Joyous zeal, dead-in-earnestness, will sell more goods than all the technical training in the world, minus enthusiasm.
How often have I heard salesmen say in the morning that they fairly dreaded the day’s work, that the hours dragged and that they were glad when the ordeal was over. They felt no enthusiasm for their employment.
Can any one hope to succeed in life who considers a day’s work an ordeal, who goes to it as a slave lashed to his task?
An employer measures his employees largely by the spirit in which they do their work. The salesman who goes to his task with energy, determination, and enthusiasm, by his very bearing gives assurance that the thing he undertakes will not only be done, but will be done as well as it can be done. On the other hand, when a salesman drags himself about as though existence were a burden, when he takes hold of his work with repugnance, as though he dreaded it, it does not take an expert judge of human nature to know that he will never amount to anything.
No matter how strongly and perfectly constructed, or how powerful a locomotive may be, unless the water is heated to two hundred and twelve degrees, the train will not move an inch. Warm water, water at two hundred and eleven degrees will not answer. The water must be at the boiling point.
No matter how fine a brain or how good an education a salesman may have, without the steam of enthusiasm, which propels the human machine, his work will be ineffective. It is the enthusiastic man in every trade or profession, the man with fire and iron in his blood, whose enthusiasm is at the boiling point, who makes things move in this world. The half-hearted, indifferent, aimless worker, who is never aroused to the two-hundred-and-twelve degree of live interest and enthusiasm in his especial task, is headed for failure. He will never be his own manager. He is lucky if he succeeds in holding down even a poor job.
The prizes of life are for the dead-in-earnest and enthusiastic. The world has ever made way for enthusiasm. It compels men to listen. It convinces the most skeptical. As Bulwer-Lytton once said: “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is a real allegory of the Lute of Orpheus; it moves stones; it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity; and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”
Knowledge and skill have never been a match for enthusiasm. It multiplies a man’s power, raises whatever ability he has to its highest. One talent with enthusiasm back of it has ever accomplished more than ten talents without it. Enthusiasm is the powder that drives the bullet home to its mark.
To produce the best results, enthusiasm must be steady, continuous, not fitful or uncertain.
I know a man who is a valuable solicitor if his employers can only keep him keyed up to the right point, supplied with enthusiasm. When his enthusiasm is at high tide he accomplishes wonders, but the moment it ebbs he is good for nothing. And his enthusiasm often ebbs; it is very uncertain. One day he will impress you as a powerful man, a man with great determination, vigor and push—he makes everything move; then you meet him on one of his off days, when the tide is out, and scarcely know him. His mentality is flabby, his courage is down. He goes about with a blue and discouraged look, and is practically good for nothing. But when he rallies and his courage and enthusiasm come back, he is a regular giant.