully and one by one you can maintain an effective ongoing education program for many years to come it’s true knowledge is power what’s more knowledge shows on our faces and it’s apparent in our speech it helps us raise our children get along better with our neighbors and fellow workers above all perhaps it’s the greatest motivator in the world as we learn our horizons recede we realize there’s more to do and more time in which to do it old myths about getting out of action at age 65 disappear and we realize that as long as we’re learning and teaching and growing it need never stop and we become more effective with the passage of time tomorrow is a brand new day the great equalizer no more no less than anyone else on earth can have right now begin to think of ways in which you can begin to increase your effectiveness raise your production knowing that by so doing you’re automatically presetting your rewards each day that comes to you beginning with tomorrow offers you a clean brand new page on which to write the story of your life forget the past it’s gone don’t concern yourself with the opportunities you may have missed in the past this is true of everyone but reach out and take each new day as it comes and ask yourself how can i best use this day you know we’re going to run out of them eventually if we waste an hour of productive time every day it adds up to about 250 hours a year that our corporation our plan is shut down we can earn nothing with the doors closed what is your time worth an hour multiply this by 250 and you can see what you’re throwing away now whether your employer pays for this wasted hour or not is unimportant life will not pay for it learn to enjoy every minute of your life be happy now don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future as my good friend wally amos of famous amos chocolate cookies says happiness is an inside job think how really precious is the time you have to spend whether it’s at work or with your family every minute should be enjoyed savored a human life is really nothing more than a collection of minutes hours and days these are the building materials and it’s left strictly up to us to determine the kind and size structure we build you see a person has a tremendous advantage over even the largest corporation think of any large multinational corporation can it double its production in a single day of course not can it double its sales in a single day of course not it would like to but its growth must be a gradual steady thing because of the interconnecting complexities of operating so large in organization yet a person can double triple quadruple his effectiveness in a month or less it’s like comparing the movement of a single scout to the movement of a great army how have you been handling the four vital functions of your business finance production sales research how much time and effort are you giving to finance to research to the study of your work your career can this be improved what about production is there a way in which you can vastly improve the way in which you conduct your work and sales how can that be improved sales is more than selling a product or service it’s the way in which we sell ourselves to everyone with whom we come in contact it’s the way we get along with our associates our spouses our kids our neighbors and if our business happens to be selling how can we see more people every day or improve the effectiveness of every part of our contact one extra call a day comes to 250 calls a year how many additional sales could we make with 250 additional contacts in five years that comes to 1250 calls we would not otherwise have made it’s the difference between being average or above average it’s the difference between good and great taking this new active approach to life brings peace to our minds absolute security to our future great new stature as human beings in this way we can work toward reaching full maturity with this attitude toward life we need never for a moment concern ourselves with its outcome it will begin to become successful tomorrow and it will pour abundance upon us for the rest of our years do let’s talk about money men and women have been concerned about money since the first coin was fashioned in asia minor about 700 bc you might say that money is like good health in that we’re concerned about it to the extent that we don’t have it the purpose of this message is to get down to the basics to clear the air surrounding the entire subject of money and to do this i’m going to have to get absolutely elementary and while you may already know most of the things i’m going to say i think it’s important that we remind ourselves just exactly what money is how much of it is enough and how to earn the amount of money you need to live the way you want to live now and in the important future years to begin let’s get rid of the old myth once and for all that money is bad or unimportant it is not bad and it is important it’s vitally important it’s just as important as the food and clothes it buys the shelter it affords the education it provides and the doctor’s bills it pays money is important to any person living in a civilized society to argue and split hairs to the effect that it’s not as important as other things is absurd nothing will take the place of money in the area in which money works and that’s all there is to it what is money money is the harvest of our production money is what we receive for our production and service as persons and which we can then use to obtain the production and services of others we can quite often accurately gauge the extent of our production and service by simply counting the amount of money we receive for it you’ll hear people say money won’t bring happiness the earning and possession of money has brought a lot more happiness than has poverty money is a warm home and healthy children it’s birthday presents in a college education it’s a trip abroad and the means to help older people and the less fortunate we’re not saying that piling up a lot of wealth is important what we’re saying is that money is important because it’s the only reward which is completely negotiable and can be used by everyone look at it this way a diamond is more valuable than a lump of coal yet that’s exactly what a diamond was at one time and just as a lump of coal can be transformed into one of the world’s most valuable gems a human being can fastly increase his or her own value to the world try to remember this formula the amount of money we receive will always be in direct ratio to the demand for what we do our ability to do it and the difficulty of replacing us a highly skilled human being is worth more money in our economy than a person who is not highly skilled and who can be easily replaced now this is not to say that one person is any better than the other person or more important remember that in this message we’re only talking about money nothing else a janitor is just as important as a human being as a brain surgeon but the amount of money they learn will be proportional to the demand for what they do their ability to do what they do and the difficulty of replacing them a person can be trained to clean and maintain a building in a few weeks and replacing the person is not difficult a brain surgeon spent many years learning his profession often at great personal sacrifice and an extremely high cost and he cannot be easily replaced as a result the surgeon might earn as much money in an hour as a janitor might earn in a year now these are extreme cases used to show the relation of income to demand skill and supply and this is as it should be this is why there are few limitations on a person within his or her company and industry their incomes will be an exact proportion to the demand for what they do their ability to do what they do and the difficulty of replacing them that’s why the whole idea of trying to get something for nothing is ridiculous and won’t work a top jockey will earn a great deal of money every year which will represent about ten percent of the winnings of the horses he rides you might say riding a horse serves no useful purpose but the demand is there useful or not it’s the same with the star and show business his or her income will very accurately reflect the demand for what he or she does now that’s why preparation for life is so important luck has been defined as we’ve mentioned as what happens when preparedness meets opportunity a great opportunity will only make the unprepared the unqualified appear ridiculous for every one of us opportunities or all around us our ability to see them or depend in large part on how well we’ve prepared ourselves now how do you stack up in this regard while this may sound elementary you’d be amazed at the number of people who want more money but don’t want to take the time and trouble to qualify for it and until they qualify it there’s no way on earth for them to earn it it’s like the person who wants a good looking figure but doesn’t want to change eating habits to nine tenths of the world’s population the average north american is already rich there’s a greater difference between the standard of living of most of the world’s population and our average worker than there is between the standard enjoyed by our average worker and the richest person in our society our working people have just about everything the wealthiest have only smaller they have a home car often two of them radio tv savings account debts they’re just smaller their food is as good and just as plentiful their beds are just as comfortable their home is just as warm in the winter they have exactly the same amount of time and just as much maybe more freedom their life expectancy at birth is about 75 years for the rest of the world on the average it’s less than 60.

with only a fraction of the world’s population we in the free world have half the world’s total money income we have more than two-thirds of all the automobiles on the planet so in talking about money let’s understand that we’re already rich as a people now how much do you want how much money do you need to live the way you want to live to accomplish the goals you’ve established for yourself most people think they want more money than they really do and set off for a lot less than they could earn if they went about it the right way the world will pay you exactly what you bargained for exactly what you earn but not a penny more you remember that old poem that goes i bargained with life for a penny and life would pay no more well that’s about it we’ll receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service if you don’t like your income you must devise ways and means of increasing your service your service must come out of you your mind your abilities your energy a strong person cannot make a weak person strong but a weak person can become strong on his or her own by following a specific course of action for a sufficient length of time and a person who’s already strong can become a lot stronger it’s the same with this business of money people who refuse to do more than they’re being paid for will seldom be paid for more than they’re doing you may have heard someone say why should i knock myself out for the money i’m getting now it’s this attitude which more than anything else keeps people at the bottom of the economic pile they don’t understand that only as we grow in value as persons when we receive the increased income we seek if we try to stand still in our work and millions do we never know the rewards not the joy of accomplishment and the personal satisfaction and peace of mind which come only to the person of unusual achievement there are two distinct steps we must take first we must decide how much money we really want the exact amount once this decision is made the second step is to forget the money and concentrate on improving what we now do until we’ve grown to these size that will fit and naturally earn the income we seek once we’re fully qualified for the amount of money we decide to earn we’ll soon find ourselves earning it and we’ll also discover that with our new powers and abilities it’s not more difficult perhaps even less difficult than what we’re now doing for the money we’re now earning ask yourself how much money am i perfectly willing to earn realizing that the amount i earn will be an exact proportion of my skills the demand for what i do and the difficulty of replacing me there are really three amounts of money people should decide upon one the yearly income we want to earn now or in the near future the amount of money we want to have in a savings and or investment account and the amount of money we want as a retirement income whether we ever retire from active work or not now it’s here that most people make a very serious mistake they never decide on any of these three amounts of money if you will decide on these three amounts and if you write them on a card to carry with you or put somewhere where you can review it from time to time you’ll automatically have placed yourself in that top five percent we were talking about you’ll have a plan for your future a blueprint for future financial accomplishment you’ll know where you’re going and if you’re serious about it you almost certainly get there you see the trouble with people is not in achieving their goals they can do that all right it’s not setting goals that people get in trouble they leave it to chance and find out sooner or later and to their sorrow that chance doesn’t work that they’ve missed the vote it’s estimated that only five percent decide on the money they learn and then grow as persons into the size of the incomes they seek they must take their lives their fortunes and their futures into their own hands as they should and accomplish their goals right on schedule all the years of their lives you can do the same thing and you can do it starting right now there are two kinds of people where money is concerned there’s the majority who cut back on their wants to fit their incomes and there are those free spirits in the minority who make their incomes fit their wants now which is best for you you’ve got to decide that ben franklin gave us the secret to wealth he said the road to wealth lies in augmenting our means or diminishing our wants either will do but the quickest way to wealth is to do both at the same time when you write down the yearly income you mean to her and you no doubt know whether or not it’s average for the work you’re in or above average the chances are good that the figure you’ll decide upon will be above average perhaps quite a bit above average that’s good now ask yourself who in my line of work is now earning that kind of money if you know you’ll have a good idea what you have to do in order to earn it this is exactly how men and women move from the ranks into positions of top authority with corresponding incomes i have no way of knowing your line of business but regardless of the business you’re in it needs new leaders men and women to come up in the years ahead everything is expanding getting larger and with the increase in size and scope the most desperate need is for the dedicated able person who can learn to lead to lead the field and to lead others as well some of the top executives in the nation today were once accountants shipping clerks struggling lawyers service station attendants sales people in the field sales clerks mail room clerks stenographers mechanics you can’t think of a position from which people have not climbed to the top now understand what i’m going to say and it’ll bring you and yours everything you want it’s not the job it’s the person it’s not your present circumstances which count but the circumstances you make up your mind to achieve that are important the only limit on your income is you and the income you decide upon can be achieved within the framework of your present work industry or profession where you already have a start and a place if not there it can be found somewhere else all you need is the plan the road map and the courage to press onto your destination knowing in advance that there’ll be problems and setbacks but knowing also that nothing on earth can stand in the way of a plan backed by persistence and determination with the income written down that you intend to earn spend a part of each day thinking of ways in which you can increase your service knowing that you have only to manage this and the income will take care of itself since the money you want to earn is more than you’re now receiving your part of the bargain is to find ways of increasing your service until the gap has been bridged and more than bridged look at your card with the three amounts written on it by setting a financial goal you’re demonstrating faith you’ll find that you begin to become what others call lucky you’ll begin to get good hunches and ideas you’ll take far more interest in everything about your work in your company you’ll see opportunities in your work and environment you’ve never noticed before in fact you’ll soon discover you’re no longer the same person you’ll care less about how others are doing their jobs and concern yourself more with the manner in which you do yours by your example you’ll inspire others to do their jobs better have faith in yourself and the quiet firm inner knowledge that you can and will accomplish your goals know that the answers you seek will come to you in their own time if you only keep looking for them above all realize that money cannot be sought directly money like happiness is an effect it’s the result of a cause the cause is valuable service keep money in this proper place it’s a servant nothing more it’s a tool with which we can live better see more of the world to give our youngsters the education they need and a good start in life it’s the means to a happy carefree retirement in later years money is necessary to modern life but keep it in its place you need only so much food to enjoy good health you really need only so much money to live comfortably securely and well too much emphasis on money reverses the whole picture you then become the servant and the money the master as someone once put it it’s good to have money and the things money can buy but it’s good too to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy every person should know happiness in his or her work and home and prosperity these things can and should be yours play this message as often as you can during the next week fix your plans firmly in your mind and relax keep cool and calm be as serene as you possibly can be you have nothing to worry about right now you may have no idea at all how the additional income you seek is going to come to you know how you’re going to save the amount you want in a savings account or how you can possibly arrange for the retirement income you’ve decided upon that isn’t important remember that the only really important thing is that you know what you want if you do you will become you must become what you think about be realistic about your financial goals or as you reach them you can then set higher goals trying to jump too far too soon can often result in confusion tension worry take your growth in sensible logical steps remembering that the big thing is that you know what you want and that you realize your rewards will match your service that is that you must devise ways and means of actually becoming the person who is worth the amount of money you’ve established for yourself now a person may be worth more than he or she is getting for a while but the two will match up they have to in fact unless a person is worth more than he or she is receiving well they can’t move ahead they’re receiving all their worth and it all gets back to the great law that controls everything in the universe cause and effect the cause must precede the effect or the effect cannot occur this is why people who try to get something for nothing are only fooling themselves and earning the disillusionment and frustration they must one day reap you can have what you want you need only make up your mind so i’m sure you’ll agree we acquire the skills of living successfully through knowledge knowledge properly applied is power and knowledge is available to everybody the degree of a person’s ignorance will determine his or her place in the world everyone is born ignorant and must for a time live in ignorance but remember this anyone who remains ignorant has only himself or herself to blame an illiterate person in our society is in the lowest level of our social heap and from that starting point think once again as society has that pyramid with a broad base gradually rising to a high point we know that the great majority of people are to be found in the bottom large layers of this pyramid the higher you go the smaller the layers at the very peak of the pyramid you’ll find the world’s most brilliant people we may not have the native equipment to reach the topmost pinnacle perhaps although we certainly might but we do control where we will live between the very top and the very bottom we can most assuredly get into the top five percent let’s say the top five layers of the pyramid and from here we can live well and successfully all the days of our lives it isn’t that we want to be over anyone it’s just having the ambition and good sense to not settle for anything less to want to live the best we can remember the higher you climb on a pyramid the farther you can see the fresher the air and the less crowded it becomes another rewarding thing about climbing is that as we climb we help most of those associated with us to climb too one of the most important ladders leading to the top is knowledge the more we know the higher we can move but where does a person begin no one person can know everything in fact our store of knowledge is growing far too fast for anyone to keep up with it it’s like walking into the library of congress with its millions of volumes and trying to decide which single book to read first knowing that even if you lived a thousand years you couldn’t read them all well fortunately the answer this perplexing problem is known a person should begin with the study of his language and then to his general area of interest two steps in that order that can move us right up there on the top of the pyramid first the language in our case english not enough people realize that it’s our ability to use our language which will determine our place on the social pyramid and which will also control to a great extent the amount of money we will earn during our lives a person may dress in the latest fashion and present a very attractive appearance so far so good but the minute he or she opens his or her mouth and begins to speak he or she proclaims to the world his or her level on our pyramid shaw’s play pygmalion later adapted into the musical comedy my fair lady is an extreme example of what i’m talking about our use of the language is the one thing we cannot hide many years ago the graduating class of a large university was given an examination in english vocabulary the test scores were graded into groups of five percent each the top five percent and so on to the bottom at regular intervals during the next 20 years questionnaires were sent to the surviving graduates asking them their occupations incomes and so on without a single exception those who scored highest on the vocabulary test were in the top income group while those who scored lowest were in the lowest income group readers digest published an article by blake clark entitled words can work wonders for you in it he wrote tests of more than 350 000 persons from all walks of life show that more often than any other measurable characteristic knowledge of the exact meanings of a large number of words accompanies outstanding success end of quote he also mentioned the work done in this field by scientist johnson o’connor and gave o’connor’s best illustration of the importance of vocabulary tests were given to executive and supervisory personnel in 39 large manufacturing plants the results showed that every one of the men tested rated high in the basic aptitudes that go with leadership differences in their vocabulary ratings however were definite and dramatic presidents and vice presidents averaged 236 out of a possible 272 points managers averaged 168 superintendents 140 foreman 114 4 bosses 86 in virtually every case vocabulary correlated with executive level and income children with the best vocabularies get the best grades in school a salesman in his 50s who was in the bottom five percent in vocabulary worked himself into the top 45 percent and is now vice president of his firm an encouraging fact to keep in mind clark went on to say is that when we master one word we find that we’ve added several others it’s as if the new one is a nucleus of thought around which whirl numerous related ideas that we now come to understand deliberately learning 10 new words we pick up probably 90 more almost without realizing it you see understanding our language is the key to studying and learning everything else literally millions of people are being held back in life simply because they’ve never taken the time to learn their own language let’s face it from the earliest times the favored class of people has always been the educated class they can make themselves recognized instantly anywhere by the simple expedient of speaking a few words our language more than anything else determines the extent of our knowledge you see everything at all the vast storehouse of knowledge has a name a label these names these words make up the language the more words we know and can properly use the more knowledge we have of this you can be sure a person’s knowledge and his language go together it’s almost impossible for one to be larger than the other before we move to the second point which is knowledge in your field of general interest make it a point to acquire books that will help you improve your vocabulary you’ll find them valuable additions to your library and an enormous help in your career in addition to vocabulary effective english usage is important this entails learning the parts of speech what they mean how they should be used to construct sentences this too is a reflection of your present knowledge right now mentally rate yourself on your use of the language would you say your rating would be excellent good fair or poor if you’re eating yourself excellent you’re in the top one tenth of one percent of the population if you said good you’re definitely in the top five percent if you rated yourself fair get a good book on english at your bookstore and study it and if you rated yourself as poor take a home study or night course in english many excellent courses are available impress on your youngsters the importance of knowing their language the importance of speech more people speak english now than any other language on the planet with the possible exception of chinese english literature from chaucer to elliot from shakespeare to hemingway is the richest and most extensive on earth so when you’re studying english you’re studying one of the world’s greatest and most interesting subjects if you think you don’t have time to study listen to what lewis shores has to say about this he said each of us must find his own 15 minute period each day for reading it’s better if it’s regular the only requirement is the will to read with it you can find 15 minutes no matter how busy the day that means you’ll read half a book a week two books a month 20 a year and 1 000 in a reading lifetime it’s an easy way to become well read and it takes just 15 minutes a day let’s get to our second area of study our general interest everyone has something in which he or she is interested more than in other subjects this is true of the salesperson doctor architect executive or student reading in this area is for profit and we should read for pleasure as well once we have a regular program going along to improve our knowledge of our language we should begin a systematic study of the field which interests us most and which will help us reach our goal just that much sooner i received a letter from one of my radio listeners a woman saying it was her ambition to write poetry there was a telephone number on her letter so i called her i asked her how long she’d been studying poetry and what kind of a collection of published poetry she had she told me she didn’t have a single book on poetry and had never read it as a study i mentioned this because it’s so often the case people will say they want to do a particular thing but a bit of questioning quickly reveals that it’s a whim not a real and important goal if we’re interested in boating we subscribe to boating magazines and usually have a collection of books on boarding stories of the sea a collection of the works of conrad and we usually know down to the bilge pumps and mooring lines exactly the kind of boat we want i know because i have such a collection i also have a wonderful collection of books on english including poetry great fiction the great books several excellent dictionaries and a number of books on writing and style and mistakes to avoid our company is published on tape cassette one of the finest programs on vocabulary building ever put together and you can listen to it and repeat the words as you drive your car other motorists might think you’re a bit batty but you’ll be learning in the best way possible by listening and repeating a fine vocabulary of the english language most languages can number their words under two hundred thousand the english language has more than six hundred thousand and is still growing every day none of us can learn them all although professors of english come very close incidentally the number two person in the country in the use of his language is the corporation president and that’s no accident our ability to translate our thoughts and ideas into words in a powerful and effective way is inextricably linked to our growth in the world of business or any other organization in addition to english each of us should have a good working knowledge of world history and especially the history of our own country in the history of the idea of human freedom millions of americans don’t know how truly fortunate they are to be able to openly criticize their government and its leaders to be able to bring suit against public officials to call an attorney of their choice in case of arrest and be judged by a jury of their peers did you know that as far as is known there has never been a sentence of innocent in the soviet court if you go to trial in russia believe me you’re guilty and you’re going to prison or a work camp in hundreds of countries you could be subjected to torture without recourse my wife and i were talking to a couple in south africa some years ago a white couple and they said to us with feeling my god when the plane lands in the united states you can smell the freedom most americans believe it or not don’t know anything about the idea of personal liberty nor how difficult it was to come by nor how precious it is nor do they have the foggiest notion of their true options and opportunities i think a good personal library is essential it should contain good books and a dozen or so excellent tape cassette programs the tape cassette is the greatest idea for learning since the invention of the printing press it’s effortless it’s so effective when you listen to the human voice you’re learning the way you learned most of what you know it’s the most natural way to learn and while a book is often read only once tape cassettes can be listened to over and over again months and years later and perhaps most importantly they can be listened to while doing other things while dressing in the morning while driving the car while having a snacker at the dinner table so that the entire family can soak up some information those without a good library and they don’t even build bookshelves in american homes anymore unless they’re specified by an architect they’re seriously handicapped they miss so much of the fun the joy of learning the things we want to learn books and cassettes are not an expense item they’re an investment and as far as we know the best investment on earth they pass dividends out of all proportion to their small cost and not just in pleasure and knowledge but in cash in income as someone has written books extend our narrow present back into the limitless past they show us the mistakes of the men and women before us and share with us recipes for human success there’s nothing to be done which books and let me add tape cassettes will not help us do much better to try to live without constantly expanding our knowledge is to close our eyes not just to the whole purpose of life but to the facts of life as well never before has the world moved so rapidly as it’s moving today we must make up our minds to move with it to stay up with it to grow and prosper with it or just fall by the wayside not just because it’s the best way to our goals but because it’s the way to really enjoy living as the skillful sailor enjoys the sea so often a person will live in the shallows from force and habit or because those around him are wasting their time without realizing that only a thin screen of reeds separates him from the fine deep ocean beyond he or she can sail to any chosen port if the time has been taken and the effort expended to build a good boat now let me make an important point a person who knows where he or she is going and who’s made up his or her mind to get there is going to make the grade regardless of education if an education is necessary to the accomplishment of the goal well he or she will get it nothing in the world can take the place of persistence and determination i think it’s important to succeed in every department of our lives and becoming well-educated is one of the most vital what good is a large material success if a person has remained too ignorant to enjoy it or to administer it now let’s recap knowledge is power the more our knowledge the more power we can exercise over our lives and our futures think of human society as a pyramid composed of layers beginning with the broad based and narrowing to a pinnacle at the top pick the place on the pyramid you’re going to shoot for and start climbing since there’s far too much knowledge for any one person to assimilate where can we start first with our language and next with our general area of interest two subjects which can keep us growing and interested for the rest of our lives remember that our language is the one thing we cannot hide except by silence let’s bring it up to the point where it can do the job for us we want it to do to a surprising extent our ability to use our language and the extent of our vocabulary will determine our income and our future use our excellent cassette programs in vocabulary building and spend at least 15 minutes every day reading something not only interesting but calculated to stretch your mind a little more remember that a mind stretched by a new idea can never again return to its original dimensions it’s estimated that the average person adds only five new words a year to his or her vocabulary that’s not nearly enough for this day and age we should add that many a week many popular magazines publish features which will help you in this area and finally realize that graduating from school is just the beginning the commencement of our days and years of learning for with wisdom will come kindness and patience love understanding and success as a person it’s never too late to begin do we’ve talked about the definition of success as the progressive realization of a worthy goal the purpose of this message is to tell you of a wonderful way to keep realizing to keep achieving your goals one after another in the years ahead a goal sometimes seems so far off and our progress often appears to be so painfully slow that we have a tendency to lose heart it sometimes seems we’ll never make the grade and we come close to falling back into old habits which while they may be comfortable now lead to nowhere well there’s a way to beat this it’s been used successfully by many of the world’s most successful people and it’s been advocated by many of the greatest thinkers is to live successfully one day at a time a lifetime is comprised of days strung together into weeks months and years let’s reduce it to the lowest common denominator a single day and then still further to each task of that day a successful life is nothing more than a lot of successful days put together it’s going to take so many days to reach your goal if this goal is to be reached in a minimum of time every day must count now think of a single day as a building block with which you’re building the tower of your life just as a stone mason can put only one stone in place at a time you can live only one day at a time and it’s the way in which these stones are placed which will determine the beauty the strength of your tower if each stone is successfully placed the tower will be a success if on the other hand they’re put down in a hit or miss fashion the whole tower is in danger now this may seem to be a rather elementary way of looking at it but i want to make it clear and it’s a good and logical way of looking at a human life all right then let’s take it one day at a time from the time we wake up in the morning till we drop off to sleep that night keeping our goal in mind as often as possible now each day consists of a series of tasks tasks of all kinds and the success of a day depends upon the successful completion of most of these tasks now if everything we do during the day is a success that is done in the best fashion of which we’re capable we can fall asleep that night in the comfortable knowledge that we’ve done our very best that our day has been a success that one more stone has been successfully put into place now this is the way to really live do each day all that can be done that day you don’t need to overwork or to rush blindly into your work try to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time don’t try to do tomorrows or next week’s work today it’s not so much the number of things you do but the quality the efficiency of each separate action that counts the quality of what you do gradually you’ll find yourself increasing the number of tasks and performing them all much more efficiently to get the habit of success and that’s why successful people go from one success to another because it’s a habit with them to get the habit of success you need only to succeed in the small tasks of each day this makes a successful day enough of these and you have a successful week month year and lifetime this is why i say success is not a matter of luck far from it it can be predicted and guaranteed and anyone can achieve it by following this plan almost before you realize that you’ll have achieved your goal in looking back you’ll realize that your success was not attributable to any one day week or month but rather it was the consistent unrelenting successful succession of single days that turned the trick this is the way a skyscraper a home or a human life is successfully built one successful day at a time and each day comprising a collection of successful tasks one successful task at a time in order to advance to the place you’ve chosen two things are necessary one that you keep your eye on your goal and two that you continue to grow from the standpoint of competence and effectiveness don’t get impatient don’t let the hundreds of little distractions which each day try to get you off course bother you pay no attention to them shake them off and stay steadily on the track concentrate on each task of the day from morning to night and do each as successfully as you can know full well that if each of your tasks is performed successfully or at least the greater majority of them your life has to be successful there’s no other answer there’s no way to avoid it the men and women who are certain to advance are the ones who become too big for their jobs and who have a clear concept of what they want to be who know what they can become what they want to become and who are determined to be what they want to be remind yourself at this time that people become exactly what they make up their minds to become are you too big for your present job if it’s obvious to you that you are it’s obvious to others you know people are not given promotions as a rule they promote themselves by becoming too big for their jobs and by making up their minds exactly what bigger and better job or income they’re shooting for and this is done by taking one day at a time one task at a time during each day but how do we separate the important tasks from the unimportant did you ever hear of the single idea for which a man was paid twenty five thousand dollars and it was worth every penny of it the story goes that the president of a big steel company had granted an interview to an efficiency expert named ivy lee lee was telling his prospective client how he could help him do a better job of managing the company when the president broke in to say something to the fact that he wasn’t at present managing as well as he knew how he went on to tell ivy lee that what was needed wasn’t more knowing but a lot more doing he said we know what we should be doing now if you can show us a better way of getting it done i’ll listen to you and pay you anything within reason you ask weldy then said that he could give him something in 20 minutes that would increase his efficiency by at least 50 percent he then handed the executive a blank sheet of paper and said write down on this paper the six most important things you have to do tomorrow well the executive thought about it and did is requested it took him about three or four minutes then lee said now number those items in the order of their importance to you under the company well that took another three or four or five minutes and then lee said now put the paper in your pocket and the first thing tomorrow morning take it out and look at item number one don’t look at the others just number one and start working on it and if you can stay with it until it’s completed then take item number two the same way then number three and so on till you have to quit for the day don’t worry if you’ve only finished one or two the others can wait if you can’t finish them all by this method you could not have finished them with any other method and without some system you’d probably take 10 times as long to finish them and might not even have them in the order of their importance do this every working day lee went on after you’ve convinced yourself of the value of this system have your men try it try it as long as you like and then send me your check for whatever you think the idea is worth the entire interview hadn’t taken more than a half hour in a few weeks the story has it that the company president sent ivy lee a check for twenty five thousand dollars with a letter saying the lesson was the most profitable from a money standpoint he’d ever learned in his life and it was later said that in five years this was the plan that was largely responsible for turning what was that a little known steel company into one of the biggest independent steel producers in the world one idea the idea of taking things one at a time in their proper order of staying with one task until it’s successfully completed before going on to the next of living one day at a time for the next seven days try the 25 000 idea in your life tonight write on a slip of paper the six most important things you have to do then number them in the order of their importance and tomorrow morning go to work on number one stay with it till it’s successfully completed then move on to number two and so on when you’ve finished with all six get another piece of paper and repeat the process you’ll be astonished and delighted that the order it brings into your life and at the rate of speed with which you’ll be able to accomplish the things that need doing in the order of their importance now this simple but tremendously effective method will take all the confusion out of your life you’ll never find yourself running around in circles wondering what to do next remember as you do to live the best you can one day at a time you need not worry about tomorrow or the next day or what’s going to happen at the end of the month one day at a time handled successfully will carry you over every hurdle it’ll solve every problem you can relax in the happy knowledge that successful tasks make successful days which in turn build a successful life this is the kind of unassailable logic no one can argue with it will work every time for every person the reason for writing down what you consider only the most important things to do is obvious handling each task during the day successfully is important to the degree of the importance of the tasks themselves doing a lot of unnecessary things successfully can be pretty much of a waste of time make certain that the tasks you take the time to do efficiently are important tasks tasks which move you ahead steadily toward your goal so often youngsters in school worry about a passing grade they think of all they’ll have to do before the end of the school year following this course of action they can stop worrying completely and count on excellent grades freshmen in high school and college are frequently plagued by doubts as to whether or not they’ll be able to successfully complete the four years ahead and graduate four years seem like such a long time to them almost forever and this thought sometimes leads to a sort of giving up a fear of failure it was the great harvard teacher and psychologist william james who said in effect let not students worry about the success of their efforts if they will do each day as best they can the work which is before them they will wake up one day to find themselves among the competent people of their generation student junior executive homemaker senior executive or professional this plan works for everybody it removes doubt fear and worry and brings order into our lives all any of us needs to do is face each day as it comes in good cheer knowing that we have only to succeed today to guarantee our future in this way we’ll move steadily ahead growing more competent more confident with the passing of every day others may seem to suddenly shoot up faster and possibly fall much farther and operate in spurts and fits but it’s to the steady that the rewards are eventually paid saint edmund of canterbury was right when he said work as though you would live forever but live as though you would die tomorrow now try writing down the six most important things you have to do tomorrow then number them in the order of their importance maybe do this first thing tomorrow morning tackle number one stay with it till it’s completed if something should force its delay move on to number two but take them in order and finish them in order as best you can try not to get sidetracked by people or things in successfully accomplishing each task of your day beside my typewriter i have glued to the wall a great saying by ernest hemingway he said write as well as you can and finish what you start there’s nothing mysterious or capricious about achieving outstanding success it’s completely within our individual control and is absolutely predictable it’s simply a matter of doing certain things a certain way every day and that’s all there is to it as long as you’ve got that goal to work toward there’s no valid reason on earth where you should not become really successful in your field your home life and your community remember that everything in the entire limitless universe operates on the law of cause and effect there are no exceptions to this nothing happens by accident for every result there’s a cause you have only to take care of the cause the effect will always without exception take care of itself good cause good effect no cause no effect bad cause bad effect it’s as reliable as the rising of the sun this business of living one day at a time the best we can has an almost unbelievable cumulative effect for good for success and the things we want sometimes when we see a bricklayer starting on a building and putting the first brick in place we’re struck by the size of the job he has ahead of him but one day almost before we realize it is finished all the thousands of bricks are in place each one vital to the finished structure each one sharing its portion of the load and so should be the days of the human life and we’ll be proud and happy with the finished product all businesses all organizations from the smallest to the very largest need a leader they have their committees their echelons of command and perhaps a widely dispersed group of semi-autonomous divisions but the overall company in each of its divisions must have strong and able leadership contrary to popular belief you do not raise morale in an organization it filters down from the top the attitudes of the people working in any organization will always reflect the attitude of the leader and finally this leader will always be found to be just one person the man or a woman on the white horse i’m sure you’re aware that even the largest and oldest companies with many thousands of employees and hundreds of management people will when they find themselves in trouble or not doing as well as they should seek out one person and place him or her in the position of final authority the whole company the board of directors and perhaps thousands of stockholders all look to this one person for leadership and success the case of chrysler and lee iacocca is an excellent example incidentally we have mr iacocca on a tape cassette program and it’s excellent whenever you find a successful going concern whether it’s a gas station a supermarket a school club pta or a well-organized home you’ll find behind its success an outstanding leader this is the most valuable person in society in industry he or she makes the wheels turn the entire economy work this is the person who’s been responsible for the growth of nations and their position in the world the employer of millions the dreamer the planner and the clock to him or her is something that other people watch you’ll find this person working early and late and when not working he or she is usually thinking and planning way back during the depression of the 1930s the phrase most often heard by employers was i’ll do anything just give me a job millions were unemployed thousands of business firms had closed their doors and outside employment offices long lines of people stood waiting for any kind of work it was during this time in long beach california crowded to overflowing with thousands who had migrated there looking for work when there wasn’t enough work to go around for the permanent residence it seemed that a friend of mine made an interesting discovery he found that he could go to work almost anywhere he chose now amazing as this may sound it was absolutely true it dawned upon him one day that the business establishments of various kinds were just as anxious to succeed as were the people looking for work the owners and managers of these businesses were worried and concerned over the hard times which had descended upon the country and a great many of them were looking for someone to come to their aid the person who would somehow show up and solve their business problems but all they heard was people asking for work and saying i’ll do anything.

these people were asking for a paycheck from a company which was very likely teetering on the brink of financial ruin itself and so signs appeared in windows all over the land reading no help wanted this was a negative form of advertising and while it kept the plaintiff hordes away from the door it also hurt business well this friend of mine decided to become a part of the solution instead of a part of the problem and his method was simple and it worked like a charm he selected the kind of business he felt he would like to work in and in which he could build a career he then devoted a month to finding out all he could about that particular business he talked to other people in the same line he heard their problems and what they felt was wrong he talked for hours asking questions probing about what they felt was needed and so on he went to the public library and read everything he could find on that industry and then he began to think of ways and means by which this business might be improved when he was ready and finally made his call on the company for which he had decided to work instead of asking for a job he said to the boss something like this i believe i know of several ways in which your business can be greatly increased and i’d like to talk to you about them well here he was selling the one thing on earth in which his prospect was most interested the fact that he knew a good deal about the business now permitted him to talk intelligently he took a positive attitude expressed a willingness to pitch in and help put the business on a sound and profitable footing and of course that’s right he got the job millions out of work and asking for jobs but one man who found a way to be of help what had he done well first he had specialized he’d selected one line of work and decided that that was where his future would be now he had to prove himself and he did the jack of all trades and master of none was the man who suffered during the depression people who knew what they were doing and where they were going sail through those depression years just like a large ship sailed through a storm it wasn’t as comfortable as it could have been but at least the crossing was a success at least they didn’t found her and thousands of businesses actually grew larger and prospered during the depression the best way for you to develop the security that lasts a lifetime is to become outstanding at one particular line of work look at it this way regardless of economic ups and downs the industry of which that line of work is apart will continue to operate it won’t shut down completely as long as you’re in the top five percent of the people in that industry you know you’ll always be in demand you’ll be wanted and needed not just where that industry is concerned but where you and your family are concerned also the man or woman who becomes truly outstanding at what he or she does has the world on a string here’s the person of confidence and peace of mind here’s the person who’s quietly aware of his or her ability and intimate knowledge of his or her job and particular industry here’s the homemaker or student who’s at the top of the group they’ve got it made and they and everybody else know it ask yourself this question am i now such a person down deep inside you know the answer if you answered yes you’re among the most fortunate people and in one of the smallest and most elite groups on earth if your answer was no it can be turned into a yes in a surprisingly short time the first step is to make one really big and important decision it’s a decision the great majority of people never make and suffer as a result failing to make this decision keeps a person from ever really getting on course or clarifying his or her goals if you make the decision i’m now going to recommend you can take a deep breath give a comfortable sigh of relief fix your eyes firmly upon your target and go to work relaxed comfortable and sure in the knowledge that the success you seek will be yours the great steel magnet andrew carnegie when asked the formula for success answered put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket let’s be frankly realistic who gets laid off work during an economic slump well what gets thrown over the side when a ship is in danger of going down everything not absolutely essential to the operation of the vessel and the safety of its passengers and it’s the same with a business or any other organization it has to be that way with the corporation its main purpose is to remain in business forever as long as it remains in business it can provide a needed product or service protect the investment of those who have faith in it and provide jobs for those who are essential to his continuity of operation it’s the duty of management to protect the firm and the people who depend upon it just as it’s the captain’s duty to do everything in his power to keep his ship sailing all a person needs to do is make certain that he or she is a vital part of the business or organization those who insist on remaining spare gear those who do no more than they must in order to squeak by those who say i’m not going to do any more than i’m paid to do must expect to be jettisoned when things get too rough for safety nobody particularly the captain likes to see cargo thrown over the side but if it’ll help save the ship there’s nothing else to do that’s why people are laid off it has nothing to do with management and labor relations or personalities and in the long run it’s best for everyone since once smooth sailing has again been reached additional employment can again be made available so each of us must decide whether we want to be part of a cargo or a member of the crew it’s said that millions suffer today from a malady called panophobia panaphobia means literally fear of everything it’s an uneasy feeling a feeling of insecurity that generally manifests itself as a sort of lump of fear that settles right behind the belt buckle especially on sunday evenings and on monday mornings there’s nothing you can put your finger on it’s just a an apprehension a feeling of foreboding and this extremely unpleasant condition is said to result from the unspoken but realized fact that we’re getting credit for more than we’re actually doing or that we’re doing less than we could be doing it’s the perfectly natural and normal understanding deep within each of us that there’s something basically wrong about getting praise that’s not earned or if you’re an employee being paid for something you’re not doing as well as you possibly can if we have panophobia running doesn’t do any good we find it follows us on vacation and around the house and yard on weekends it’s inside us and no matter how fast the jet we board or how exciting the television program we’re watching soon we’re aware of it again now there’s a simple cure for this melody it’s to throw ourselves not out of a window but into activity into our work it’s the decision to be worth more than we’re being paid only in this way can we grow it’s over balancing the scales in the service we give knowing that our rewards must follow as a natural result anyone who’ll be honest with himself or herself realizes that he or she has been happiest and most satisfied after having successfully completed a difficult job a leader is a person who can help and lead others it’s the conscientious mother who wants her children to grow up knowing the rules for success and happiness it’s the father who shows by example that any job worth doing is worth doing well it’s the student who studies to learn not just to get a grade who has a mind of his or her own and sets the pace for his or her fellow students it’s the farmer whose farm sets an example in his area and the small businessman or woman whose business continues to grow and prosper with the passing years it’s the employee who has the good sense to realize that one gets most out of any job by giving loyalty and dedication to the firm that pays his or her wages a leader is any person who realizes the importance of becoming a bigger and better person with the passing of every day week and month a leader takes the responsibility of his or her own growth a planner a thinker a doer each of us can become such a leader in our own area of activity it’s not difficult and in the long run it’s easier for us and honest than what at first may appear to be the easier of two courses simply fix your eye upon your goal visualize it with every ounce of your being enjoy the prospect of it and courageously set out toward it maintain a cheerful helpful attitude toward everyone why shouldn’t you be cheerful since you know you’ll achieve everything you’ve set your heart upon become a kind of sponge for information which will help you on your way you don’t have to waste years making the mistakes others have made before you’ll be surprised at how quickly you reach your goal but don’t be impatient no and have faith that what should come to you will come to you in the right time everything in the world works on the side of the person who works with nature’s laws and above all if you should forget everything else remember that everything about you everything you will ever have no experience in any way operates as a result of law law that is true and unchanging the law of the stars and of the balance of the world as emerson wrote let him learn the prudence of a higher strain let him learn that everything in nature even dust and feathers go by law and not by luck and that what he sews he reaps look about you take stock of your present situation because there’s nothing more or less than the result of your past sowing are you happy with it is it what you want then you know what you must sell today and tomorrow and the next day and in the sowing rest in the calm serene and cheerful certainty that having sown you will then reap the rich results that come automatically all the years of your life the abundant harvest now this is earl nightingale reminding you that success as a human being in modern society does not come naturally it requires the conscious utilization of ourselves in the service of others we have our minds our genetic possibilities a certain amount of time and our free will we belong to the world minority that lives in a free society we can become whatever we seriously make up our minds to become that’s possible because whatever we seriously decide to do is naturally linked to our genetic possibilities a person with little or no aptitude for science will never decide to become a scientist a naturally shy and retiring person will never apply for a job in sales or if he does he’ll soon get out of it each of us has his or her own inner voice emerson referred to us that iron string that vibrates within us each of us wants to succeed during our holiday on earth and each of us should but we don’t succeed in groups we succeed or fail as individuals the lead the field program you’ve heard on these tape cassettes contains the best basic information and the great ideas we need to reach whatever goal we seriously choose listen to these tapes often you’ll be astonished to discover how much you missed with your first and second listening and there’s a very good reason why this happens as we listen to a message an idea will catch our interest and we concentrate on it for a few seconds or longer now while we are this engaged we miss what’s being said during the time we’re concentrating on that idea it’s like lifting the tone arm on a record now the next time we won’t stop listening when that idea appears and we will really hear consciously for the first time what immediately follows think of this program and the other nightingale conant programs you order in the future as your partners in success you can always refer back to them you’ll find yourself delighted by the new enthusiasm and excitement you’ll experience as you bring new meaning new rewards into your life thank you you.