by Zig Ziglar
You will often have to “bend over backwards” to please or understand your mate. That position might be a little uncomfortable, but it makes it difficult for you or your marriage to fall on its face.
Try this recipe guaranteed to cook up a happy marriage.
1 Cup —Love
5 Spoons —Hope
2 Cups —Loyalty
2 Spoons —Tenderness
3 Cups —Forgiveness
4 Quarts —Faith
1 Cup —Friendship
1 Barrel —Laughter
Take Love and Loyalty and mix thoroughly with Faith. Blend with Tenderness, Kindness and Understanding. Add Friendship and Hope. Sprinkle abundantly with Laughter. Bake with Sunshine. Serve generous helpings daily.
Use Ephesians 4:32 (“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another”) as your daily guide.
Pray together. Evidence is substantial that husbands and wives who pray aloud together on a daily basis have a divorce rate of less than 3%.
Keep this in mind. When the inevitable disagreement takes place, who makes the move to “make up” isn’t important. However, the one who makes the move demonstrates the greater maturity and love.
HUSBAND, COURT YOUR WIFE
Show her those little courtesies which mean so terribly much to a woman. Open her car door, hold her chair, walk on the traffic side when you are going down the sidewalk holding her hand. Stand up when she re-enters the room or restaurant when you are out to dinner.
Bring her the details of the good news or the exciting things that happen in your business life.
When you attend a social function of any kind, stay with her. Remember how proud you were to be with her before you married. Show her the same attention now.
Remember: Your wife wants a man she can look up to—but not one who looks down on her. Never, oh never, indulge in telling wife jokes. It is in exceptionally poor taste. After you have gotten a nervous laugh from someone else, your pleasure will be ended but the hurt will linger with her. And if you think for one minute you don’t “pay” for those cute little “wife” jokes, it just means that you don’t understand the female of the species. Take the opposite approach and compliment her as you like to be complimented.
Women are security conscious to a much larger degree than men. Remind her over and over that she is not only wanted but needed and appreciated. Her feeling of security is greatly increased with the repeated use of the word “love.” She needs and wants to hear it far more often than the average man is normally inclined to use it. Use it often and she will be happier and more secure, which means a better marriage.
Separate some of the jobs around the house. Women’s liberation notwithstanding, I believe our very natures demand certain separation of responsibilities. For example, when your wife returns from a shopping trip for groceries, if you are home, bring them in for her. The man should do the heavy work around the house that requires more strength. If you are there, you should take out the garbage, cut the grass, and do any work that is essentially masculine (unless she truly wants that job). Just remember, the home is your castle but it is not a castle without a king, and no king is complete without his queen. Your wife will be delighted to be your queen if you treat her like one.
WIFE, COURT YOUR HUSBAND
Start every day by telling him how much you love him and end every day the same way.
Be sensitive to the fact that the natures of men and women are considerably different. A man needs his ego fed regularly, especially if he is the breadwinner. A simple, assured expression of your confidence in him and the way he is doing things means much. This is especially so when the one he loves praises him for what he does. Make your husband know what he does is important, and that he is important. Repeatedly tell him that you are proud of him and what he does.
If you are not employed outside the home, stop a few minutes before he is scheduled to arrive. Take a quick bath, slip into a clean dress and add a touch of cologne or perfume. Devote a few minutes to catching your breath so you will be refreshed when you see him.
On occasion, bake him a cake or prepare a special dish you know he enjoys. Whether you or the kids enjoy the dish or not is unimportant. Do it just because you love him. If you send him to work with a “cold” lunch, be sure to include a “warm” note to “warm” it up.
Be agreeable and develop a good disposition (the same applies to you, husband). Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious woman.” In modern society, a man who has an angry or contentious woman for a wife will make her pay for it. He spends unnecessary time on his job and wastes time at the local bar with male and, unfortunately, female friends.
You do the jobs that are essentially feminine. I’m convinced that a contributing factor to many of our problems today is the lack of a clear distinction between male and female. Men should look, dress, act, think, and talk like men. Women should look, dress, act, think, and talk like women. Any time we have to pause and wonder whether the person is male or female, that’s sad. It’s important to remember that the husband-wife relationship is a partnership. This is especially critical in this day and age when such a high percentage of wives and mothers are cobreadwinners in the family. Research conclusively proves that when husband and wife both work, the wife assumes the major portion of the responsibilities at home. This includes the cooking, washing, cleaning, bed making, and a few dozen other things necessary to keep a household running smoothly.
Too many times the husband comes home from work, sits down in front of the television set, reads the paper and/or watches the news, while the wife prepares the evening meal, deals with the children, helps with homework, etc. Obviously, this is not true in all cases, but by and large, women are expected to assume not only more than 50% of the household responsibilities, but the responsibilities for seeing that things are done and running smoothly. The husband should assume full responsibility for at least 50% of the things necessary to keep the household running in an orderly fashion. It’s unrealistic to expect the wife and/or mother to work a full shift on an outside job, then do a shift and a half at home, and then feel like responding to her husband’s amorous advances. Common sense and fairness, combined with a loving approach, will not only bring more harmony to the home, but will bring a vastly improved relationship between husband and wife.
As my mother often said, “Your children more attention pay, to what you do than what you say.” Let the little boy see the male role and he will grow up to be a man with a natural affection for the opposite sex.
Let the little girl see the role of the female and she will grow up to be a woman with a natural affection for the opposite sex.
Do you want to be a queen? Treat your husband like a king and you will give him no choice, because no king is complete until he has a queen.
I repeat, marriage is not a 50/50 proposition. It is 100%/100%. I’m convinced it is impossible to make your mate happy and not benefit tremendously yourself.
Again, I wish to emphasize you can have everything if life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. This is especially true between husbands and wives. Try it, you’ll love it. If you really try it, you fully qualify to take that next step up the stairway. Take a good look. There you are with the biggest smile of your life on your face, ready to take step number two because you are making the most important person in your life truly happy.
SEGMENT FOUR
Goals
Purpose:
I. To sell you on the importance of goals in your personal life.
II. To explain why most people never set goals.
III. To identify the kinds of goals you should have.
IV. To elaborate on the characteristics of your goals.
V. To spell out in specific detail how to set your goals.
VI. To give a detailed procedure on how to reach your goals.
CHAPTER 10
Are
Goals Really Necessary?
THE TARGET YOU CAN’T SEE
To many people the name Howard Hill rings a bell. He was probably the greatest archer who ever drew a bowstring. He was so accurate he killed a bull elephant, a Bengal tiger, and a Cape buffalo with a bow and arrow. In newsreels I have seen Howard Hill repeatedly hit the target dead center. After sending the first arrow to the center of the bullseye, he would then literally split that arrow with his next shot.
When I make this next statement, your eyebrows will probably shoot up about six inches. To be candid, I have never shot the bow and arrow to any degree. However, I am an instructor extraordinaire—which simply means I’m very good at it! As a matter of fact, if your health is good and your eyesight is good, I could spend 30 minutes with you and at the end of that 30 minutes I would have you hitting the bullseye more consistently than Howard Hill did on the best day he ever had! Provided, of course, we had first blindfolded Howard Hill and turned him around a few times, so he would have no idea in which direction he was facing.
I’m reasonably confident that you just thought to yourself, “That’s ridiculous! Of course! How on earth could you possibly hit a target you couldn’t see?” That’s a good question, but here’s one that’s even better: How can you hit a target you don’t even have? Let me ask you this: Have you written your goals down? Have you answered the question of why you want to reach that particular goal? Have you determined the benefits you will enjoy by reaching the goal? Have you identified the obstacles you must overcome in order to get there? Have you identified the people, groups, and organizations you need to work with in order to achieve this objective? Have you explored what you need to know in order to reach this destination? Have you developed a specific plan of action to make it happen? Finally, have you set a realistic date for the accomplishment of this particular goal or objective? Until you answer these questions, you really do not have even a goal, much less a goals program.
You must have a goal, and, in reality, a goals program. You see, everybody has at least one goal—the bank robber does, as does the drug addict or the alcoholic. But you need to understand that it’s just as difficult to reach a destination you don’t have as it is to come back from a place you’ve never been.
Unless you have definite, precise, clearly set goals, you are not going to realize the maximum potential that lies within you. You’ll never make it as a “wandering generality.” You must be a “meaningful specific.” What about you and your goals? Are they clearly in focus, or still pretty fuzzy?
ACTIVITY—OR ACCOMPLISHMENT?
A man or a woman without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. Each will drift and not drive. Each will end up on the beaches of despair, defeat, and despondency. John Henry Fabre, the great French naturalist, conducted a most unusual experiment with some Processionary caterpillars. These caterpillars blindly follow the one in front of them, hence, the name. Fabre carefully arranged them in a circle around the rim of a flower pot so that the lead caterpillar actually touched the last one, making a complete circle. In the center of the flower pot he put pine needles, which is food for the Processionary caterpillar. The caterpillars started around this circular flower pot. Around and around they went, hour after hour, day after day, night after night. For seven full days and seven full nights they went around the flower pot. Finally, they dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion. With an abundance of food less than six inches away, they literally starved to death, because they confused activity with accomplishment.
Many people make the same mistake and as a result reap only a small fraction of the harvest life has to offer. Despite the fact that untold wealth lies within reach, they acquire very little of it because they blindly, without question, follow the crowd in a circle to nowhere. They follow methods and procedures for no other reason than “it’s always been done that way.”
In this respect, they are as bad as “this old boy down home.” His wife sent him to the store for a ham. After he bought it, she asked him why he didn’t have the butcher cut off the end of the ham. “This old boy” asked his wife why she wanted the end cut off. She replied that her mother had always done it that way and that was reason enough for her. Since the wife’s mother was visiting, they asked her why she always cut off the end of the ham. Mother replied that this was the way her mother did it; Mother, daughter, and “this old boy” then decided to call grandmother and solve this three-generation mystery. Grandmother promptly replied that she cut the end of the ham off because her roaster was too small to cook it in one piece. Now grandma had a reason for her actions. What about you?
THIS WAY TO FAILURE
Do most people have goals? Apparently not. You can stop a hundred young men on any street and ask each one, “What are you doing that will absolutely guarantee your failure in life?” After recovering from their initial shock, each one will probably say, “What do you mean, what am I doing to guarantee my failure? I’m working for success.” Tragically, most of them think they are. Almost every one believes he will make it, but the odds are against him. I say this with emphasis because, if we follow those hundred young men until they are sixty-five years old, only five of them will have achieved financial security. Only one will be wealthy.
I can’t believe that failure is caused by lack of opportunity, because America offers many unique opportunities. For example, several years ago a wealthy prisoner was released from the Federal Prison in Atlanta, Georgia. He had a built-in (pun intended) Loser’s Limp. Nevertheless, he accumulated a small fortune by operating a tailor shop in prison. After his big mistake had landed him in prison, he was determined not to make a bigger one by “serving time.” He made “time” serve him. In a real sense you have the same choice.
Do the people in life who don’t succeed actually plan to fail? I don’t think so. The problem is they don’t plan anything. Since goals are so important, why do only 3% of the American people specifically commit their goals to paper? There are four basic reasons. First, they have never been “sold.” Told, yes—sold, no. Second, they don’t know how. Third, they fear they won’t reach the goals they set and will be embarrassed. Fourth, poor self-image. They don’t think they deserve the good things life has to offer, so why bother to write down what you want since you don’t “deserve” to have it, which means (in their mind) that they won’t have it. Now get ready for a strong statement. The philosophy and procedures outlined in this book will take care of all four of the reasons if you really dig in.
Throughout this segment, I will be “selling” you on goals and telling you exactly how to set them. The second segment, and for that matter the entire book, has dealt with self-image so you should already like yourself better. All the steps and procedures you need to acquire many of the good things life has to offer are detailed in this book, so action is the ingredient you need to add to accomplish your objectives.
This brings us to fear, so let’s rationally look at that one. If fear is your problem, it simply means that you do not want to be wrong in front of your friends so you do not make a commitment. By the way, you are “half-right” in this approach. You should never share your goals with anyone unless you know they not only believe you can reach the goals but they want you to reach them. Others decide not to commit their goals to paper so if they don’t quite “make it,” they will have the built-in explanation that they didn’t really fail because they never set those goals. This is a safer and even a “no risk” approach for them that guarantees they will not reach even a fraction of their potential.
Using that line of reasoning, I must point out that it would be “safer” for a ship to stay in the harbor, “safer” for a plane to stay on the ground, and “safer” for a house to stay empty, because a ship encounters “risk” when it leaves the harbor, a plane encounters “risk” when it leaves the ground, and a house invites “risk” when someone moves in. But the ship would collect barnacles and become unseaworthy even faster in the harbor. The plane would rust much faster on the groun
d, and the house would deteriorate much faster standing empty.
Yes, there is danger in setting goals, but the risk is infinitely greater when you don’t set goals. The reason is simple. Just as ships are built to sail the seas, planes to fly the heavens, and houses for living, so is man created for a purpose. You are here for a reason. That purpose is to get everything out of you that is humanly possible so you can make your contributions to mankind. Goals enable you to do more for yourself and others, too.
Since the first and most obvious step is to “sell” you on doing something now about your goals, I’m flat gonna do exactly that. (In all fairness I feel I should issue this “warning,” since you are obviously interested in “buying” or you wouldn’t have gotten this far in the book.)
LET’S GO TO ACAPULCO TOMORROW— EVERY DAY
Suppose you were to receive a phone call tomorrow from an old and respected friend who enthusiastically says, “Friend, I have good news for you. You can take a three-day trip to Acapulco with our group and it won’t cost you a dime. We leave tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. and we have room for two more people. The boss is flying us down in his private jet and we will all stay at his villa right on the beach.” Your first reaction might be, “That would be wonderful, but I have so much to do, I don’t see how I could get ready and do the things I need to do before I could go anywhere.”
Before you can answer, your good wife tells you she has an idea and suggests you tell your friend you will call him back in a few minutes. The minute you hang up, you and your wife start thinking and planning. First you ask, “What do I have to do?” Out comes pen and paper and you commit to writing all the things you must get done. Next, you list them in order of their importance. Finally, you delegate some of the responsibilities to others. Then you call the friend back and say, “Hey, you know, I’ve been checking the schedule, and we can make that trip after all.”