The Crystallization of Desire Into Action
The Sixth Step to Riches
YOU HAVE LEARNED that everything worthwhile that an individual creates or acquires begins in the form of DESIRE—and that the first step of DESIRE’S journey from the abstract to the concrete is into the workshop of the IMAGINATION, where PLANS for DESIRE’S transition are created and organized.
In Chapter 1 you were instructed to take six definite, practical actions as your first move in translating the desire for money into its monetary equivalent. One of these steps is the formation of a DEFINITE, practical plan or plans through which this transformation may be made.
You will now be instructed on how to build plans which will be practical, namely:
(a) Ally yourself with a group of as many people as you may need to create and carry out your plan or plans for the accumulation of money. (To do this, you will make use of the Master Mind Principle, which is described in Chapter 9. Compliance with this instruction is absolutely essential. Do not neglect it.)
(b) Before forming your Master Mind Alliance, decide what advantages, and benefits, you may offer the individual members of your group in return for their cooperation. No one will work indefinitely without some form of compensation. No intelligent person will either request or expect another to work without adequate compensation, although this may not always be in the form of money.
(c) Arrange to meet with the members of your Master Mind Group at least twice a week, and more often if possible, until you have jointly perfected the necessary plan or plans for the accumulation of money.
(d) Maintain PERFECT HARMONY between yourself and every member of your Master Mind Group. If you fail to carry out this instruction to the letter, you may expect to meet with failure. The Master Mind Principle cannot obtain where PERFECT HARMONY does not prevail.
Keep in mind these two facts:
First. You are engaged in an undertaking of major importance to you. To be sure of success, you must have plans which are faultless.
Second. You must have the advantage of the experience, education, native ability, and imagination of other minds. This is in harmony with the methods followed by every person who has accumulated a great fortune.
No individual has sufficient experience, education, native ability, and knowledge to ensure the accumulation of a great fortune without the cooperation of other people. Every plan you adopt in your endeavor to accumulate wealth should be the joint creation of yourself and every other member of your Master Mind Group. You may originate your own plans, either in whole or in part, but SEE THAT THOSE PLANS ARE CHECKED, AND APPROVED, BY THE MEMBERS OF YOUR MASTER MIND ALLIANCE.
If the first plan which you adopt does not work successfully, replace it with a new plan. If this new plan fails to work, replace it in turn with still another, and so on until you find a plan which DOES WORK. Right here is the point at which the majority of people meet with failure because of their lack of PERSISTENCE in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
The most intelligent individual cannot succeed in accumulating money—or in any other undertaking—without plans which are practical and workable. Just keep this fact in mind and remember, when your plans fail, that temporary defeat is not permanent failure. It may only mean that your plans have not been sound. Build other plans. Start over again.
Thomas A. Edison “failed” 10,000 times before he perfected the incandescent electric light bulb—that is, he met with temporary defeat 10,000 times before his efforts were crowned with success.
Temporary defeat should mean only one thing—the certain knowledge that there is something wrong with your plan. Millions of people go through life in misery and poverty because they lack a sound plan through which to accumulate a fortune.
Henry Ford accumulated a fortune not because of his superior mind, but because he adopted and followed a PLAN which proved to be sound. A thousand individuals could be pointed out, each with a better education than Ford’s, yet each of whom lives in poverty because he or she does not possess the RIGHT plan for the accumulation of money.
Your achievement can be no greater than your PLANS are sound. That may seem to be an axiomatic statement, but it is true. And no one is ever whipped until that person QUITS—in his or her own mind.
This fact will be repeated many times because it is so easy to “take the count” at the first sign of defeat.
James J. Hill met with temporary defeat when he first endeavored to raise the necessary capital to build a railroad from the East to the West, but he, too, turned defeat into victory through new plans.
Henry Ford met with temporary defeat, not only at the beginning of his automobile career, but after he had gone far toward the top. He created new plans and went marching on to financial victory.
We see people who have accumulated great fortunes, but we often recognize only their triumph, overlooking the temporary defeats which they had to surmount before “arriving.”
NO FOLLOWER OF THIS PHILOSOPHY CAN REASONABLY EXPECT TO ACCUMULATE A FORTUNE WITHOUT EXPERIENCING TEMPORARY DEFEAT. When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal. If you give up before your goal has been reached, you are a quitter. A QUITTER NEVER WINS—AND A WINNER NEVER QUITS. Lift this sentence out, write it on a piece of paper in letters an inch high, and place it where you will see it every night before you go to sleep and every morning before you go to work.
When you begin to select members for your Master Mind Group, endeavor to select those who do not take defeat seriously.
Some people foolishly believe that only MONEY can make money. This is not true! DESIRE, transmuted into its monetary equivalent, through the principles laid down here, is the agency through which money is made. Money, of itself, is nothing but inert matter. It cannot move, think, or talk, but it can “hear” when a person who DESIRES it calls it to come!
The remainder of this chapter is given over to a description of ways and means of marketing personal services. The information here conveyed will be of practical help to any person having any form of personal services to market, but it will be of priceless benefit to those who aspire to leadership in their chosen occupations.
Intelligent planning is essential for success in any undertaking designed to accumulate riches. The following pages provide detailed instructions to those who must begin the accumulation of riches by selling personal services.
It should be encouraging to know that practically all the great fortunes began in the form of compensation for personal services or from the sale of IDEAS. What else, except ideas and personal services, would one who owns little property have to give in return for riches?
Broadly speaking, there are two types of people in the world. One type is known as LEADERS and the other as FOLLOWERS. Decide at the outset whether you intend to become a leader in your chosen calling or remain a follower. The difference in compensation is vast. The follower cannot reasonably expect the compensation to which a leader is entitled, although many followers make the mistake of expecting such pay.
It is no disgrace to be a follower. On the other hand, it is no credit to remain a follower. Most great leaders began in the capacity of followers. They became great leaders because they were INTELLIGENT FOLLOWERS. With few exceptions, the person who cannot follow a leader intelligently cannot become an efficient leader. The person who can follow a leader most efficiently is usually the one who develops into leadership most rapidly. An intelligent follower has many advantages, among them the OPPORTUNITY TO ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE FROM HIS OR HER LEADER.
The following are important attributes of leadership:
There are two forms of leadership. The first, by far the most effective, is LEADERSHIP BY CONSENT of, and with the sympathy of, the followers. The second is LEADERSHIP BY FORCE, without the consent and sympathy of the followers.
History is filled with evidence that Leadership by Force cannot endure. The downfall and disappearance of dictators and kings is significant. It means that people will not follow forced leadership indefinitely.
The world has just entered a new era of relationship between leaders and followers, which very clearly calls for new leaders and a new brand of leadership in business and industry. Those who belong to the old school of Leadership by Force must acquire an understanding of the new brand of leadership (cooperation) or be relegated to the rank and file of the followers. There is no other way out for them.
The relationship of employer and employee, or of leader and follower, in the future will be one of mutual cooperation, based upon an equitable division of the profits of business. In the future, the relationship of employer and employee will be more like a partnership than it has been in the past. Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the Czar of Russia, and the King of Spain were examples of leadership by force.1 Their leadership passed. Without much difficulty, one might point to the prototypes of these ex-leaders among the business, financial, and labor leaders of America who have been dethroned or slated to go. Leadership by Consent (of the followers) is the only brand which can endure!
People may follow the forced leadership temporarily, but they will not do so willingly.
The new brand of LEADERSHIP will embrace the 11 Major Factors of Leadership described in this chapter, as well as some other factors. The individual who makes these the basis of his or her leadership will find abundant opportunity to lead in any walk of life. The difficult economic times we have faced have been prolonged in large part because the world lacked LEADERSHIP of the new brand. Now the demand for leaders who are competent to apply the new methods of leadership has greatly exceeded the supply. Some of the old type of leaders will reform and adapt themselves to the new brand of leadership, but generally speaking, the world will have to look for new timber for its leadership.
This necessity may be your OPPORTUNITY!
We come now to the major faults of leaders who fail, because it is just as essential to know WHAT NOT TO DO as it is to know what to do.
These are among the more common of the causes of failure in leadership. Any one of these faults is sufficient to induce failure. Study the list carefully if you aspire to leadership, and make sure that you are free of these faults.
Before leaving this chapter, your attention is called to a few of the fertile fields in which there has been a decline of leadership and in which the new type of leader may find an abundance of OPPORTUNITY.
First. In the field of politics there is a most insistent demand for new leaders—a demand which indicates nothing less than an emergency. The majority of politicians have seemingly become high-grade, legalized racketeers. They have increased taxes and debauched the machinery of industry and business until the people can no longer stand the burden.
Second. The banking business is undergoing a reform. The leaders in this field have almost entirely lost the confidence of the public. Already the bankers have sensed the need of reform, and they have begun it.
Third. Industry calls for new leaders. The old type of leaders thought and moved in terms of dividends, instead of thinking and moving in terms of human equations! Future leaders in industry, to endure, must regard themselves as quasi-public officials whose duty it is to manage their trust in such a way that it will work hardship on no individual or group of individuals. Exploitation of working people is a thing of the past. Let the man or woman who aspires to leadership in the field of business, industry, and labor remember this.
Fourth. Religious leaders of the future must give more attention to the temporal needs of their followers in the solution of their present economic and personal problems, and less attention to the dead past and the yet unborn future.
Fifth. In the professions of law, medicine, and education, a new brand of leadership, and to some extent new leaders, will become a necessity. This is especially true in the field of education. The leader in that field must in the future find ways and means of teaching people HOW TO APPLY the knowledge they receive in school. The educator must deal more with PRACTICE and less with THEORY.
Sixth. New leaders will be required in the field of journalism. Newspapers of the future, to be operated successfully, must be divorced from “special privilege” and relieved from the subsidy of advertising. They must cease to be organs of propaganda for the interests which patronize their advertising columns. The type of newspaper which publishes scandal and lewd pictures will eventually go the way of all forces which debauch the human mind.4
These are but a few of the fields in which opportunities for new leaders and a new brand of leadership are now available. The world is undergoing a rapid change. This means that the media through which the changes in human habits are promoted must be adapted to the changes. The media here described are the ones which more than any others determine the trend of civilization.The information to be described next about when and how to apply for a position is the net result of many years of experience during which thousands of men and women were helped to market their services effectively. It can, therefore, be relied upon as sound and practical.
Experience has proved that the following media offer the most direct and effective methods of bringing the buyer and seller of personal services together.
5. APPLICATION IN PERSON. In some instances, it may be more effective if the applicant offers personally, his or her services to prospective employers, in which event a complete written statement of qualifications for the position should be presented because prospective employers often wish to discuss with associates one’s record.
A resume should be prepared as carefully as a lawyer would prepare the brief of a case to be tried in court. Unless the applicant is experienced in the preparation of resumes, an expert should be consulted and hired for this purpose. Successful merchants employ men and women who understand the art and the psychology of advertising to present the merits of their merchandise. One who has personal services for sale should do the same. The following eight items of information should appear in the resume:
Remember that it is not the lawyer who knows the most law, but the one who prepares the best case who wins. If your “case” is properly prepared and presented, your victory will have been more than half won at the outset.
Do not be afraid of making your resume too long. Employers are just as much interested in purchasing the services of well-qualified applicants as you are in securing employment. In fact, the success of most successful employers is due mainly to their ability to select well-qualified lieutenants. They want all the information available.
Remember another thing: Neatness and care in the preparation of your resume will indicate that you are a painstaking person. I have helped to prepare resumes for clients which were so striking and out of the ordinary that they resulted in the employment of the applicant without a personal interview.
When your resume has been completed, have it neatly bound and printed by an experienced printer. Its cover should appear similar to the following:
RESUME OF
Robert K. Smith
APPLYING FOR THE POSITION OF
Assistant Manager at
THE BLANK COMPANY, INC.
This personal touch is sure to command attention. Have your resume neatly typed or printed on the finest paper you can obtain and then suitably bound or placed in an appropriate presentation folder. The cover should, of course, be changed and the proper firm name and job title inserted if it is to be shown to more than one company. Your photograph should be pasted or printed on one of the pages of your resume. Follow these instructions to the letter, improving upon them wherever your imagination suggests.
Successful salespeople groom themselves with care. They understand that first impressions are lasting. Your resume is your sales representative. Give it a good suit of clothes so it will stand out in bold contrast to anything your prospective employer ever saw in the way of an application for a position. If the position you seek is worth having, it is worth going after with care. Moreover, if you sell yourself to employers in a manner that impresses them with your individuality, you may very well receive more money for your services from the very start than you would if you applied for employment in the usual way.
If you seek employment through an employment agency, make sure they use copies of your resume—or produce and provide one that meets all the above criteria—in marketing your services. This will help to gain preference for you both with the agency and prospective employers.
Everyone enjoys doing the kind of work for which they are best suited. An artist loves to work with paints, a craftsman with his or her hands, a writer loves to write. Those with less definite talents have their preferences for certain fields of business or industry. If America does anything well, it offers a full range of occupations, from tilling the soil and manufacturing, to marketing, commerce, and the professions.
Here are seven actions to take to guarantee yourself the exact position you wish:
First. Decide—and DEFINE briefly in writing—EXACTLY what kind of job you desire. If the job does not already exist, perhaps you can create it.
Second. Choose the specific company, or the specific individual, for whom you wish to work.
Third. Study your prospective employer as to policies, personnel, and chances of advancement.
Fourth. By analysis of yourself, your talents and capabilities, figure WHAT YOU CAN OFFER and plan ways and means of giving advantages, services, developments, and ideas that you believe you can successfully deliver.
Fifth. Forget about “a job.” Forget whether or not there is an opening. Forget the usual routine of “have you got a job for me?” Concentrate on what you can give.
Sixth. Once you have your plan in mind, arrange with an experienced writer to put it on paper, in neat form and in full detail.
Seventh. Present it to the proper person with authority and he or she will do the rest. Every company is looking for people who can give something of value, whether it be ideas, services, or “connections.” Every company has room for the individual who has a definite plan of action which is to the advantage of that company.
This line of procedure may take a few days or weeks of extra time, but the difference in income, in advancement, and in gaining recognition will save years of hard work at small pay. It has many advantages, the main one being that it will often save from one to five years of time in reaching a chosen goal.
Every person who starts, or “gets in,” halfway up the ladder does so by deliberate and careful planning (excepting, of course, the Boss’ kid.)
Men and women who market their services to best advantage in the future must recognize the stupendous change which has taken place in connection with the relationship between employer and employee.
In the future, the “Golden Rule,” not the “Rule of Gold,” will be the dominating factor in the marketing of merchandise, as well as personal services.6 The future relationship between employers and their employees will be more in the nature of a partnership consisting of:
b. the employee
c. the public they serve
This new way of marketing personal services is called “new” for many reasons. First, both the employer and the employee of the future will be considered as “fellow employees” whose business it will be to SERVE THE PUBLIC EFFICIENTLY. In times past, employers and employees have bartered among themselves, driving the best bargains they could with one another, not considering that in the final analysis they were in reality BARGAINING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE THIRD PARTY—THE PUBLIC THEY SERVED.7 The real employer of the future will be the public. This should be kept uppermost in mind by every person seeking to market personal services effectively.8
HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED! That is just the point I am trying to emphasize. TIMES HAVE CHANGED! Moreover, the change is reflected in all occupations and all walks of life as well. The “public be damned” policy is now passé. It has been supplanted by the “we-are-obligingly-at-your-service, sir” policy.9
“Courtesy” and “service” are the watchwords of merchandising today, and they apply to the person who is marketing personal services even more directly than to the employer whom he or she serves because, in the final analysis, both the employer and the employee are EMPLOYED BY THE PUBLIC THEY SERVE. If they fail to serve well, they pay by the loss of their privilege of serving.10
During the Depression, I spent several months in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania, studying conditions which all but destroyed the coal industry. Among several very significant discoveries was the fact that greed on the part of operators and their employees was the chief cause of the loss of business for the operators and loss of jobs for the miners.
Through the pressure of a group of overzealous labor leaders representing the employees, and the greed for profits on the part of the operators, the anthracite business suddenly dwindled. The coal operators and their employees drove sharp bargains with one another, adding the cost of the bargaining to the price of the coal until finally they discovered they had BUILT UP A WONDERFUL BUSINESS FOR THE MANUFACTURERS OF OIL BURNING OUTFITS AND THE PRODUCERS OF CRUDE OIL.
“The wages of sin is death!” Many have read this in the Bible, but few have discovered its meaning. Now, and for several years, America and the world have been listening to a sermon which might well be called “WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP.”
Nothing as widespread as the depressed economic times we have lived through could possibly be “just a coincidence.” Behind it all there was a CAUSE. Nothing ever happens without a CAUSE. In the main, the cause here is traceable directly to the economic habit of trying to REAP without SOWING.
This should not be mistaken to mean that these tough economic times represent a crop which we are being FORCED to reap without having SOWN. The trouble is that we sowed the wrong sort of seed. All farmers know they cannot sow the seed of thistles and reap a harvest of grain. For a very long period, the people of America and some other lands began to sow the seed of service which was inadequate in both quality and quantity. Nearly everyone was engaged in the pastime of trying to GET WITHOUT GIVING.
This whole issue is brought to the attention of those who have personal services to market, to show that we are where we are and what we are because of our own conduct! If there is a principle of cause and effect which controls business, finance, and transportation, this same principle controls individuals and determines their economic status.
The causes of success in marketing services EFFECTIVELY and permanently have been clearly described. Unless those causes are studied, analyzed, understood, and APPLIED, no one can market personal services effectively and permanently. Every individual must “sell” his or her services. The QUALITY and the QUANTITY of service rendered, and the SPIRIT in which it is rendered, determine to a large extent the price and the duration of employment. To market personal services effectively (which means a permanent market, at a satisfactory price, under pleasant conditions), one must adopt and follow the “QQS Formula”—QUALITY, plus QUANTITY, plus the proper SPIRIT of cooperation equals perfect salesmanship of service. Remember the QQS Formula, but do more—APPLY IT AS A HABIT!
Let us analyze the formula to make sure we understand exactly what it means.
The importance of a pleasing personality has been stressed because it is a factor which enables one to render service in the proper SPIRIT. If one has a personality which PLEASES and renders service in a spirit of HARMONY, these assets often make up for deficiencies in both the QUALITY and the QUANTITY of service one renders. Nothing, however, can be SUCCESSFULLY SUBSTITUTED FOR PLEASING CONDUCT.
The person whose income is derived entirely from the sale of personal services is no less a merchant than the person who sells goods or products, and it might well be added that such a person is subject to EXACTLY THE SAME RULES of conduct as the merchant who sells merchandise.
This has been emphasized because the majority of people who live by the sale of personal services make the mistake of considering themselves free from the rules of conduct and the responsibilities which are attached to those who are engaged in marketing goods and products.
The new way of marketing services has practically forced both employer and employee into partnership alliances, through which both take into consideration the rights of the third party, THE PUBLIC THEY SERVE.
The day of the “go-getter” has passed. The go-getter has been supplanted by the “go-giver.” High-pressure methods in business finally blew the lid off. There will never be the need to put the lid back on because in the future business will be conducted by methods that will require no pressure.
The actual capital value of your brains may be determined by the amount of income you can produce (by marketing your services). A fair estimate of the capital value of your services may be made by multiplying your annual income by 162/3 (or 16.667), as it is reasonable to estimate that your annual income represents approximately six percent of your capital value. (Money is worth no more than brains. It is often worth much less.)
Competent brains, if effectively marketed, represent a much more desirable form of capital than that which is required to conduct a business dealing in goods and products because brains are a form of capital which cannot be permanently depreciated through economic depressions and cannot be stolen or spent. Moreover, the money which is essential for the conduct of business is as worthless as a sand dune until it has been mixed with efficient brains.
Life’s greatest tragedy consists of men and women who earnestly try and fail! The tragedy lies in the overwhelmingly large majority of people who fail as compared to the few who succeed.
I have had the privilege of analyzing several thousand men and women, 98 percent of whom were classed as failures. There is something radically wrong with a civilization, and a system of education, which permit 98 percent of the people to go through life as failures. But I did not write this book for the purpose of moralizing on the rights and wrongs of the world. That would require a book a hundred times the size of this one.
My research and analysis proved that there are 30 major reasons for failure and 13 major principles (The 13 Steps to Riches) through which people accumulate fortunes. In this chapter, a description of the 30 major causes of failure will be given. As you go over the list, check yourself by it point by point for the purpose of discovering how many of these causes of failure stand between you and success.
In the list of “30 (or 31) Major Causes of Failure” is found a description of the tragedy of life, which obtains for practically every person who tries and fails. It will be helpful if you can induce someone who knows you well to go over this list with you and help you analyze yourself for the 30 causes of failure. It may be beneficial if you try this alone. Most people cannot see themselves as others see them. You may be one who cannot.
The oldest of admonitions is “Know thyself!” If you market merchandise successfully, you must know the merchandise. The same is true in marketing personal services. You should know all of your weaknesses in order that you may either bridge them or eliminate them entirely. You should know your strengths in order that you may call attention to them when selling your services. You can know yourself only through accurate analysis.
The folly of ignorance in connection with self was displayed by a young man who applied to the manager of a well-known business for a position. He made a very good impression until the manager asked him what salary he expected. He replied that he had no fixed sum in mind (lack of a definite aim). The manager then said, “We will pay you all you are worth after we try you out for a week.”
“I will not accept it,” the applicant replied, “because I AM GETTING MORE THAN THAT WHERE I AM NOW EMPLOYED.”
Before you even start to negotiate for a readjustment of your salary in your present position or seek employment elsewhere, BE SURE THAT YOU ARE WORTH MORE THAN YOU NOW RECEIVE.
It is one thing to WANT money—everyone wants more—but it is something entirely different to be WORTH MORE! Many people mistake their WANTS for their JUST DUES. Your financial requirements or wants have nothing whatever to do with your WORTH. Your value is established entirely by your ability to render useful service or your capacity to induce others to render such service.
28 Questions You Should Answer
Annual self-analysis is an essential in the effective marketing of personal services, as is annual inventory in merchandising. Moreover, the yearly analysis should disclose a DECREASE IN FAULTS and an increase in VIRTUES. One goes ahead, stands still, or goes backward in life. One’s object should be, of course, to go ahead. Annual self-analysis will disclose whether advancement has been made, and if so, how much. It will also disclose any backward steps one may have made. The effective marketing of personal services requires one to move forward even if the progress is slow.
Your annual self-analysis should be made at the end of each year so that you can include in your New Year’s Resolutions any improvements which the analysis indicates should be made. Take this inventory by asking yourself the following questions and by checking your answers with the aid of someone who will not permit you to deceive yourself as to their accuracy.
Having read and assimilated the information conveyed through this chapter, you are now ready to create a practical plan for marketing your personal services. In this chapter is found an adequate description of every principle essential in planning the sale of personal services, including the major attributes of leadership, the most common causes of failure in leadership, a description of the fields of opportunity for leadership, the main causes of failure in all walks of life, and the important questions which should be used in self-analysis.
This extensive and detailed presentation of accurate information has been included because it will be needed by all who must begin the accumulation of riches by marketing personal services. Those who have lost their jobs, property, and fortunes, and those who are just beginning to earn money, have nothing but personal services to offer in return for riches; therefore, it is essential that they have available the practical information needed to market services to best advantage.
The information contained in this chapter will be of great value to all who aspire to attain leadership in any calling. It will be particularly helpful to those aiming to market their services as business or industrial executives.
Complete assimilation and understanding of the information here conveyed will be helpful in marketing one’s own services, and it will also help one to become more analytical and capable of judging people. The information will be priceless to personnel directors and all supervisors and executives charged with the selection of employees and the maintenance of efficient organizations. If you doubt this statement, test its soundness by answering in writing the 28 self-analysis questions. That might be both interesting and profitable, even if you do not doubt the soundness of the statement.
Now that we have analyzed six of The 13 Steps to Riches, we naturally ask, “Where may one find favorable opportunities to apply these principles?” Very well, let us take inventory and see what the United States of America offers the person seeking riches, great or small.
To begin with, let us remember that we live in a country where every law-abiding citizen enjoys freedom of thought and freedom of deed unequaled anywhere in the world. Most of us have never taken inventory of the advantages of this freedom. We have never compared our unlimited freedom with the curtailed freedom in other countries.
Here we have freedom of thought and expression, freedom in the choice and enjoyment of education, freedom of religion, freedom in politics, freedom in the choice of a business, profession or occupation, freedom to accumulate and own without molestation ALL THE PROPERTY WE CAN ACCUMULATE, freedom to choose our place of residence, freedom in marriage, freedom through equal opportunity to all races, freedom of travel from one state to another, freedom in our choice of foods, and freedom to AIM FOR ANY STATION IN LIFE FOR WHICH WE HAVE PREPARED OURSELVES—even for the Presidency of the United States.
We have other forms of freedom, but this list will give a bird’s-eye-view of the most important which constitute OPPORTUNITY of the highest order. This advantage of freedom is all the more conspicuous because the United States is the only country that guarantees to every citizen, whether native born or naturalized, so broad and varied a list of freedoms.
Next, let us recount some of the blessings which our widespread freedom has placed within our hands. Take the average American family, for example (the family of average income), and sum up the benefits available to every member of the family in this land of OPPORTUNITY and plenty!
a. FOOD. Next to freedom of thought and deed comes FOOD, CLOTHING, and SHELTER, the three basic necessities of life.
Because of our universal freedom, the average American family has available at its very door the choicest selection of food to be found anywhere in the world, and at prices within its financial range.
A family of four, living in a small to medium-size American city, far removed from the source of production of foods, took careful inventory of the cost of a simple breakfast, with this astonishing result:
| Items of food: | Cost at the breakfast table:* |
| orange juice (from Florida) | .56 |
| cereal (wheat from Kansas farm) | .44 |
| tea (from China) | .20 |
| bananas (from South America) | .28 |
| toasted bread (again, wheat from Kansas farm) | .19 |
| fresh eggs (from regional farm) | .18 |
| sugar (from Utah or Texas) | .01 |
| margarine (from Illinois) | .16 |
| milk (from local dairy) | .74 |
| Grand total | $2.76 |
* Using today’s prices.
It is not very difficult to obtain FOOD in a country where four people can have breakfast consisting of all they want or need for 69 cents apiece! Observe that this simple breakfast was gathered, by some strange form of magic (?), from China, South America, Utah, Kansas, and Illinois and delivered on the breakfast table, ready for consumption, in the very heart of an average American city, at a cost well within the means of the most humble laborer.
The cost included all federal, state and city taxes!11
b. SHELTER. This family lives in a comfortable apartment, heated by natural gas, lighted with electricity, with gas for cooking, all for $800 a month. In a smaller city, the same apartment could be had for as low as $685 a month.
The toast they had for breakfast in the food estimate was toasted in an electric toaster which cost but $15. The apartment is cleaned with a vacuum cleaner that is run by electricity. Hot and cold water is available at all times in the kitchen and the bathroom. The food is kept cool in a refrigerator that is run by electricity. The wife curls her hair, washes the clothes and dries them with easily operated electrical equipment, on power obtained by sticking a plug into the wall. The husband shaves with an electric razor, and they receive entertainment from all over the world, 24 hours a day if they want it, without charge, by merely turning the dial of their television or radio. There are other conveniences in this apartment, but the foregoing list will give a fair idea of some of the concrete evidences of the freedom that we in America enjoy.12
c. CLOTHING. Anywhere in the United States, the woman of average clothing requirements can dress very comfortably and neatly for less than $1,500 a year, and the average man can dress for the same, or less.
Only the three basic necessities of food, clothing, and shelter have been mentioned. The average American citizen has other privileges and advantages available in return for modest effort, not exceeding eight hours per day of labor. Among these is the privilege of automobile transportation, with which one can go and come at will, at relatively small cost.
Average Americans have security of property rights not found in any other country in the world. They can place their surplus money in a bank with the assurance that their government will protect it and make good to them if the bank fails. If American citizens want to travel from one state to another, they need no passport, no one’s permission. They may go when they please and return at will. Moreover, they may travel by private automobile, airplane, bus, train, or ship as their pocketbook permits.13
We often hear politicians proclaiming the freedoms of America when they solicit votes, but seldom do they take the time or devote sufficient effort to the analysis of the source or nature of this freedom. Having no axe to grind, no grudge to express, no ulterior motives to be carried out, I have the privilege of going into a frank analysis of that mysterious, abstract, greatly misunderstood “SOMETHING” which gives to every citizen of America more blessings, more opportunities to accumulate wealth, and more freedom of every nature than may be found in any other country.
I have the right to analyze the source and nature of this UNSEEN POWER because I know and have known for more than a quarter of a century many of the persons who organized that power, and many who are now responsible for its maintenance.
The name of this mysterious benefactor of humankind is CAPITAL!
CAPITAL consists not alone of money, but more particularly of highly organized, intelligent groups of individuals who plan ways and means of using money efficiently for the good of the public and profitably to themselves.
These groups consist of scientists, educators, chemists, inventors, business analysts, advertising executives, transportation experts, accountants, lawyers, doctors, and both men and women who have highly specialized knowledge in all fields of industry and business. They pioneer, experiment, and blaze trails in new fields of endeavor. They support colleges, hospitals, public schools, build good roads, publish newspapers, operate television and radio stations, pay most of the cost of government, and take care of the multitudinous detail essential to human progress. Stated briefly, the capitalists are the brains of civilization because they supply the entire fabric of which all education, enlightenment and human progress consists.
Money, without brains, always is dangerous. Properly used, it is the most important essential of civilization. The simple breakfast described earlier could not have been delivered to that family of four at 69 cents each or at any other price if organized capital had not provided the machinery, the ships, the railroads, the trucks, and the huge armies of trained workers to operate them.
Some slight idea of the importance of ORGANIZED CAPITAL may be had by trying to imagine yourself burdened with the responsibility of collecting, without the aid of capital, and delivering to that family the simple breakfast described.
To supply the tea you would have to make a trip to China or India, both a very long way from America. Unless you are an excellent swimmer, you would become rather tired before making the round trip. Then, too, another problem would confront you. What would you use for money, even if you had the physical endurance to swim the ocean?
To supply the sugar, you would have to take another long journey to the sugar beet section of Utah or to the fields of Louisiana or Texas. But even then, you might come back without the sugar because organized effort and money are necessary to produce sugar, to say nothing of what is required to refine, transport, and deliver it to the breakfast table anywhere in the United States.
The eggs you could deliver easily enough from small farms located in the countryside not far from the city, but you would have a very long walk to Florida and back before you could serve the four glasses of orange juice. You would have another long walk to Kansas or one of the other wheat growing states when you went after the four slices of wheat bread.
The breakfast cereal would have to be omitted from the menu because they would not be available except through the labor of a trained organization of workers and suitable machinery, ALL OF WHICH CALL FOR CAPITAL.
While resting, you could take off for another little swim down to South America, where you would pick up a couple of bananas, and on your return you could take a short walk to the nearest farm having a dairy and pick up some milk (and perhaps some butter because you would have to do without the margarine, which, like the box of cereal, would require CAPITAL for its manufacture). Then your family would be ready to sit down and enjoy breakfast, and you could collect your six dimes and seven pennies for your labor!
Seems absurd, doesn’t it? Well, the procedure described would be the only possible way these simple items of food could be delivered to the breakfast table of the family in that heartland city—IF we had no capitalistic system.
The sum of money required for the building and maintenance of the railroads, ships, and trucking lines used in the delivery of that simple breakfast is so huge that it staggers one’s imagination. It runs into billions of dollars, not to mention the armies of trained employees required to operate the ships, truck lines, and trains. But, transportation is only a part of the requirements of modern civilization in capitalistic America. Before there can be anything to haul, something must be grown from the ground or manufactured and prepared for market. This calls for more billions of dollars for equipment, machinery, boxing, marketing, and for the wages of millions of men and women.
Ships, railroads, airlines, and trucking networks do not spring up from the earth and function automatically. They come in response to the call of civilization, through the labor and ingenuity and organizing ability of people who have IMAGINATION, FAITH, ENTHUSIASM, DECISION, PERSISTENCE! These individuals are known as capitalists. They are motivated by the desire to build, construct, achieve, render useful service, earn profits and accumulate riches. And because they RENDER SERVICE WITHOUT WHICH THERE WOULD BE NO CIVILIZATION, they put themselves in the way of great riches.
Just to keep the record simple and understandable, I will add that these capitalists are the self-same people of whom most of us have heard soapbox orators speak. They are the same people to whom radicals, racketeers, dishonest politicians and grafting labor leaders have referred to as the “predatory interests,” or “Wall Street,” or “big business.”
I am not attempting to present an argument for or against any group or any system of economics. I am not attempting to condemn collective bargaining when I refer to “grafting labor leaders,” nor do I aim to give a clean bill of health to all individuals known as capitalists or entrepreneurs.
The purpose of this book—a purpose to which I have faithfully devoted over a quarter of a century—is to present to all who want the knowledge, the most dependable philosophy through which individuals may accumulate riches in whatever amounts they desire.
I have here analyzed the economic advantages of the capitalistic system for the two-fold purpose of showing:
This is a free enterprise, capitalistic country. It was developed through the use of capital, and we who claim the right to partake of the blessings of freedom and opportunity, we who seek to accumulate riches here, may as well know that neither riches nor opportunity would be available to us if ORGANIZED CAPITAL had not provided these benefits.
For decades, it has been a somewhat popular and growing pastime for radicals, self-seeking politicians, racketeers, crooked labor leaders, and on occasion religious leaders, to take potshots at “WALL STREET” and “BIG BUSINESS.”14
The practice became so general that we witnessed for a time during the Depression the unbelievable sight of high government officials lining up with cheap politicians and labor leaders for the openly avowed purpose of throttling the system which has made Industrial America the richest country on earth. The lineup was so general and so well organized that it prolonged the worst depression America had ever known. It cost millions of people their jobs because those jobs were inseparably a part of the industrial and capitalistic system which form the very backbone of the nation.
During this unusual alliance of government officials and self-seeking individuals who were endeavoring to profit by declaring “open season” on the American system of industry, a certain type of labor leader joined forces with the politicians and offered to deliver voters in return for legislation designed to permit people to TAKE RICHES AWAY FROM INDUSTRY BY ORGANIZED FORCE OF NUMBERS, INSTEAD OF THE BETTER METHOD OF GIVING A FAIR DAY’S WORK FOR A FAIR DAY’S PAY.
Millions of men and women throughout the nation are still engaged in this popular pastime of trying to GET without GIVING. Some of them are lined up with labor unions, where they demand SHORTER HOURS AND MORE PAY! Others do not take the trouble to work at all. THEY DEMAND GOVERNMENT RELIEF AND ARE GETTING IT.15
If you are one of those who believe that riches can be accumulated by the mere act of individuals who organize themselves into groups and demand MORE PAY for LESS SERVICE, if you are one of those who DEMAND government relief without being willing to return any service for it, if you are one of those who believe in trading their votes to politicians in return for the passing of laws which permit the raiding of the public treasury, then you may rest securely on your belief, with certain knowledge that no one will disturb you, because THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY WHERE EVERYONE MAY THINK AS HE OR SHE PLEASES, where nearly everybody can live with but little effort, where many may live well without doing any work whatsoever.
However, you should know the full truth concerning this FREEDOM of which so many people boast and so few understand. As great as it is, as far as it reaches, as many privileges as it provides, IT DOES NOT, AND CANNOT, BRING RICHES WITHOUT EFFORT.
There is but one dependable method of accumulating and legally holding riches, and that is by rendering useful service. No system has ever been created by which people can legally acquire riches through mere force of numbers or without giving in return an equivalent value of one form or another.
There is a principle known as the LAW OF ECONOMICS! This is more than a theory. It is a law no one can beat. Mark well the name of the principle and remember it because it is far more powerful than all the politicians and political machines. It is above and beyond the control of all the special interest groups and labor unions. It cannot be swayed nor influenced nor bribed by racketeers or self-appointed leaders in any calling. Moreover, IT HAS AN ALL-SEEING EYE AND A PERFECT SYSTEM OF BOOKKEEPING in which it keeps an accurate account of the transactions of every human being engaged in the business of trying to get without giving. Sooner or later its auditors come around, look over the records of individuals both great and small, and demand an accounting.
“Wall Street,” “Big Business,” “Capital Predatory Interests” or whatever name you choose to give the system which has given us AMERICAN FREEDOM represents a group of people who understand, respect, and adapt themselves to this powerful LAW OF ECONOMICS! Their financial continuation depends upon their respecting the law.
Most people living in America like this country, its capitalistic system and all. I must confess I know of no better country where one may find greater opportunities to accumulate riches. Judging by their acts and deeds, there are some in this country who do not like it. That of course is their privilege: If they do not like this country, its capitalistic system, and its boundless opportunities, THEY HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF CLEARING OUT! Always there are other countries where one may try one’s hand at enjoying freedom and accumulating riches, providing one is not too particular.16
America provides all the freedom and all the opportunity to accumulate riches that any honest person may require. When one goes hunting for game, one selects hunting grounds where game is plentiful. When seeking riches, the same rule would naturally obtain.
If it is riches you seek, do not overlook the possibilities of a country whose citizens are so rich that they spend more than $29 billion17 a year for hair, nail and skin care. Think twice, you who seek riches, before trying to destroy the Capitalistic System of a country whose citizens spend more than $25 billion a year for newspapers, $31 billion on books, almost $14 billion on sound recordings, and almost $54 billion on motion pictures, all of which express the FREEDOM of expression!
By all means give plenty of consideration to a country whose people spend annually more than $115 billion on fast food and $13.3 billion to pay bar and tavern tabs.
Do not be in too big a hurry to get away from a country whose people willingly, even eagerly, hand over $34 billion annually to buy toys, $38 billion to take care of their lawns and gardens, and $74 billion to purchase sporting goods. And, by all means, STICK by a country whose inhabitants spend more than $91 billion a year for furniture and home furnishings, $167 billion on clothing and accessories, $22 billion for laundry and dry cleaning, $87 billion in appliance and electronics stores, and almost $14 billion to bury their dead.
Remember also that this is but the beginning of the available sources for the accumulation of wealth. Only a few of the luxuries and non-essentials have been mentioned. But remember that the business of producing, transporting, and marketing these few items of merchandise gives regular employment to MANY MILLIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN who receive for their service BILLIONS OF DOLLARS MONTHLY and spend it freely for both the luxuries and the necessities of life.
Especially remember that back of all this exchange of merchandise and personal services may be found an abundance of OPPORTUNITY to accumulate riches. Here our AMERICAN FREEDOM comes to one’s aid. There is nothing to stop you, or anyone, from engaging in any portion of the effort necessary to carry on these businesses. If one has superior talent, training, and experience, one may accumulate riches in large amounts. Those not so fortunate may accumulate smaller amounts. Anyone may earn a living in return for a very nominal amount of labor.
So—there you are!
OPPORTUNITY has spread its wares before you. Step up to the front, select what you want, create your plan, put the plan into action, and follow through with PERSISTENCE. “Capitalistic” America will do the rest. You can depend upon this much—CAPITALISTIC AMERICA ENSURES EVERY PERSON THE OPPORTUNITY TO RENDER USEFUL SERVICE AND TO COLLECT RICHES IN PROPORTION TO THE VALUE OF THE SERVICE RENDERED.
The “system” denies no one this right, but it does not, and cannot, promise SOMETHING FOR NOTHING because the system itself is irrevocably controlled by the LAW OF ECONOMICS, which neither recognizes nor tolerates for long, GETTING WITHOUT GIVING.
The LAW OF ECONOMICS was passed by Nature! There is no Supreme Court to which violators of this law may appeal. The law hands out both penalties for its violation and appropriate rewards for its observance, without interference or the possibility of interference by any human being. The law cannot be repealed. It is as fixed as the stars in the heavens and subject to, and a part of, the same system that controls the stars.
May one refuse to adapt one’s self to the LAW OF ECONOMICS?
Certainly! This is a free country, where all people are born with equal rights, including the privilege of ignoring the LAW OF ECONOMICS. What happens then? Well, nothing happens until large numbers of people join forces for the avowed purpose of ignoring the law and taking what they want by force. THEN COMES THE DICTATOR, WITH WELL-ORGANIZED FIRING SQUADS AND MACHINE GUNS! We have never reached that stage in America! But we now know all we want to know about how the system works.18 Perhaps we shall be fortunate enough not to demand personal knowledge of so gruesome a reality. Doubtless we shall prefer to continue with our FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF DEED, and FREEDOM TO RENDER USEFUL SERVICE IN RETURN FOR RICHES.
The practice by government officials of extending to men and women the privilege of raiding the public treasury in return for votes sometimes results in election, but as night follows day, the final payoff will always come when every penny wrongfully used must be repaid with compound interest upon compound interest. If those who “make the grab” are not forced to repay, the burden falls on their children, and their children’s children, “even unto the third and fourth generations.” There is no way to avoid the debt.19
People can, and sometimes do, form themselves into groups for the purpose of “crowding” wages up and working hours down. There is a point beyond which they cannot go. It is the point at which the LAW OF ECONOMICS steps in, and the sheriff gets both the employer and the employees.20
For six years, from 1929 to 1935, the people of America, both rich and poor, barely missed seeing “Old Man Economics” hand over to the sheriff all the businesses, industries, and banks. It was not a pretty sight! It did not increase our respect for mob psychology through which people cast reason to the winds and start trying to GET without GIVING.
We who went through those six discouraging years—when FEAR WAS IN THE SADDLE AND FAITH WAS ON THE GROUND—cannot forget how ruthlessly the LAW OF ECONOMICS exacted its toll from both rich and poor, weak and strong, old and young. We shall not wish to go through another such experience.
These observations are not founded upon short-time experience. They are the result of 25 years of careful analysis of the methods of the most successful individuals America has known. These resourceful, hard-working, smart-thinking people—and people like them today and people like them who have gone before—represent the real genius of the American system of free enterprise and the American way of life. Their attributes helped the nation survive the Great Depression and flourish. One of those attributes is DEFINITENESS OF DECISION, the mastery of which represents The Seventh Step to Riches. And it is on that step that we will now focus our attention.
God seems to throw Himself on the side of the individual who knows exactly what he wants, if he is determined to get JUST THAT!