CHAPTER XXIII
THE STIMULUS OF REBUFFS
It is defeat that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendancy in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause.—Henry Ward Beecher.
He only is beaten who admits it.
Do not allow yourself to think that you are weak.
The man who has never formed the victory habit is timid, because he does not know that he can conquer; he doesn’t know his strength, because he has never tested it sufficiently to know that it will win.
The manager of a big insurance company not long since asked me what books I would recommend for putting stamina into a salesman who wilted under a direct “No.”
“We have in our employ,” he wrote, “a fine mannered, well-educated and very intelligent man. We have thoroughly educated him in the technical part of our business and have done our best to perfect him in salesmanship, but he is not attaining the success we believe he should. His defect is his inability to continue a conversation with a party who abruptly tells him that he is not interested in life insurance. He states that in a number of such instances he has been unable to say a word, his throat becoming dry. From the above description it might appear to you that the man was wanting in courage. We, however, do not believe this to be the case as his record in the past does not justify that conclusion.”
How do you stand up under a “No”? Do you lose heart? Does your cheerfulness vanish? Are you conquered then and there? Or does it only act as a stimulant to more determined effort? Does it brace you to meet opposition, put you on your mettle, or do you wilt under it?
A salesman who is made of the right stuff thrives upon opposition. He braces up under rebuffs, rises to the occasion in proportion to the difficulties to be overcome.
Socrates said, “If the Almighty should come to me with complete success in His right hand, and an eternal struggle for success in His left, I would take the left.” It is through struggle, through bravely meeting and overcoming obstacles that we find ourselves and develop our strength.