How to Make Money

by John V. Dunlap

You must get it out of your head that you are not capable of doing big things. You must realize that the reason you are not doing big things is that you have never had an opportunity to learn. Every successful person in the world to-day thought just the same things which you are thinking at some time in their lives. They had to learn how, too. You must grit your teeth and start. Close your eyes to everything but success. The most difficult thing about being successful is making up your mind that you are going to succeed. Once you overcome that fear which haunts you, which holds you back, you will become master of yourself and the whole world can’t stop you.

Don’t let timidity, fear, self-consciousness, or what others think rule you. You know you are capable. Surely you believe in yourself, so close your eyes to these petty obstacles and work for your own future instead of to please your present associates.

Here is the plan that will give you your start on a successful career. Read it. Think while you are reading how easy it would be to explain this plan to a buyer even without practice or instructions. When we put you through our salesmanship course you will look back at the things which now appear impossible and laugh. How very easy it all is when you once understand. And how different the whole world looks to you when you are on the road to success. The dread of facing another day of routine, which is torture, of associating with people whom you dislike; of feeling dependent upon certain people for your existence—all these thoughts vanish like magic. How pleasant it is to be prosperous and successful! What a satisfying feeling it is for a married woman to be able to help her husband bear the burden, and how wonderful it is for her to have plenty of spare money to do and buy the things she has so much wished for!

And the single girl!—the single girl who is obliged to earn her support. Few indeed are fitted to do work that pays more than enough to barely exist upon. What dreadful thoughts hover over her! She has her choice of loneliness and poverty, or marriage at the first opportunity. Stop and look about you! Look at the girls in your circumstances who married for a home. How many of these girls are living the life you have so often dreamed you want to live? Don’t stumble along blindly. Close your eyes and think—think of yourself ten years from now!

Do you see happiness—do you see yourself the dainty well-groomed lady of your dream? Are you living the luxurious life and surrounded by the cultured circle you expected? Or are you shut up in a few lonely and dingy rooms with nothing but sadness and poverty as your lot?

What a dreadful thought! All the things which are so dear to you—a dainty skin, attractive figure, youthful and radiant face—all changed in ten short years. Surely you must see yourself as you will be in ten years, slovenly dressed with a worn and tired face, rough skin and straggly hair; nothing but poverty and worry.

What a different picture you will see when you have had a touch of success. When you are no longer dependent upon others for your existence; when you no longer get up in the morning with the dreadful worry of another day of torture before you. When you no longer think of marriage as a means of securing a home. And what a difference it makes when you are successful and can afford to dress the way you have dreamed of, and can associate with the cultured young men and women you have so often envied. How different it would all be if you could afford to live in the sort of home you have fancied! This is the reward of success. And the difference between success and failure is expressed in these few simple words:

“I will start to-day—NOW—to learn the things which will make me successful. If servant girls, clerks, factory girls, stenographers, and every other kind of girls can succeed in learning salesmanship and rise from their humble positions to the top of the ladder, I too will succeed! I must succeed! I have firmly determined to start now!”

If you had bought a hat, a pair of shoes, an overcoat and a dress, and two weeks later discovered that you had outgrown all of them, would you be interested in seeing some one who had a plan to sell these clothes for you and get more money for them than you originally paid? Would you listen to them?

Would a man who owned a furniture store listen to you if you would tell him you had a plan which would permit him to get all his money out of the dead stock he had in his store? We mean such things as odd chairs, tables, rugs, etc.; things which he had bought over a year ago and for some reason couldn’t sell.