Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

The efficient man is always growing. He is always accumulating knowledge of every kind. He does not merely look with his eyes. He sees with them. He keeps his ears open. He keeps his mind open to all that is new and fresh and helpful.

The majority of people do not see things; they just look at them. The power of keen observation is indicative of a superior mentality; for it is the mind, not the optic nerve, that really sees.

Most people are too lazy, mentally, to see things carefully. Close observation is a powerful mental process. The mind is all the time working over the material which the eye brings it, considering, forming opinions, estimating, weighing, balancing, calculating.

Careless, indifferent observation does not go back of the eye. If the mind is not focused, the image is not clean-cut, and is not carried with force and distinctness enough to the brain to enable it to get at the truth and draw accurate conclusions.

The observing faculty is particularly susceptible to culture, and is capable of becoming a mighty power. Few people realize what a tremendous success and happiness is possible through the medium of the eye.

The telegraph, the sewing machine, the telephone, the telescope, the miracles of electricity, in fact, every great invention of the past or present, every triumph of modern labor-saving machinery, every discovery in science and art, is due to the trained power of seeing things.

The whole secret of a richly stored mind is alertness, sharp, keen attention, and thoughtfulness. Indifference, apathy, mental lassitude and laziness are fatal to all effective observation.

It does not take long to develop a habit of attention that seizes the salient points of things.

It is a splendid drill for children to send them out on the street, or out of doors anywhere, just for the purpose of finding out how many things they can see in a certain given time, and how closely they can observe them. Just the effort to try to see how much they can remember and bring back is a splendid drill. Children often become passionately fond of this exercise, and it becomes of inestimable value in their lives.

Other things equal, it is the keen observer who gets ahead. Go into a place of business with the eye of an eagle. Let nothing escape you. Ask yourself why it is that the proprietor at fifty or sixty years of age is conducting a business which a boy of eighteen or twenty ought to be able to handle better. Study his employees; analyze the situation. You will find perhaps that he never knew the value of good manners in clerks. He thought a boy, if honest, would make a good salesman; but, perhaps, by gruff, uncouth manners, he is driving out of the door customers the proprietor is trying to bring in by advertisements. You will see by his show windows, perhaps, before you go into his store, that there is no business insight, no detection of the wants of possible buyers. If you keep your eyes open, you can, in a little while, find out why this man is not a greater success. You can see that a little more knowledge of human nature would have revolutionized his whole business, multiplied the receipts tenfold in a few years. You will see that this man has not studied men. He does not know them.