HOW TO AVOID WASTES THAT DRAIN THE ENERGY OF SUCCESS
[Sidenote: _Speeding the Bullet Without Aiming_]
We have shown you that you have within you the potentialities of
success in the form of latent mental energy. We have shown you that
your ability to achieve depends upon your ability to utilize to the
full your underground mental resources.
But success demands that you do more than merely use all your mental
energies. You must use them intelligently.
[Sidenote: _Why Most Men Fail_]
Most men fail because they speed the bullet without aiming. They fire
at random, and so bag no game.
Your pent-up mental energy is the powder in the cartridge. Its
usefulness depends upon the man behind the gun.
_To succeed in business you must intelligently control and direct_
(1) _your own mental energies_, (2) _the mental energies of others._
The course of the average man through life is an aimless zigzag. It
has neither direction nor purpose. It represents wasted energy
capriciously expended.
Mental energy is like water: it has a tendency to scatter. It is
diffusive. It seeks release in a thousand different directions at the
same time.
As a boy, first learning to write, you were unable to prevent the
simultaneous squirming of tongue and legs, all ludicrously irrelevant
to your purpose of writing. So now, as a business man, unless you have
learned the secret of self-mastery, you are unable to concentrate your
efforts, your attention is easily distracted, you exhaust yourself in
displays of passion, you are forever doing things during business
hours that have no relation to your business, you are forever doing
things in connection with your business that do not contribute to its
progress, you expend just as much energy as the accomplished executive
or the successful "hustler," but you fritter it away in unprofitable
activities.
[Sidenote: _The Successful Promoter_]
To correct this is to gain mastery and power.
Concentrate your mental energies on one thing at a time. Stop
spreading them around. The promoter may have a dozen big enterprises
under way at once, but he takes them up one at a time. He transfers
his whole mind and thought from one to the next. You cannot of course
be eternally doing the same thing; but make no mistake about it, the
only way to succeed at anything is to consciously control your mental
energies. You may throw them now into this attack, now into another;
but you must always have a tight grip on yourself, or you cannot
succeed.
[Sidenote: _The Human Dynamo_]
You will often hear some "live-wire" business man spoken of as a
"human dynamo." He has the faculty of turning out a stupendous amount
of work in a comparatively short time. How he can carry in his mind
the details of so many large projects, how he can accomplish so much
in actual, tangible results in many directions, how he can pull the
strings of so many enterprises without getting lost in the maze of
detail, is the marvel of his associates. And yet this man is never
"hurried, nor flurried, nor worried." But every word and every act is
straight to the point and productive of results worth while.
[Sidenote: _Cool Brains and Hot Boxes_]
"A cool brain is the reverse of a hot box. It carries the business of
the day along with a steady drive, and is invariably the mark of the
big man. The man who dispatches his work quietly, promptly and
efficiently, with no trace of fuss and flurry, is a big man. It is not
the hurrying, clattering and chattering individual who turns off the
most work. He may imagine he is getting over a lot of track, but he
wastes far more than the necessary amount of steam in doing it. The
fable of the hare and the tortoise would not be a bad primer for a
number of us, and the lesson relearned would not only be beneficial in
a business-producing way, but it would help us in the full enjoyment
of our work."
[Sidenote: _Marvelous Increased Efficiency Handling "Pig"_]
Progress in mental efficiency must result from the application of
knowledge of the mental machine. Just as we watch the steam-engine and
the electric motor to see that they are not "overloaded," so we must
watch the mental machine, that no more power be turned on than can be
profitably employed.
This principle has already been applied to physical labor by Mr.
Frederick W. Taylor in his ground-breaking studies in "scientific
management." Mr. Taylor's celebrated experiments in the handling of
pig-iron, by which the quantity handled in a day by one man was
increased from twelve and one-half tons to forty-seven and one-half
tons, "showed that a man engaged in such extremely heavy work could
only be under load forty-three per cent of the working day, and must
be entirely free from load for fifty-seven per cent, to attain the
maximum efficiency."
[Sidenote: _"Overloaded" Human Engines_]
There is no reason why efficiency in mental effort should not be
gauged just as accurately as in muscular activity. If there are times
when your wits are not as keen, when you have not the same grasp of
fundamentals, as at other times, it is because you are mentally
"overloaded." It may be the result of a great variety of causes. It
may be from too many hours of continuous mental effort. But the
probabilities are that it is the result of vexation, worry,
dissipation, or allowing the mind to be burdened with the strain of
vicious, or at least irrelevant and distracting, impulses and desires.
And so efficiency is lost.
[Sidenote: _Scientific Management of Self_]
The "human dynamo" is a man who long ago learned the lesson of
scientific management of his own mental forces. He does one thing at a
time, and does it the best he knows how. He directs the whole power of
his mentality to the one problem and solves it with accuracy and
dispatch. There is no more of a "load" on his "gray matter" than there
is on that of the fretting, fuming, finger-biting fritterer, but every
pound of steam is spent in useful work.
Look at the victim of St. Vitus' dance. There you have an illustration
of wasted energy. And it is mental energy, for every muscular movement
represents the release of thought power. The mental lives of most men
are equally aimless. They are lives of ceaseless activity producing
nothing.
[Sidenote: _Psychological Causes of Waste_]
Sometimes it happens that a man is not working to advantage because of
some defect in his physical make-up. He may have defective vision or
some peculiarity of hearing that renders him unable to respond as
quickly as he should to the demands made upon him. If these defects
are ascertained, it is usually a simple matter to correct the defects
by mechanical means or readjust the relative duties of different
persons so that the defects will be minimized.
[Sidenote: _Tests for Sensory Defects_]
Where large numbers of people are employed, it is comparatively easy
to use tests for discovering defects of sight or hearing by simple
apparatus without requiring the services of a high-priced expert. By
adopting these test methods any manager of a large industrial
establishment can satisfy himself whether his employees are up to
certain normal standards. He can even apply the tests to himself.
Optical tests can be conducted by securing an ordinary letter chart
such as is used by oculists and opticians. Seat the subject twenty
feet away. If he can read all the lines of letters from the largest
down to the smallest his eyesight is practically perfect. In a large
percentage of cases the smaller lines of type are blurred and
invisible. To detect the cause and degree of defects of the eyes it is
necessary to try out the eyes by using a trial spectacle frame and
inserting detached lenses before the right eye and the left eye
alternately. One of the most common forms of defective vision is
astigmatism. A chart has been designed with a series of circles and
straight lines radiating from the center. If the subject is astigmatic
he will see some of the straight lines distinctly while others will be
blurred. For instance, one or two of the vertical lines may appear
very black and strong while all others will look like a hazy network.
This defect, due to unevenness of the spherical surface of the
eyeball, is easily corrected with properly ground glasses.
Defects in hearing can be easily determined by means of an
"acoumeter." This little instrument measures the acuteness of the
hearing very accurately by means of shot dropped from varying heights
upon strips of glass, copper and cardboard. Tests with this device
indicate whether the subject's hearing is above or below normal.
[Sidenote: _Mental Friction and Inner Whirlwinds_]
_Stop wasting your energy._
Heretofore you have used your powers in a more or less haphazard way,
with a vast amount of waste and no efficient direction. From now on
you are to exercise more intelligence in this respect and make all
your energies contribute to your business progress and your personal
success.
You are losing power in fruitless outward activities.
You are losing power in the thinking of useless thoughts. You cannot
stop the ceaseless activity of the mind. But you can conserve its
forces by directing them into channels that are worth while.
You are losing power in a turmoil of inward mental strains and
inharmonies. Catch yourself at some moment when you are forging ahead
in a crowded day's work. You will then see what an inner whirlwind of
excitement is in progress, what stresses and strains are at work, what
contrary impulses, what frictions and obstacles are being overcome.
Now, to the engineer every one of these words--friction, obstacle,
strain--spells loss of efficiency, and in this _Course_ we shall teach
you how you may do away with antagonistic impulses, may bring your
combined mental forces to bear upon the common enemy, and may hurl
yourself into the struggles of business and practical life with a
joyful and headlong impetuosity that no obstacle can withstand.
[Sidenote: _Prominent Traits of Great Achievers_]
Professor Walter Dill Scott, of Northwestern University, has said: "In
studying the lives of contemporary business men, two facts stand out
pre-eminently. The first is that their labors have brought about
results that to most of us would have seemed impossible. Such men
appear as giants in comparison with whom ordinary men sink to the size
of pygmies. The second fact, which a study of successful business men
(or any class of successful men) reveals, is that they never seem
rushed for time.
"Such men have time to devote to objects in no way connected with
their business. It cannot be regarded as accidental that this
characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men
during the years of their most fruitful labor. According to the
American ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is
continuously 'keyed up to concert pitch'--who is ever alert and is
always giving attention to his business or profession."
And again: "It is not necessarily true that the greatest and most
constant display of energy accompanies the greatest presence of
energy. The tug-boat on the river is constantly blowing off steam and
making a tremendous display of energy, while the ocean liner proceeds
on its way without noise and without commotion. The man who frets and
fumes, who is nervous and excited, is strung up to such a pitch that
energy is being dissipated in all directions."
Many business men know they are going at a pace that kills, and at the
same time they feel that they are accomplishing too little. For such
the pertinent question is, How may I reduce the expenditure of energy
without reducing the efficiency of my labor?
One of the busiest and most efficient men in England is quoted as
having explained his own accomplishment of big results with the least
expenditure of effort: "By organizing myself to run smoothly, as well
as my business; by schooling myself to keep cool, and to do what I
have to do without expending more nervous energy on the task than is
necessary; by avoiding all needless friction. In consequence, when I
finish my day's work, I feel nearly as fresh as when I started."
[Sidenote: _Why a Man Breaks Down_]
The late Professor James, of Harvard University, often referred to as
the founder of modern psychology, spoke thus disparagingly of
untrained effort: "Your convulsive worker breaks down and has bad
moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need
his help,--he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many
of our fellow-countrymen collapse and have to be sent abroad to rest
their nerves, because they work so hard. I suspect that this is an
immense mistake, I suspect that neither the nature nor the amount of
our work is accountable for the frequency and the severity of our
breakdowns, but that their cause lies rather in those absurd feelings
of hurry and having no time, in the breathlessness and tension, that
anxiety of feature and solicitude for results, that lack of inner
harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is apt to be
accompanied."
[Sidenote: _How to Economize Effort_]
The fact is that to be a truly busy man you must be never in a hurry.
You must work systematically. You must economize effort. You must
permit no distractions and do your work leisurely. You must take time
to think things over in a natural way. You must waste no thoughts in
business hours on social or pleasurable pursuits that would dissipate
your mental capital. You must work when you work, and you may play
when you play, but your business must be the most fascinating of games
and the only one you play during business hours.
[Sidenote: _How Your Mental Capital is Dissipated_]
Another thing you need is _poise_. One trouble with you now is that
you waste your priceless powers in useless anxiety.
The minute business falls off you begin to worry. You fritter your
mental energies in fretting until you are incapable of real thought,
and being unable to think your way out you get excited.
Remember it is all just a game, and you are in it only for the fun of
the thing. You will never win out if you persist in tearing your hair.
Before he crossed the Rubicon Julius Cæsar was staggered at the
greatness of the undertaking before him. The more he reflected and
took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of
the attempt and the more appalling the calamities his passage of that
river would bring upon the Roman world. But when at last with the cry,
"The die is cast!" he plunged into the river, there was an end for him
to mental dissension, a freedom to plan and execute, an expansion of
courage and power.
[Sidenote: _Conquering Indecision_]
So it will be with you. With doubt and uncertainty the pressure may be
high in the gauge, but the engine does not move. Make up your mind,
and you release energies previously wasted in conflicts between
opposing thought complexes struggling for supremacy.
[Sidenote: _Why "Christian Science" Works_]
A fine illustration of this is shown in the religious experience known
as conversion. To the convert, conversion means the profound
acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge
taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no
longer present in his consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He
wants to do things. His soul is fired with overmastering impulses to
action. He wants to go forth and preach the gospel of his faith. He is
lifted to a high plane of exhilaration. He experiences the "peace that
passeth understanding."
"Christian Science," "Truth," "The New Thought," and similar movements
all achieve their really marvelous results in much the same way. All
proclaim doctrines of exuberant optimism, having a tendency to banish
fear-thoughts and self-consciousness and self-depreciation, and to set
up in their stead ideas of courage and of achievement and of
individual power. If these teachings are successful--that is to say,
if they inherently possess the right appeal for the particular
individual--they have the happy effect of begetting a stoical
indifference to petty physical disorders and social vexations and
bringing about a concentration upon the main business of life of the
mental energies thus previously wasted.
[Sidenote: _How to Release Pent-Up Power_]
Decide the matter that is troubling you. Make an end of hesitation and
uncertainty and fear. Your very act of decision will release large
stores of pent-up mental power and add immeasurably to your
effectiveness.
So long as you are in doubt and perplexity conflicting ideas and
impulses balance each other. You are not then a man of action; you are
a wavering coward. You are afflicted with paralysis of will and mental
stagnation.
_Decide_ the matter--that is to say, _let one mental picture assume a
greater vividness than the other until it possesses your soul--and
forthwith the banked fires of your mental energy will burst into
flame_.
Another thing: _Stop wasting your time_.
How much time do you spend in rest and relaxation? How much should
you spend? Can you answer these questions accurately?
[Sidenote: _Proper Ratio Between Work and Rest_]
Thomas A. Edison has contended for years that four hours' sleep a day
was sufficient for any man. He has conducted experiments with a large
number of men, giving careful attention to matters of diet and
exercise, and the results have seemed in a measure to support his
theory.
Dr. Fred W. Eastman reports that owing to pressure of work he was
recently unable to get more than three or four hours' sleep out of the
twenty-four during a period of many months, and that so far from being
hurt by it he gained five pounds. He says: "If restoration during
sleep is a task so relatively small, the question arises whether, in
order to complete restoration, it is necessary for us to spend so much
time in sleep as we do. Perhaps on account of popular opinion and
personal habit, we waste much time in this jelly-fish condition that
could more profitably be spent in active pursuit of our ambitions. The
answer, of course, depends upon the nature of our occupations. If
there is muscular effort involved, with a correspondingly large amount
of waste in the cells and blood, eight hours or more are probably
necessary. But if the work is of a sedentary nature, and mainly of the
brain, there is naturally a smaller quantity of accumulated waste, and
less time is required for removal. Many are the instances of great
men, past and present, who have lived healthily and worked
unceasingly and strenuously on only four or five hours of sleep, or
half the laborer's portion. Surely we do not suppose that these men
were or are physically different from others, but rather that by
inclination or necessity they have developed a habit of sleeping
intensely for a short period, with resulting gain of time and
efficiency."
[Sidenote: _Determining Your Norm of Efficiency_]
So far as this matter of relaxation, rest and sleep is concerned, the
rule to follow is obviously this: _Determine accurately by experiment
the proper relation between periods of work and periods of rest in
your own case, then increase your efficiency by maintaining this
relation_.
In Denmark they feed cows scientifically. Day by day they increase
the allowance of milk-producing food. Day by day the yield of milk
increases. At last there comes a day when measurement shows that there
is no longer any increase in the production of milk. They then
decrease the food till the output of milk diminishes. So they
determine the normal.
So with you and your hours of work and leisure. Give more and more
time to your business each day until there comes an impairment in the
quality of your work. Stop short of this. You have found your norm of
efficiency.