The Greatest Secret in the World
Page 5
Including you.
Maybe you’ll pay attention, now.
The greatest secret in the world is that you only have to be a small, measurable amount better than mediocrity … and you’ve got it made.
Read that again. Burn it into your mind and never forget it.
We live in a world of mediocrity … and mediocre individuals. You know it, without taking my word for it. Think of that last new car you bought and how sloppily it was assembled by people who just did their job well enough to get by. And how many things were unfinished in that new house you bought? Remember that jacket with the pockets still sewn together … and that magazine you bought with sixteen pages missing?
Charles H. Brower, one of our century’s most able and brilliant business executives, put his finger on it all when he said, “We, in America, are living in the high tide of the mediocre, the great era of the goof-off, the age of the job half-done. The land from coast to coast has been enjoying a stampede away from responsibility. It is populated with laundrymen who won’t iron shirts, with waiters who won’t serve, with carpenters who will come around some day maybe, with executives whose minds are on the golf course, with teachers who demand a single salary schedule so that achievement cannot be rewarded nor poor work punished, with students who take cinch courses because the hard ones make them think, with spiritual delinquents of all kinds who have been triumphantly determined to enjoy what was known until the present crisis as the ‘new leisure.’ ”
You don’t have to move ahead to be a success! Just stand fast where you are, doing the best you can, and without your advancing one inch forward you’ll be ahead of the pack. Why? Because the others will have all retreated! The struggle was too rough for them. They quit … and ran … and there you are because there’s no one remaining. Mr. Success!
For, as Mr. Brower concluded, “I am a man of great faith. Here and there you see bright minds who are not interested in clockwatching and goofing off. And I would like to say to them, do not be discouraged when you find yourself afloat in a sea of mediocrity. Do not be downhearted when the tides of foolishness are running high. It is the earnest and devoted few who can turn that tide.”
I purposely waited until we were this far along in the book before sharing this secret with you. And I have purposely “buried” it, in the text, so that the casual browser won’t find it. Those whom we have lost, along the way, only help to prove the secret they’ll never know.
You … are something special, and you are worth a fortune to yourself and those you love, if you will only heed the words in:
The Scroll Marked VIII
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
A mulberry leaf touched with the genius of man becomes silk.
A field of clay touched with the genius of man becomes a castle.
A cyprus tree touched with the genius of man becomes a shrine.
A cut of sheep’s hair touched with the genius of man becomes raiment for a king.
If it is possible for leaves and clay and wood and hair to have their value multiplied a hundred, yea a thousandfold by man, cannot I do the same with clay which bears my name?
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
I am liken to a grain of wheat which faces one of three futures. The wheat can be placed in a sack and dumped in a stall until it is fed to swine. Or it can be ground to flour and made into bread. Or it can be placed in the earth and allowed to grow until its golden head divides and produces a thousand grains from the one.
I am liken to a grain of wheat with one difference. The wheat cannot choose whether it be fed to swine, ground for bread, or planted to multiply. I have a choice and I will not let my life be fed to swine nor will I let it be ground under the rocks of failure and despair to be broken open and devoured by the will of others.
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
To grow and multiply it is necessary to plant the wheat grain in the darkness of the earth and my failures, my despairs, my ignorance, and my inabilities are the darkness in which I have been planted in order to ripen. Now, like the wheat grain which will sprout and blossom only if it is nurtured with rain and sun and warm winds, I too must nurture my body and mind to fulfill my dreams. But to grow to full stature the wheat must wait on the whims of nature. I need not wait for I have the power to choose my own destiny.
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
And how will I accomplish this? First I will set goals for the day, the week, the month, the year, and my life. Just as the rain must fall before the wheat will crack its shell and sprout, so must I have objectives before my life will crystallize. In setting my goals I will consider my best performance of the past and multiply it a hundredfold. This will be the standard by which I will live in the future. Never will I be of concern that my goals are too high for is it not better to aim my spear at the moon and strike only an eagle than to aim my spear at the eagle and strike only a rock?
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
The height of my goals will not hold me in awe though I may stumble often before they are reached. If I stumble I will rise and my falls will not concern me for all men must stumble often to reach the hearth. Only a worm is free from the worry of stumbling. I am not a worm. I am not an onion plant. I am not a sheep. I am a man. Let others build a cave with their clay. I will build a castle with mine.
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
And just as the sun must warm the earth to bring forth the seedling of wheat so, too, will the words on these scrolls warm my life and turn my dreams into reality. Today I will surpass every action which I performed yesterday. I will climb today’s mountain to the utmost of my ability yet tomorrow I will climb higher than today, and the next will be higher than tomorrow. To surpass the deeds of others is unimportant; to surpass my own deeds is all.
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
And just as the warm wind guides the wheat to maturity, the same winds will carry my voice to those who will listen and my words will announce my goals. Once spoken I dare not recall them lest I lose face. I will be as my own prophet and though all may laugh at my utterances they will hear my plans, they will know my dreams; and thus there will be no escape for me until my words become accomplished deeds.
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
I will commit not the terrible crime of aiming too low.
I will do the work that a failure will not do.
I will always let my reach exceed my grasp.
I will never be content with my performance in the market.
I will always raise my goals as soon as they are attained.
I will always strive to make the next hour better than this one.
I will always announce my goals to the world.
Yet, never will I proclaim my accomplishments. Let the world, instead, approach me with praise and may I have the wisdom to receive it in humility.
Today I wll multiply my value a hundredfold.
One grain of wheat when multiplied a hundredfold will produce a hundred stalks. Multiply these a hundredfold, ten times, and they will feed all the cities of the earth, Am I not more than a grain of wheat?
Today I will multiply my value a hundredfold.
And when it is done I will do it again, and again, and there will be astonishment and wonder at my greatness as the words of these scrolls are fulfilled in me.
Chapter XI
Some very brilliant individuals at our National Bureau of Standards have been telling us that this still beautiful earth on which we all perform is slowing down in its daily rotation. Eventually, they claim, this will produce a twenty-five hour day … 1,800,000 centuries from now!
But you can’t wait until then for that extra bonus hour to sell or produce more goods for a higher income … and in truth, how much of this day’s 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09 seconds do you use wisely?
George Severance, who represents the Ohi
o National Life Insurance Company, is one of the most outstanding and productive salesmen in the entire insurance industry … now. But there were leaner and almost desperate days before he took stock of himself, as he disclosed to W. Clement Stone in an article for Success Unlimited:
“One day the total amount of my debts struck me like a bolt of lightning. I was faced with a real financial crisis. Then I recalled a statement I had read somewhere, ‘Don’t expect what you don’t expect.’ ”
George decided to keep a record of how he spent his time, every salesman’s greatest asset. “I found that I had been spending as much as 32 hours in a single month drinking coffee with my friends. I was amazed, for I realized that this was equivalent to four working days. And then I realized that my lunch hours were sometimes a full hour longer than they should have been.”
Just as you are using your Success Recorder as a means of self-examining how you perform daily regarding one specific success principle, George developed what he called a Social Time Recorder so that he could account, to himself, for his productive and non-productive time each day.
“When I looked back, I found that in many respects I was a social success during business hours. But when I developed my Social Time Recorder, I realized:
“ ‘If a business day is a social success, it has been a business failure.’ ”
The italics in the above statement are mine. If I could convince my publisher to print that statement in 32-point Day-glow letters I’d do it … for I want you never to forget what you have just read:
“If a business day is a social success, it has been a business failure.”
Why is it easier to make any day a social success than a business success? You know the answer … because you’ve been there. I’ve been there. Socializing is easy, it’s fun. Selling, working, doing the things that are difficult to do, is rough and not fun. So, like the rest of nature which also follows the line of least resistance we procrastinate, we stall, we make innumerable excuses to avoid what we know should be done.
We avoid getting into action, productive action, as long as possible, and if there is any single identifying characteristic of those 95% who have settled for a life of mediocrity it is this trait of inactivity.
But that’s not for you. You’ve come too far to let this bad habit defeat you. Procrastination can be driven from your personality through the simple technique of constantly commanding yourself to get into action … and then obeying that command immediately. You begin your basic training on this bad habit with little acts such as:
You walk across your living room rug. On the rug is a piece of torn paper. The “old you” would leave it for your wife to attend to when she cleans the room. The “new you” picks it up, now.
You pull your automobile out of the garage in the morning. The city’s rubbish pick-up service has already come by and emptied your two containers. The “old you” would leave them in the driveway until you returned from work that evening before putting them back in the garage. The “new you” puts them back, now.
The “old you” reviews his morning mail and then answers only those memos and letters which absolutely must be handled and puts the rest aside for later. The “new you,” knowing how much time can be saved by handling every piece of correspondence only once, answers every piece, now.
The “old you” gets a pain, of one sort or another, in your chest, and resolves to go to a doctor, some day when you’re not so “busy.” The “new you” goes, now. (That “some day” for the “old you” might never come!)
I’m reasonably certain that you could fill many pages with the things you do that fit into this “put-off” category. Yet, if you cannot overcome this vice then all the time you have put into your Success Recorder has been wasted and we’ve both got too much invested in you to let that happen.
So let’s get into action! Let’s begin reading!
The Scroll Marked IX
My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible.
All are of no value unless they are followed by action.
I will act now.
Never has there been a map, however carefully executed to detail and scale, which carried its owner over even one inch of ground. Never has there been a parchment of law, however fair, which prevented one crime. Never has there been a scroll, even such as the one I hold, which earned so much as a penny or produced a single word of acclamation. Action, alone, is the tinder which ignites the map, the parchment, this scroll, my dreams, my plans, my goals, into a living force. Action is the food and drink which will nourish my success.
I will act now.
My procrastination which has held me back was born of fear and now I recognize the secret mined from the depths of all courageous hearts. Now I know that to conquer fear I must always act without hesitation and the flutters in my heart will vanish. Now I know that action reduces the lion of terror to an ant of equanimity.
I will act now.
Henceforth, I will remember the lesson of the firefly who gives off its light only when it is on the wing, only when it is in action. I will become a firefly and even in the day my glow will be seen in spite of the sun. Let others be as butterflies who preen their wings yet depend on the charity of a flower for life. I will be as the firefly and my light will brighten the world.
I will act now.
I will not avoid the tasks of today and charge them to tomorrow for I know that tomorrow never comes. Let me act now even though my actions may not bring happiness or success for it is better to act and fail than not to act and flounder. Happiness, in truth, may not be the fruit plucked by my action yet without action all fruit will die on the vine.
I will act now.
I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words again and again and again, each hour, each day, every day, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing and the actions which follow become as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every act necessary for my success. With these words I can condition my mind to meet every challenge which the failure avoids.
I will act now.
I will repeat these words again and again and again.
When I awake I will say them and leap from my cot while the failure sleeps yet another hour.
I will act now.
When I enter the market place I will say them and immediately confront my first prospect while the failure ponders yet his possibility of rebuff.
I will act now.
When I face a closed door I will say them and knock while the failure waits outside with fear and trepidation.
I will act now.
When I face the temptation I will say them and immediately act to remove myself from evil.
I will act now.
When I am tempted to quit and begin again tomorrow I will say them and immediately act to consummate another sale.
I will act now.
Only action determines my value in the market place and to multiply my value I will multiply my actions. I will walk where the failure fears to walk. I will work when the failure seeks rest. I will talk when the failure remains silent. I will call on ten who can buy my goods while the failure makes grand plans to call on one. I will say it is done before the failure says it is too late.
I will act now.
For now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the evil become good. I am not evil. Tomorrow is the day when the weak become strong. I am not weak. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure.
I will act now.
When the lion is hungry he eats. When the eagle has thirst he drinks. Lest they act, both will perish.
I hunger for success. I thirst for happiness and peace of mind. Lest I act I will perish in a life of failure, misery, and sleepless nights.
I will command, and I will obey mine own command.
I will ac
t now.
Success will not wait. If I delay she will become betrothed to another and lost to me forever.
This is the time. This is the place. I am the man.
I will act now.
Chapter XII
Does God exist?
If you’re positive he does not … then you can skip these last five weeks of your Success Recorder … because The Scroll Marked X deals with a prayer and there’s not much sense praying if you don’t believe that anyone is listening.
In 1958, as their contribution to honor the International Geophysical Year, G. P. Putnam’s Sons published a book entitled The Evidence of God in an Expanding Universe. For anyone who has doubted, at one time or another, that there is a Power beyond any we know (and who of us have perfect faith?) I strongly urge you to find a copy and read it.
In its pages you will meet not one religious leader or Biblical expert. Instead, forty men of science, each with his own long record of accomplishments and honors, presents his scientific reasons for believing that there is a God.
I was amazed then, and still am today, that this learned group of men would expose their personal beliefs to ridicule from so many of their scientific peers whose philosophy is usually one of atheistic materialism and whose only god is modern technical achievement.
Yet, there they were, men like biophysicist Frank Allen, zoologist Edward Luther Kessel, physiologist Walter Oscar Lundberg, mathematician and physicist Donald Henry Porter, geneticist John William Klotz, geochemist Donald Robert Carr, astronomer Peter W. Stoner, chemical engineer Olin Carroll Karkalits, medical internist Malcolm Duncan Winter, Jr., biologist Cecil Boyce Hamann, research chemist Edmund Carl Kornfield, soil scientist Lester John Zimmerman and twenty-eight other creative scientists. And each presented logic and reason for the existence of God from his own field of science which did more to buttress my wavering faith than all the sermons I had ever heard.