“One man afterwards told me,” he said, “that I overwhelmed him with my dead-in-earnestness, won him by my determination.”
The power of the mind, whether favorable or unfavorable, is tremendous. When a man gives way to discouragement he loses his grip and begins to go down. The bottom seems to drop out of things, and everything helps him the way he is going. His thought connects him with all the thought currents of misfortune, poverty and failure. He attracts those things, for it is a psychological law that failure attracts failure, discouragement more discouragement, poverty more poverty. To a salesman discouragement is fatal, for when a man assumes the discouraged, failure attitude, he loses power and magnetism, there is nothing inspiring in him, and he not only loses confidence in himself but his fellow men also lose confidence in him. You will find it next to impossible to make a sale with a mind filled with discouragement, pessimistic, failure thoughts.
The exercise of a little will power is all that is necessary for the control of our moods, to change discouragement and depression into courage and hope.
We all know how quickly a child will work itself into a fearful spasm simply by beginning to pity itself. The more he indulges in self-pity, the louder and louder will he cry, until he completely upsets his mind and becomes hysterical.
When inclined to be blue and discouraged, men and women are like children. The temptation is to begin to pity ourselves, then we go on hanging up more dark pictures on the walls of the mind, until we have our whole mentality dressed in mourning. It is not very difficult at the beginning of a discouraged mood to shut it off by resolutely turning our minds in the opposite direction. Instead of adding to our depression by pitying ourselves the thing to do is to tear down the black flags, the hideous pictures, the gloomy visions of our imagination, to clear them all out of the mind, and let in sunlight and joy, peace and happiness. These will very quickly drive away the gloom and discouragement, and they are just as ready to enter our minds and to stay with us as their opposites, if we will only make room for them.
When you feel downhearted and mentally depressed; when, perhaps, business is dull and you begin to fear you won’t make any sales this trip, go somewhere where you can be alone and give yourself an audible self-treatment. If this is not possible, then give yourself a silent or mental one, the form in both cases may be the same. But the audible treatment is apt to be more effective, since the spoken word makes a deeper impression than that which is merely thought or passed through the mind.
Say to yourself something like this: “I am a child of God, I have a living, vital connection with the great Source and Sustainer of all things which nothing can sever. Therefore I have nothing to fear. I have strength and ability to do whatever it is necessary for me to do. I was made to be successful, to be happy. This is my birthright and nothing can rob me of it. I will succeed in everything I undertake to-day. I will be cheerful and happy. I am happy, because I was made for joy and gladness, not for gloom and sadness. They are foreign to my nature, and I will have nothing more to do with them.”
Just fill your mind with good, cheerful, uplifting thoughts and you will find that your feeling will quickly correspond with your mental attitude. After a few minutes of this auto-suggestive treatment you will be surprised at the complete transformation of your outlook. It is astonishing how we can brace ourselves up by auto-suggestion, replacing the distressing, blue, discouraging thoughts with cheerful, hopeful, optimistic thoughts.
There are men who are usually quite level-headed but who do the most foolish things when discouraged or suffering from the “blues,” acting under the influence of their moods, when the brain is clouded, inexact, uncertain in its processes, instead of clear, active, and well balanced.
Discouragement colors the judgment.