Truthful Living
Page 15
Bear in mind also, that the great mass of people are demanding at least the necessities of life at a lower cost than they are now paying. If you can help solve this problem, even on one commodity, you can write your own salary price tag.
Earnestly your friend,
Napoleon Hill
Director of Education
Bryant & Stratton College
CHICAGO, U.S.A.
(Copyrighted, 1917)
Napoleon Hill
GITOMER’S THOUGHTFUL ACTIONS
HOW TO IMPLEMENT THIS LESSON
Is this an amazing prediction of the future or what? Hill just laid out the game plan of Amazon and Wal-Mart. And did it accurately and eloquently – 100 years ago.
Sears grew tremendously in Hill’s time from 1900 to 1960, and now if you’re under the age of 20, you may never have even been in a Sears. Why? They, like Kmart and Borders, refused to change with the times. They refused to or could not develop new distribution models and new sales channels.
DO NOT get complacent and comfortable like they did. The world is ever evolving – evolve with it. Invent and reinvent your business and your endeavors based on your customers’ needs.
“Success may be had by those who are willing to pay the price. . .And the price is eternal vigilance in the development of Self-confidence, Enthusiasm, Working with a Chief Aim, Performing more Service than you are paid for, and Concentration. With these qualities well developed you will be sure to succeed.”
– Napoleon Hill
Lesson Number
21
“THE FIVE-POINT RULE”
(An after-the-lesson visit with Mr. Hill)
GITOMER INSIGHT: This lesson contains more golden nuggets of truth for your success as a person, not just a career person. Hill gives examples of people who believe, for whatever reason, they can take shortcuts to success and knowledge. All the people who took shortcuts failed. But more important, Hill refocuses on the five principles that will build success and knowledge.
This seems a mighty appropriate place to again call your attention to the thought which we have tried so hard to implant in your mind from the very beginning of these lessons: “THAT YOU WILL GET OUT OF THESE LESSONS EXACTLY WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT IN TIME AND PERSISTENT EFFORT.”
That is a thought worth remembering!
It is a thought that applies to everything you undertake throughout your entire life. If you get nothing more from your course than this one thought, and you make proper use of it, you will be well repaid for your time and money.
A gentleman of wealth once took his son to the dean of a well-known university of whom he inquired, “Can’t my son finish his university course in less than the prescribed four years?”
The dean replied, “Well, that depends upon what you want him to be. For example, you can grow a squash in one summer, but it takes a score of years to produce an oak tree. If your son wants to become a squash he can squeeze through in two years, but if he wants to become an oak tree he will have to take more time.”
A young man came to me to be analyzed. He had a notion that he wanted to get into the $10,000-a-year class. He was all excited over the thought of holding down a big position. At the time, he was working as a stenographer. He wanted to take up advertising, right away, quick! Said he, “Ought I not to be making at least $5,000 by the end of next year?” I replied, “Yes – you OUGHT to be, but – YOU WON’T BE!”
He thought it strange that I would “discourage” him by such frankness. I told him that I made it a point never to discourage anyone from doing the right thing, but that I believed it wise to discourage a person from building air-castles on false foundations. I had just finished reading Bruce Barton’s editorial, which appeared in the March 18th, 1917, edition of Every Week magazine. It made my meaning quite clear, and the young man got my point very forcefully. That editorial is worth repeating. In it you will find a great lesson if you will stop and think of it in the right light. I recommend that you read it, not ONCE, but MANY TIMES!
Here it is:
“Generally Speaking, a Job Is Good in Proportion to the Amount of Study Required to Master It.”
Yesterday morning, when I rode up in the elevator, the starter was breaking in a new elevator-boy.
At noon when I went out to lunch, the new boy was running the car alone. He had on a uniform, and was starting and stopping with the confidence of a veteran.
From apprentice to professional in a couple of hours.
Last week I saw a veteran motorman breaking in a youngster. On Tuesday and Wednesday the two were on the front platform together; on Thursday, the new man was operating the car alone.
It is a sight I have seen very often, yet I never see it without feeling of wonder.
What thoughts are in that young fellow’s head as he receives his instructions from the gray-haired veteran?
How can he fail to look forward and see in the older man a picture of himself twenty years from now?
He is taking up a low-paid job – a job with no future. Twenty years from now he will be just where he is today – only older, with a grasp on the job somewhat less secure. His experience will count for nothing, because it is experience that any other man can gain in a couple of days.
He may, by walking out on strike, force an increase in his pay of a few cents a week. But the increase will not be large. Why?
Because he learned the job in two days. And in any other two days, the company can get plenty of men who will learn just as fast and take the job away from him.
On the same day, I met in a hotel restaurant a friend of mine who had just come back from England after taking special work in surgery under some of the greatest men in the world.
He is thirty-one years old; it is fourteen years since he entered college.
For ten of those fourteen years he has been in medical schools, in hospitals, and in foreign countries studying.
The rest of us – his classmates – have been in business ten years. He has in all that time never been able entirely to support himself. Always his education was costing him a little more than he earned.
Yet with what result? He has acquired a specialized training such as only a few other men in New York possess.
He will begin his life with an income of several thousand; he will pay back his educational debts in a couple of years; in ten years, his income will be tens of thousands.
It took him fourteen years to master his profession. But he need have no fear of losing what he has gained. No other man can displace him, except at the cost of fourteen years of work.
I have nothing but sympathy for the old man who finds himself condemned for the rest of his life to a no-account job. But I find it hard to be patient when I see young men blithely dancing into jobs with no future, simply because they are too lazy to fit themselves by study for jobs worthwhile.
Every young man in the United States ought to read the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. See with what painful diligence he taught himself to write good English. Watch him at fourteen, attacking again the arithmetic that he had three times failed to pass in school, and conquering it.
See Michelangelo, old and blind, still being wheeled into the great galleries, that he might with his fingers trace the outlines of the statuary – still true to his life’s motto: Ancora impara – “Still learning.”
“The gods sell anything to everybody at a fair price,” said Emerson.
And when he said it, he epitomized the philosophy of Business.
The job that the gods sell for two hours’ training is worth just what it costs.
Only that job is worthwhile which has tied to it the price tag of constant, unceasing study and work.
– Bruce Barton, Editor
The older I grow, the more I realize the good, sound philosophy which the foregoing editorial contains. Persistency is a wonderful quality. We get in about the proportion that we give, no matter what we are engaged in. That’s a great lesson which most of us need to learn o
ver and over again before it STICKS! Those who bet on the “ponies” learn – sometimes – that we cannot get something of value for nothing.
Those who play the stock markets learn the same lesson – sometimes! Go wherever you will, follow whatever vocation you choose, but in the final end, when the LAW OF COMPENSATION gets in its work, you will find that you will “reap that which you sow.”
Success may be had by those who are willing to pay the price. And most of those who crave a $10,000-a-year position – especially if they are engaged in business – may realize it if they will pay the price.
And the price is eternal vigilance in the development of Self-confidence, Enthusiasm, Working with a Chief Aim, Performing more Service than you are paid for, and Concentration. With these qualities well developed you will be sure to succeed.
Let’s name these qualities the “FIVE-POINT RULE.”
Earnestly your friend,
Napoleon Hill
Director of Education
80 East Randolph Street
Chicago, U.S.A.
(Copyright 1917 Napoleon Hill)
GITOMER’S THOUGHTFUL ACTIONS
HOW TO IMPLEMENT THIS LESSON
It’s never too early or too late to learn. I dropped out of college at age 20. At the time I thought I knew everything. I decided to travel in Europe for a year. When I got there, I realized I knew nothing. After the first week of my yearlong journey, I dedicated myself to lifelong learning with the specific mission of learning one new thing every day. That was 50 years ago, and I’ve been learning (and implementing that knowledge) ever since.
Having never written commercially until I was 46 years old, and having never spoken professionally until I was 47, and having never published my first book until I was 48, I consider it all a blessing. Not to have achieved this – oh no, quite the contrary. My blessing is from my dedication to study personal development, observe to understand, develop positive self-confidence, concentrate on and complete the task at hand, and have the burning desire to both serve others and achieve for myself. That’s a blessing.
Why not take some personal time to sit alone and focus on YOU! Write to yourself. What have you achieved? Where are you now? And what do you need to do to get to your desired outcomes? Now is a good time to review the five qualities named in the Five-Point Rule and rate yourself on how good you are at each quality. Then write down what and where you need to do to improve. Now is a good time to focus on YOU – deeper concentration – deeper dedication – deeper desire. It’s time for you to create a deeper dedication to learning and earning.
“You will never know the real joy of living until you come into a full understanding of the Principle of Service.”
– Napoleon Hill
Lesson Number
22
THE PRINCIPLE OF SERVICE
(An after-the-lesson visit with Mr. Hill)
GITOMER INSIGHT: There is a 5,000-year-old Chinese proverb that says, “To Serve Is to Rule.” “Service” is at the heart of Hill’s philosophy. Hill loved to serve and from his earliest writings was an advocate of “render more service and better service than you are being paid for.” This lesson defines the process and the principle, and puts service where it belongs – on the top of the list.
I am writing on the fifteenth day of June, nineteen hundred and seventeen. Last night our resident class held its commencement exercises at the Chicago Advertising Club. More than one hundred people were in attendance at this farewell meeting. It marked the closing of the hardest year’s work I ever performed, yet I hasten to add the statement that it has been my most profitable year – profitable from every viewpoint.
I have thrown every ounce of energy that I possessed into this work. Many have been the nights that I have gone home so exhausted that I couldn’t sleep. But the task has been performed. Our first year has been an overwhelming success. We have accomplished even more than we started out to accomplish a year ago. I frankly confess that I do not covet another such responsibility as I have carried in building this course, yet I do not regret the price I have had to pay. It was the only way this course could be built. Now that the first year’s work has been finished, the task during the ensuing years will be comparatively simple.
Throughout this course, I have done my utmost to implant in the minds of my students the Principles of Service upon which the course is founded. I have exerted every ounce of energy in establishing the truth that SERVICE RENDERED is cause while the PAY ENVELOPE is effect! I have tried my best to show my students that they will GET in exact proportion what they GIVE!
My own work has been a splendid exemplification of this Principle. When I look back over the past year’s work, these points stand out against the horizon of my experience so clearly that I deem it worthy to mention them:
First: I have worked harder than I ever worked before.
Second: I have been happier than I ever was before.
Third: I have done more for others than I ever did before.
Fourth: I have profited more financially, and have grown bigger mentally than I ever did before, in the same length of time.
But this is no surprise to me. I anticipated these results long before we even began this course. I have traveled far enough along life’s pathway to familiarize myself with the particular law of nature through which these results have been accomplished. I have long since learned that plenty of wholesome work – work into which we can throw our whole hearts and souls – work which helps others to grow and succeed – is absolutely essential for our own happiness and success.
I have also learned beyond the slightest question of a doubt that when we begin to help others, we begin also to help ourselves; that in proportion to our SERVICE to the world do we ourselves succeed.
I have learned that with the rendering of great service to the world comes financial reward sufficient for all our requirements, and in proportion to the service we render!
THAT IS THE GREATEST LESSON OF ALL!
It is a lesson that I want every one of my students to learn! You have heard it mentioned in previous lessons. You will hear it mentioned many times in subsequent lessons. I wish I might be gifted with the power of a Billy Sunday or a Dwight L. Moody or some of the other great preachers. If I were, I would preach the Principle of Service from one side of this old earth to the other. I would be perfectly willing for others to give you Eternal Salvation, and content myself with teaching you how to be happy and prosperous while on this earth.
What lies beyond the Great Divide none of us know. Your opinion on that subject is as apt to be correct as mine or as that of the greatest preacher that ever lived or ever will live!
What I want and what I shall do my best to help every one of my students acquire, is knowledge that will help us here, on this old ball of mud, right now, while we live! As far as we know, the only good we can do must be done while we live. And, if I do not err in my judgment, the greatest good we can possibly do is that of making life’s journey as pleasant as possible for as many people as possible. Personally, and speaking in a broad, general way, that is my CHIEF AIM in life; I have been part of the fulfillment of that CHIEF AIM, I have been for many years, and still am, preparing myself as a writer, philosopher, and teacher.
Before I can write, philosophize or teach effectively, I must understand and apply the Principle of Service.
This I am striving to do, and the more I learn about this great Principle, the stronger I become as a teacher and philosopher. In passing on to others what little I have learned of this Principle, the more I find I am learning about it myself.
YOU CANNOT GIVE WITHOUT GETTING!
But I fear I am soaring in the clouds. Let me come down to earth and give you a concrete illustration of what I mean, stated in every day plain English: As I have stated, I have worked harder during the past year than I ever worked before. I have given myself and the little that I have learned in the University of Hard Knocks, freely and willingly. I have given without any
thought as to monetary returns. On two occasions during the past year I have been offered positions at salaries far above any figure that I ever anticipated being able to earn. Both of these offers came from men who are at the heads of two great corporations, and both men were unknown to me until they approached me. It happened that a member of my class was Secretary to one of them. The other one heard of me through one of my magazines in which we advertise. Both of these men had been watching my work for several months, and one of them had visited my class without my knowledge of his identity. They caught the spirit of the Principle of Service which I have been teaching. They saw how beneficial that spirit would be if properly injected into their organization or workers, and the bids for my services followed.
I refused both offers! It was the biggest temptation to lay down that which I had commenced that I ever experienced. It took courage and belief in the work in which I am engaged to turn away an offer of a salary two and a half times as big as one ever made before.
I say to you, just as I said to one of these men when I refused his offer, that no sum of money can tempt me to turn away from the work which I have begun. This school must become the biggest and most beneficial school ever conducted for the purpose of helping men and women master their ambitions in the field of commerce and industry. That sounds rather extravagant – I’ll admit that it does! It sounds that way to me and probably it does to you– but it must be realized.
The first step toward this realization has been taken. We have both feet on the ground, ready for the next step. I have at least thirty years of active service ahead of me. All of those thirty years shall be devoted to the task which I have begun. During every one of those years we shall send forth some hundreds of bright men and women, each of whom will become an active preacher of the Principle of Service. We sent out more than one hundred such people the first year; people who felt, for the first time perhaps, abundant self-confidence, enthusiasm, and determination to accomplish a definite objective, in a definite way. All of these people believe in us – they are giving back to the soil a part of that which they took away from it by encouraging others to come to our school. In all parts of the United States, right now, we have men and women who have felt the benefit of our help and who are, in turn, reciprocating.