Although I started on my first job at $3.50 per week, and paid out of this $3.00 every week for board and room, I was able, when the year was around, to show something saved. Ever since I have kept up this practice and have never spent all that I made; always saving something. But to do this it was necessary in the early days to practice self-denial. I could not patronize pool-rooms, theaters, circuses and many entertainments that were calling young men away from their occupations, and often it was with bitter regret that I could not take part with the other fellows. The temptations were very great, but I knew they could not be followed if I intended to succeed.
Every man of any consequence in the world has had this same experience, and the big, successful business houses of today were built by men who practiced this method of self-denial, through which they gained control over themselves. They learned to say “no,” accumulated money, and above all, built for character and ability.
I remember one winter going without an overcoat—and you can imagine when the weather was below zero, how I longed for the luxurious fur coats so much in use at that time. However, I never felt bitter toward those who had them, but rather I made up my mind that one day I too would own one.
The reader will find in himself a feeling that he is unsatisfied with his present progress in business and that his future is still to be made. Unless he were a man of purpose it is safe to assume that he would not be reading these pages. He is unsatisfied, and that means that no matter how well he may have done up to the present he still sees ahead something better for the future. To be continually dissatisfied stamps a man as a grumbler and a perpetual grouch, but to be unsatisfied is the mark of distinction for the man with a healthy purpose, character and a bedrock foundation of confidence in his own ability to win.
CHAPTER III
HEALTH AN IMPORTANT FACTOR
JOY OF A HEALTHY BODY
Present-day business is one of the most strenuous games we know anything about. Although it is true, as already mentioned, that good salesmanship should call for only about a tenth as much physical as mental effort, the combination of physical, mental and nervous application must continually be on the alert in a man or woman who is actually playing the selling game according to rules. Boxing, running, football, tennis, baseball, are all forms of strenuous exercise, but they do not call for the same endurance as the busy eight-hour day of retail selling. In spite of this, how many shoe salesmen are there who actually make it a part of the daily program to get and keep in condition for the business game?
During the war period, while some of the most important problems of the country and of the world were waiting to be solved, we would hear every once in a while of some chief executive going off to play golf or to spend three or four days on a hunting or fishing trip. These things were not done because the men were more interested in golf, hunting and fishing than they were in the problems of the day. They had actually been ordered away from their desks. The eye was beginning to lose its brightness, the complexion was fading a little, and the step, perhaps, was showing signs of lagging. Alert, vigorous, healthy men were needed, who could think quickly and clearly. Lloyd George, the British statesman, made the statement that he was a union man in everything except his working hours. Very often he has been known to work for sixteen or twenty hours at a stretch. This was possible only because he had taken the time and effort necessary to build and maintain a vigorous and healthy body. There is an added joy in living that only a man in condition can appreciate.
KEEPING “FIT” FOR BUSINESS
Ask any young lad to demonstrate how strong he is and he will immediately draw his arm up tightly and exhibit the knot of muscle. To him that is an indication of his physical condition. However, the business man and woman must have a different standard, and that standard is the basis on which all the parts and organs of the body work together and perform their functions. What good is a finely adjusted twelve cylinder motor if the gasolene flow is choked by a bit of dirt in the supply pipe? The physical machinery is exactly the same. The body must be healthy both inside and out, and to keep fit we must see that every part of the machinery is given the chance to do its work.