The Magic of Thinking Big, page 15
There were many other replies. One fellow reported that he got in trouble with the Bureau of Internal Revenue because he used a “bargain” accountant; another went to a cut-rate doctor and later learned he had received a completely wrong diagnosis. Others related the costs of going second class in home repairs, hotels, and other goods and services.
Of course, I’ve heard the argument many times “but I can’t afford to go first class.” The simplest answer is: you cannot afford to go any other way. Certainly in the long run, going first class actually costs you less than going second class. Then, too, it’s better to have fewer things and have quality than to have many things and have junk. It’s better, for example, to have one really good pair of shoes than to have three pairs of second-class shoes.
People rate you for quality, often subconsciously perhaps. Develop an instinct for quality. It pays. And it costs no more, often costs less, than second class.
MAKE YOUR ENVIRONMENT MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL
1. Be environment-conscious. Just as body diet makes the body, mind diet makes the mind.
2. Make your environment work for you, not against you. Don’t let suppressive forces—the negative, you-can’t-do-it people—make you think defeat.
3. Don’t let small-thinking people hold you back. Jealous people want to see you stumble. Don’t give them that satisfaction.
4. Get your advice from successful people. Your future is important. Never risk it with freelance advisors who are living failures.
5. Get plenty of psychological sunshine. Circulate in new groups. Discover new and stimulating things to do.
6. Throw thought poison out of your environment. Avoid gossip. Talk about people, but stay on the positive side.
7. Go first class in everything you do. You can’t afford to go any other way.
8
MAKE YOUR ATTITUDES YOUR ALLIES
Can you read minds? Reading minds is easier than you think. Perhaps you’ve never thought of it, but you read the minds of other people, and they read your mind, every day.
How do we do it? We do it automatically, through attitude appraisals.
Remember the song “You Don’t Need to Know the Language to Say You’re in Love”? Bing Crosby made it famous some years ago. There’s a whole bookful of applied psychology packed into those simple lyrics. You don’t need to know the language to say you’re in love. Anyone who’s ever been in love knows that.
And you don’t need to know any language to say “I like you” or “I despise you” or “I think you’re important” or “unimportant” or “I envy you.” You don’t need to know words or to use words to say “I like my job” or “I’m bored” or “I’m hungry.” People speak without a sound.
How we think shows through in how we act. Attitudes are mirrors of the mind. They reflect thinking.
You can read the mind of the fellow sitting at a desk. You sense, by observing his expressions and mannerisms, how he feels toward his job. You can read the minds of salesmen, students, husbands, and wives; you not only can—you do.
The expert actors—those in demand in movies and television year after year—in a sense are not actors at all. They don’t play their roles. Instead they lose their own identity and actually think and feel like the character they are playing. They’ve got to. Else they’d look like phonies and their ratings would plunge.
Attitudes do more than show through. They “sound” through too. A secretary does more than identify an office when she says, “Good morning, Mr. Shoemaker’s office.” In just five words one secretary says, “I like you. I’m glad you’re calling. I think you are important. I like my job.”
But another secretary saying exactly the same words tells you, “You bothered me. I wish you hadn’t called. I’m bored with my job, and I don’t like people who bother me.”
We read attitudes through expressions and voice tones and inflections. Here’s why. In the long, long history of humankind, a speaking language even remotely resembling what we use today is a very recent invention. So recent, you might say, in terms of the great clock of time, that we developed a language only this morning. For millions and millions of years, people got by with little more than moans and groans and grunts and growls.
So for millions of years people communicated with other people by body and facial expressions and sounds, not words. And we still communicate our attitudes, our feelings toward people and things, the same way. Aside from direct body contact, body movements, facial expressions, and sound are the only ways we have to communicate with infants. And those young ones show an uncanny ability to spot the phony.
Professor Erwin H. Schell, one of America’s most respected authorities on leadership, says, “Obviously, there is something more than facilities and competence that makes for accomplishment. I have come to believe that this linkage factor, this catalyst, if you will, can be defined in a single word—attitude. When our attitude is right, our abilities reach a maximum of effectiveness and good results inevitably follow.”
Attitudes do make the difference. Salesmen with the right attitude beat their quotas; students with the right attitude make As; right attitudes pave the way to really happy married life. Right attitudes make you effective in dealing with people, enable you to develop as a leader. Right attitudes win for you in every situation.
Grow these three attitudes. Make them your allies in everything you do.
1. Grow the attitude of I’m activated.
2. Grow the attitude of You are important.
3. Grow the attitude of Service first.
Now let’s see how.
Years ago, when I was a college sophomore, I enrolled in an American history class. I remember the class vividly, not because I learned much about American history but because in an unusual way I learned this basic principle of successful living: To activate others, you must first activate yourself.
The history class was very large, and it was held in a fan-shaped auditorium. The professor, who was a middle-aged fellow and apparently well educated, was, nevertheless, pathetically dull. Rather than interpret history as an alive, fascinating subject, the professor merely cited one dead fact after another. It was a frightful wonder how he could possibly make such an interesting subject so terribly dull. But he did.
You can imagine the effect the professor’s boredom had on the students. Talking and sleeping got so out of hand that the professor had two assistants patrol the aisles to break up student conversations and wake up those who had dozed off.
Occasionally, the professor would stop and, shaking his finger at the class, would say, “I’m warning you. You’ve got to pay attention to what I say. You’ve got to stop this talking, and that’s all there is to it.” This, of course, made little impression on his students, many of whom, as veterans, had gambled their lives only months before, had made history on islands and in bombers.
As I sat there watching this potentially great, wonderful experience turn into a disgusting farce, I found myself wrestling with the question “Why are the students ignoring what the professor has to say?”
The answer came.
The students had no interest in what the professor was saying because the professor himself had no interest. He was bored with history, and it showed through. To activate others, to get them to be enthusiastic, you must first be enthusiastic yourself.
Over the years I’ve tested this principle in hundreds of different situations. It always holds true. A man who lacks enthusiasm never develops it in another. But a person who is enthusiastic soon has enthusiastic followers.
The enthusiastic salesman need never worry about unenthusiastic buyers. The enthusiastic teacher need never worry about disinterested students. The activated minister need never be distressed by a sleepy congregation.
Enthusiasm can make things 1,100 percent better. Two years ago, employees in a business I’m acquainted with donated $94.35 to the Red Cross. This year the same employees, with just about the same payroll, donated almost $1,100, an increase of 1,100 percent.
The drive captain who collected only $94.35 was totally lacking in enthusiasm. He made remarks like “I suppose it’s a worthwhile organization”; “I’ve never had any direct contact with it”; “It’s a big organization and they collect a lot from the wealthy, so I suppose it’s not too important if you contribute”; “If you can make a donation, see me.” This fellow did nothing to inspire anyone to want to join the Red Cross and do it in a big way.
This year’s drive captain was a different sort. He had enthusiasm. He gave examples of case histories that showed how the Red Cross pitches in when disaster strikes. He showed how the Red Cross depends on donations from everyone. He asked the employees to be guided in giving by how much they would be willing to give their neighbor if disaster should strike him. He said, “Look what the Red Cross has done!” Notice, he did not beg. He did not say, “Each of you is expected to donate XX dollars.” All he did was to show enthusiasm about the importance of the Red Cross. Success just naturally followed.
Think for a moment about a club or civic organization you know that is fading away. Chances are, all it needs is enthusiasm to bring it back to life.
Results come in proportion to enthusiasm applied.
Enthusiasm is simply “This is great!” Here’s why.
Here is a three-step procedure that will help you to develop the power of enthusiasm.
1. Dig into it deeper. Make this little test. Think of two things in which you have little or no interest—maybe cards, certain kinds of music, a sport. Now ask yourself, “How much do I really know about these things?” Odds are 100 to 1 that your answer is “Not much.”
I confess that for years I had absolutely no interest in modern art. It was just so many botched-up lines—until I let a friend who knows and loves modern art explain it to me. Really, now that I’ve dug into it, I find it fascinating.
That exercise supplies one important key for building enthusiasm: To get enthusiastic, learn more about the thing you are not enthusiastic about.
Chances are you are quite unenthusiastic about bumblebees. But if you study bumblebees, find out what good they do, how they relate to other bees, how they reproduce, where they live in winter—if you find out all you can about bumblebees, you will soon find yourself really interested in bumblebees.
To show trainees how enthusiasm can be developed through the dig-into-it-deeper technique, I sometimes use a greenhouse example. In a deliberately casual way I ask the group, “Are any of you interested in manufacturing and selling greenhouses?” Not once have I gotten an affirmative answer. Then I make a few points about greenhouses: I remind the group how, as our standard of living rises, people become more and more interested in nonnecessities. I suggest how much Mrs. America would enjoy growing her own orchids and orange blossoms. I point out that if tens of thousands of families can afford private swimming pools, millions could afford greenhouses because greenhouses are relatively inexpensive. I show them that if you could sell a $600 greenhouse to only one family in fifty, you’d develop a $600 million business in producing greenhouses, and perhaps a $250 million industry supplying plants and seeds.
The only difficulty with this exercise is that the group, ten minutes before completely cold about greenhouses, now is so enthusiastic they don’t want to move on to the next subject!
Use the dig-into-it-deeper technique to develop enthusiasm toward other people. Find out all you can about another person—what he does, his family, his background, his ideas and ambitions—and you’ll find your interest in and enthusiasm about him mounting. Keep digging, and you’re certain to find some common interests. Keep digging, and you’ll eventually discover a fascinating person.
The dig-into-it-deeper technique works also in developing enthusiasm toward new places. Several years ago some young friends of mine decided to move from Detroit to a small town in mid-Florida. They sold their home, closed out their business connections, said good-bye to their friends, and were gone.
Six weeks later they were back in Detroit. The reason had nothing to do with employment. Rather, as they put it, “We just couldn’t stand living in a small town. Besides, all our friends are in Detroit. We just had to come back.”
In later conversations with these people, I learned the real reason why they didn’t like the small Florida city. During their short stay there, they had taken only a surface view of the community—its history, its plans for the future, its people. They moved their bodies to Florida but left their minds in Detroit.
I’ve talked with dozens of executives, engineers, and salesmen who have developed career trouble because their companies want to move them to another location but they don’t want to go. “I just can’t see moving to Chicago (or San Francisco or Atlanta or New York or Miami)” is a remark spoken many times a day.
There’s one way to build enthusiasm toward a new location. Simply resolve to dig into the new community. Learn all you can about it. Mix with the people. Make yourself feel and think like a community citizen from the very first day. Do this, and you’ll be enthusiastic about your new environment.
Today millions of Americans invest in corporate securities. But there are many millions more who have no interest at all in the stock market. That’s because they are people who have not familiarized themselves with what the securities market is, how it operates, the day-to-day romance of American business.
To get enthusiasm about anything—people, places, things—dig into it deeper.
Dig into it deeper, and you’ll develop enthusiasm. Put this principle to work next time you must do something you don’t want to do. Put this principle to work next time you find yourself becoming bored. Just dig in deeper and you dig up interest.
2. In everything you do, life it up. Enthusiasm, or lack of it, shows through in everything you do and say. Life up your handshaking. When you shake hands, shake. Make your handclasp say, “I’m glad to know you.” “I am glad to see you again.” A conservative, mouse-like handshake is worse than no handshake at all. It makes people think, “This guy is more dead than alive.” Try to find a highly successful person with a conservative handshake. You’ll have to look a long, long time.
Life up your smiles. Smile with your eyes. Nobody likes an artificial, pasted-on, rubbery smile. When you smile, smile. Show a few teeth. Maybe your teeth aren’t attractive, but that’s really unimportant. For when you smile, people don’t see your teeth. They see a warm, enthusiastic personality, someone they like.
Life up your “thank yous.” A routine, automatic “thank you” is almost like saying “gleep, gleep.” It’s just an expression. It says nothing. It doesn’t accomplish results. Make your “thank you” mean “thank you very much.”
Life up your talk. Dr. James F. Bender, the noted speech authority, in his excellent book How to Talk Well, says, “Is your ‘Good morning!’ really good? Are your ‘Congratulations!’ enthusiastic? Does your ‘How are you?’ sound interested? When you make a habit of coloring your words with sincere feelings you’ll notice a great uptake in your ability to hold attention.”
People go along with the fellow who believes what he says. Say it with life. Put vitality into your speaking. Whether you are talking to a garden club, a prospect, or your children, put enthusiasm behind what you say. A sermon delivered enthusiastically may be remembered for months, even years. But a sermon delivered without enthusiasm will be mostly forgotten 167 hours before next Sunday rolls around.
And when you put life in your talk, you automatically put more life in you. Just try this right now. Say out loud with force and vigor: “I feel great today!” Now, don’t you actually feel better than you did before you said it? Make yourself alive all over.
Life it up. Be sure everything you do and say tells people, “That fellow is alive.” “He means it.” “He’s going places.”
3. Broadcast good news. You and I have been in many situations when someone burst in and said: “I’ve got good news.” Immediately this person gets 100 percent attention from everyone present. Good news does more than get attention; good news pleases people. Good news develops enthusiasm. Good news even promotes good digestion.
Just because there are more broadcasters of bad news than there are broadcasters of good news, don’t be misled. No one ever won a friend, no one ever made money, no one ever accomplished anything by broadcasting bad news.
Transmit good news to your family. Tell them the good that happened today. Recall the amusing, pleasant things you experienced and let the unpleasant things stay buried. Spread good news. It’s pointless to pass on the bad. It only makes your family worry, makes them nervous. Bring home some sunlight every day.
Ever notice how seldom children complain about the weather? They take hot weather in stride until the negative news corps educate them to be conscious of unpleasant temperatures. Make it a habit always to speak favorably about the weather regardless of what the weather actually is. Complaining about the weather makes you more miserable and it spreads misery to others.
Broadcast good news about how you feel. Be an “I-feel-great” person. Just say “I feel great” at every possible opportunity, and you will feel better. By the same token, tell people, “I feel awful, just awful,” and you will feel worse. How we feel is, in large part, determined by how we think we feel. Remember, too, that other people want to be around alive, enthusiastic people. Being around complainers and half-dead people is uncomfortable.
Transmit good news to the people you work with. Give them encouragement, compliment them at every opportunity. Tell them about the positive things the company is doing. Listen to their problems. Be helpful. Encourage people and win their support. Pat them on the back for the job they’re doing. Give them hope. Let them know you believe they can succeed, that you have faith in them. Practice relieving worriers.
