Be Committed to What You Do
What You Will Learn
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I am about to provide you some of the strangest job search and career advice you will ever receive from someone who’s in the recruiting industry. One thing you should know about me is that I’m a straight shooter. If I see a pattern repeat itself enough times, I know it’s something that must be true. The pattern I’m about to explain to you is so powerful it could change your career forever. I know it has changed mine.
The secret is commitment.
When I was in my 20s, I had a girlfriend who watched soap operas. She was committed to those shows. She would watch them every single day, and if she could not watch them, she would record them. I’m ashamed to admit that I would sometimes watch the soaps with her when she would catch up on the missed episodes. The one thing I quickly realized about soap operas was they were all about commitment, in that none of the characters could commit. Each person on every one of the shows would get into a series of relationships, be tempted by others, get out of relationships, get married, cheat, and so forth. This was all the soap operas were ever about. The characters would inevitably suffer hospitalizations for nervous breakdowns or horrible accidents (caused by their distractions). Then there would be horrible, drunken, public confessionals, and all sorts of other malfeasance. Moreover, the people on these shows would always be led to believe that, no matter how good their situation was, the grass was greener elsewhere.
Several years later, when I got into the employment market and started recruiting, I began noticing this same soap opera pattern with clients and coworkers. People would leave a job for any lapse, no matter how small. If they were criticized by an employer, I would see them start looking for another job. If someone heard another employer was paying more, they would send a résumé. If their current company or firm were getting bad press, they would start looking for another job. The reasons were innumerable. Some might seem proactive, while others were purely reactionary. One thing seemed clear to me: There was a major lack of commitment in the marketplace. People could not or would not commit themselves to a single employer, or to anything for that matter.
Commitment is key in order to experience any form of success. You should not do any sort of job if your heart isn’t in it, and you can’t be committed. If you are a public relations intern, you need to be committed to that job. If you are the president of a corporation, you need to be committed to that as well. Not being committed to your career will only have negative consequences.
Several months ago, I was speaking with a proofreader in my company, who resigned because she had found a better job across the street, one that paid more. The amount of the pay increase was minimal. I was actually prepared to give the woman a raise, a higher amount than her new job. In our meeting, the young woman explained she liked working for our company, but she needed to make more money because her husband had been unemployed for some time.
I told her I was very sorry about this and asked how she became aware of the new job. She was a nice girl and I was interested in talking to her about this. The job she was doing at our company was very demanding and had required her to take work home at night, and to work very hard for the most part. In response, she told me she’d been freelancing for the other company for some time, and this was how she came to entertain a new full-time job offer.
Once she told me this, I was no longer interested in trying to keep this person at our company. I knew immediately she was not committed to our company to the degree I wanted her to be. She was not someone I wanted on my team.
Your boss (and we all have bosses) wants employees who are committed to what they do.
Whenever I hear someone tell me they are just doing something until they can find something better, I know that person will never really succeed. When I see someone leave a job for trivial reasons, I also know that person will probably not reach the success for which they’re striving. When I see people watch the clock and leave at 5 p.m. every day because they are not really interested in what they are doing, I know those people will probably have mediocre careers. Commitment shines through, and it is easy to see when it’s not there.
Each morning, I read the Wall Street Journal. I spend at least 45 minutes reading it cover to cover. Most of the stories in this publication are about Fortune 500 companies and other such organizations. At least once a week, I see something along these lines written there:
John Smith started out as a repairman for a local office of X company in 1977. Today, he is CEO of the same company, with 18,000 employees in 26 countries and revenues of $4.2 billion last year…
It’s not coincidental I keep seeing stories like this in the paper. Without a doubt, the people who are rising up in these situations are those who are the most committed. When they join a company they join and remain in a committed fashion. They show up to work. These are the kinds of people who grow within corporations. They usually keep their jobs, but if they ever lose a job they will find another job quickly. Their commitment attracts success.
Being committed also has financial rewards. I have several people working for me on salary, whose incomes have consistently risen (more than tripled) in the past 3-4 years alone, because I know they are committed. I know their hearts and souls are in the job. I have recruiters working for our company who make 2-3 times more money than the average recruiter due to their level of commitment to the job.
It’s very common for people who’ve held too many jobs within a short span of time to never find a job in their industry again. This happens to lawyers all the time. It is well known in the recruiting community that if you have had more than two jobs in five years (or even 5-6 over a 20+ year career), it demonstrates a lack of commitment. Even if you can account for the problems you might have had with those employers, it would seem clear that the problem is not your employer–the problem is almost certainly you.
Prospective employers will want to avoid you because they know you will leave them, too. You will find fault with them just as you have found fault with all of your other employers. You will tell the people you work with why you do not like the company. You will tell other potential employers you are interviewing with why you do not like the company. Who needs that? Most employers avoid these sorts of people like the plague.
It pays to be committed not only to your employer, but to your career. Your commitment will come out in everything you do, and you will shine. There are countless stories of the secretary who becomes the president of the company, the guy in the mailroom who ends up buying the corporation and becoming a billionaire, the worker who sweeps up at the auto dealership, who becomes a salesman, then the top salesman, and eventually buys the auto dealership and another, and another, and so on.
All of that comes through the power of commitment.
I am in the employment industry. I love what I do. I want you to succeed. I want to coach you. I am committed to what I am doing.
Are you?
Keep a Broad Perspective When Looking for a Job
What You Will Learn
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People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and, if they cannot find them, make them.
-George Bernard Shaw
Experts have predicted the American economy may fall into such dire straits it might become impossible for anyone to obtain a loan. The time may come when everything needs to be paid for in cash. Imagine if the situation became so dire that the few jobs available didn’t even pay well. Or that even those professions known for bringing in six figures or more saw their incomes cut significantly. Imagine if people across the land rode bicycles because they couldn’t afford their cars anymore, and the roads went left in disrepair. And your country was at war.
How bad does this sound to you? While some may be suggesting this is where our economy is headed, the fact is this is already happening in many places around the world.
One of the largest mistakes people make when thinking about their job search is failing to maintain their perspective. People do not realize how many opportunities there are in the market, how much they are capable of, and how much they can personally achieve. They fail to factor in their own potential.
You may not realize this, but, regardless of the sort of job you are seeking, you can find it. There are probably lots of people out there who think otherwise. You may think otherwise. However, it is important to remember and believe in your personal potential.
Despite your current situation, no matter how dire it may seem, you are literally surrounded by a smorgasbord of opportunities. If you are not taking advantage of them, you are missing out. Sometimes you have to seek out the opportunities or create them yourself. Being able to do this is crucial, and can make all the difference in your quest for success.
Let me share with you some of the opportunities that exist of which you may be unaware. In sharing each of these opportunities with you, I also want you to understand the only thing preventing you from taking advantage of these opportunities is your perspective.
Consider the following career advice:
-There are opportunities with employers with whom you’ve already interviewed;
-There are opportunities with employers you’ve worked with in the past;
-There are opportunities with co-workers with whom you’ve worked in the past;
-You can apply for jobs for which you are underqualified;
-You can apply for jobs for which you are overqualified;
-You can apply for jobs that are in cities, states, or countries other than where you are now;
-You can send your résumé to employers to whom you have already sent your résumé in the past;
-You can send your résumé to employers who are not hiring in your city, just to see what happens;
-You can send your résumé to employers who are not hiring all over your state, just to see what happens (you can use EmploymentAuthority to do this);
-You can cold-call employers all over your city to see if they have work;
-You can ask friends if they know of any openings;
-You can visit the website of every employer in the United States to see if they have jobs (you can use Hound to do this);
-You can visit the websites of every employer and every job site in the country, and apply to the jobs that match your interests (you can use EmploymentCrossing to do this);
-You can apply for jobs all weekend;
-You can reapply for jobs all weekend;
-You can read about how to be a better interviewer in your spare time;
-You can practice your interview skills with an employer or loved one;
-You can research how to write good cover letters;
-You can get your résumé professionally written (you can use RésuméApple to do this);
-You can meditate about the best ways to get a job, and visualize securing your perfect job;
-You can ask your grocer, doctor, and others if they know of any job openings.
When you shift your perspective, you will see opportunities you might otherwise have missed. When you keep your mind open, you become aware of all the potential that exists. You will see the world is wide open for you, no matter what the experts might say.
Your Job is a Game: Make Your Opponents External
What You Will Learn
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After being in the workforce for many years, I’ve come to realize that all of our jobs are, quite simply, games. In every job you have ever had you are part of a game. Your ability to play the game and be part of the team will determine your success or failure. The ability of your employer to externalize the game and the opponent will determine the success or failure of the enterprise. Games consist of rules, freedoms, barriers, and opponents.
Every organization has a certain set of rules by which it operates. These rules determine how you should do your work. If you violate these rules, you can be kicked out of the game (fired) much like a soccer player can be ejected from a game for doing something improper. Your employer will typically have a set of rules for when you are supposed to be at work, how the work is to be done, and the number of tasks you are required to complete (in a sport we might call these points).
Every organization and business also has a series of freedoms and barriers. The freedoms are the actions you can take and the things you are allowed to do. The barriers are the things you cannot do. The freedoms are given much like a sport assigns different freedoms. For example, in soccer the goalie is the only one allowed to touch the ball with his hands (a specially designated freedom), while the other players are not allowed to do so (a barrier). In corporations, different people typically have different rights, depending on their given position within the corporation.
The most significant part of any game is the presence of an opponent. If you don’t have an opponent, it’s not a game. It’s just practice.
One of the most interesting things I have seen in the workforce is that organizations tend to have opponents who are both external and, unfortunately, internal. A business and its people are “fired-up” and motivated primarily by the presence of outside opponents, and the need to overcome them. Businesses and their people also become more cohesive by coming together against their opponents. If this does not occur, the organization most often fails.
Most companies have a series of external opponents. For example, Yahoo!’s external opponent would be Google and vice versa. Amazon’s would be Barnes & Noble. Apple’s is Microsoft. The presence of external opponents serves to bring people within corporations together to fight for a common purpose, and to motivate the people in the company to work hard and believe in what they are doing. Fighting the good fight helps motivate people to get up in the morning and to get excited about going to work.
Organizations generally operate under the belief there is an external opponent to be fought (i.e., the “established company”) in a given space. However, if there is no established force for the organization to fight against, problems often develop.
Another issue that develops in virtually all companies – especially companies with no external opponent – is that people inside the company start manufacturing internal opponents instead of external ones. This most often occurs in companies without well-defined external competitors. In my opinion, the internal opponent phenomenon is among the more important things to understand when it comes to work and your success in both getting and keeping a job.
Several years ago, I started getting calls from associates in a large law firm in Los Angeles that, at the time, was called Troop Meisinger. This was a very successful law firm that was also considered a very good place to work in Los Angeles. While I am not aware of the specifics of how the firm was run, many parts of the firm had been pieced together from numerous other law firms (i.e., groups had joined from other firms or through mergers). When these groups joined, they were often viewed as competitors for the firm’s work and profits, and were treated as outsiders by the senior staff attorneys. Eventually, the firm became a group of numerous factions that were all working against one another. Instead of competing against outside law firms, all of these factions were competing against one another.
The calls that came to me from the firm’s associates were always about a different internal opponent within the firm. With so many internal opponents, the firm eventually imploded. When many of these groups found new jobs at other firms, they started creating the same sort of problems out of habit and did a lot of damage to the firms they joined.
As the old adage states, “Two is company and three is a crowd.” This is often true. A group of two people often collaborates better than a group of three. I think what tends to happen in a group of three is two of the people will find a slight to major degree of fault with the third person and, as a consequence, will come together to exclude the third person in some way.
The same thing happens in many organizations. Someone always seems to be on “the outs.” When someone is on “the outs”, they become an opponent to the group. It is like an athlete who is playing badly. The team members start talking about how this player is harming the team’s overall chances for success. The team may make the decision to sideline the player unless he or she changes and rises to the occasion.
I read somewhere that every year General Electric ranks its employees, and that the employees in the bottom 10 percent each year are given one year to improve. If they fall into the same bottom 10 percent the next year, they are dismissed. This is a method by which the company ensures that people who are not performers are eventually excluded from the team.
Unhealthy organizations can also find opponents in a paranoid way from time to time. These organizations allow rumors to flourish and enemies proliferate. If a manager arbitrarily fires people (regardless of whether or not they have been playing by the rules), people in the organization may start manufacturing internal opponents, often for no reason at all. No one knows who can be trusted in unhealthy organizations, and the process can get out of control.
This brings us back to you, and how you can find success in your career. You do not want to imagine the people you are working with as opponents, but as teammates. Externalize the opponent. Don’t look for an opponent among your co-workers. You want to ensure you are playing by the rules in your company, and that you are always seen as part of the team. If you’re not, then the team will quickly turn against you.
When you are interviewing for a position, you need to stress you’ll be part of the team, not someone who will be excluded from the team. When you are doing a job, you need to do everything within your power to ensure you’re always winning favor with the team, and that you are an asset. This means you should be doing things publicly that demonstrate you’re trying to help the team. You should also never speak negatively of your team members.
One of the best ways to tell if someone will be good at a job is to look at their employment stability. This is even more important than where someone went to school, how well they did in school, or even how prestigious their last employer was. Employment stability shows the ability to be a successful team player. Working successfully with most employers is like avoiding a hot ball that is always moving around. If the ball touches you, you will lose favor with the team, and you’ll be ejected from the game. The best workers are always the people who have the most stability, and who are able to consistently avoid the hot ball. I think this has a lot to do with the simple fact they’re able to work well with a team.
The people who have the most employment stability have very similar profiles. These people join “teams” rather than get jobs. When they are looking for a new job, it is usually because the owner of the company retired, or due to some other factor beyond their control. When they are hired, it is almost like their presence alone brings positivity to the organization they are joining. I have seen the résumés of people who have joined one company after another that failed. I’ve hired people like this and it’s almost as if they’ve brought a cancer to our company. They are negative and polarizing. I wonder sometimes if extremely negative people inside a corporation can actually cause that company to fail.
When I observe people who’ve had a lot of employment stability, I notice they never participate when people start speaking negatively of others. They simply do not get involved. I’m amazed at how well they navigate the waters and stay employed when others around them do not. It is also worth noting the people who tend to do well are also the people who consistently work hard and play by the rules. The team always views them as valuable players.
In order to become employed and stay employed you want to be part of the team. You do not want to be on the outs with the team. Instead of talking about internal opponents, find external ones to concentrate on. External opponents bring you and the team closer as you work toward a common goal. In order for your company to succeed it’s important it has an external opponent to drive it towards victory.
My career advice is to leave it to other people to get involved in the political innuendos and other negative goings-on in your company. Work hard and do not participate in the politics. This is a sure way for you to score big in your career.
Your Ultimate Goal: How You Can Find Job Security
What You Will Learn
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One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice whatsoever. It can be devastating to lose your source of income unexpectedly, especially in a contracting economy. Losing a job can color our perspective on the world and our future. Going forward, we have a difficult time allowing ourselves to ever feel secure again. We believe that things can change in an instant and that we might be suddenly out of a job again. This fear of sudden job loss is something that many people who have been terminated from jobs carry with them throughout their careers. The goal for all of us is to be in positions where we are secure, and to keep that security. Recently, I saw the movie American Beauty again. When I first saw the movie I was younger; I didn’t really understand the importance of what was going on, and how it applies to everyone in the working world. In the movie, the protagonist is fired from his job. In response to this, he decides he wants to simplify his life and he takes a position in a fast food restaurant–which is far beneath the sort of job he had been fired from. He takes this job, the viewer is led to believe, because he wants to go back to a simpler, happier time in his life, and have again that feeling of empowerment and security from his youth. His goal is to find that stability in a world that had grown dark and uncertain around him.
Stability and certainty are so important to many of us that we often settle for far less than we could have simply because we want that security. We settle for worse jobs than we could get, we settle for less pay than we could earn. Simply stated, we settle because our cost benefit analysis of the world tells us security is more important than pay, job satisfaction, or status.
Several weeks ago, I wandered into an impossibly expensive bed store in Beverly Hills with my wife (where some beds cost as much as $50,000) and when I asked why someone would spend so much on a bed the salesperson told me that we spend one third of our lives there. However, we spend far more than one third of our lives at work–or thinking about it. Furthermore, if we do not work we cannot even afford a bed! Therefore, work is one of the most important aspects of our existence.
When you add up everything we do in our lives, whether it is participating in a church or synagogue, spending time with friends or family, or engaging in various hobbies-you will quickly discover that most of our time is spent working. Work may be the predominant activity in our lives, whether we want to admit it or not, and, more importantly, if we do not like our work, we are probably not enjoying life.
Have you ever spent time with people who hate their jobs? This is practically all they talk about. Not liking their jobs makes people depressed or angry. Being around people who hate their jobs is a miserable experience. I remember growing up in Detroit, where many of my friends’ parents would come home at the end of the day from jobs they hated. They would walk straight to the liquor cabinet, pour a drink, and, after 20 minutes or so, begin complaining to their spouses about how much they hated work, or about some slight they received from their boss that day. Several hours later, a loud argument might even break out between the parents. This process would be repeated day after day. Even at the age of seven or eight, watching this process taught me that not liking one’s job was a huge problem.
Sometimes it takes a child’s mind to see what is really going on in the world. I remember writing reports about Russia when I was around seven or eight. The major conflict in the world that existed up until the 1990s was the threat of communist Russia against the United States. We were afraid of communism, but, in reality, communism is nothing more than an economic system wherein people are given jobs and told exactly what to do. They are paid less by the state but, in exchange, they receive security. In the United States, capitalism is built on a lack of security. You have your choice of jobs, but it is up to you to find security within the capitalist system. Entire civilizations have been built on the quest for security.
In the United States, a giant strike was going on in late 2008 between the machinist union at Boeing and the company. The company was demanding the right to outsource certain work, and the workers were demanding security in their jobs. This fight cost the company $100 million a day. At the same time, similar conflicts between unions and automobile companies were having far-reaching implications for the American auto industry.
The fight for security is all around us.
When a man loses his job, you will usually find him in a bad mental state. Sometimes the man will stop shaving. He may look confused. He will fight with his wife more and snap at people around him. The stress of not having a job, or feeling a lack of purpose, can quickly bring on emotional problems. When people are having emotional problems, a psychologist or doctor may prescribe drugs or treatment, maybe wanting to talk about the person’s parents, for example. Most often a better solution would be to look at how the person’s job is going-or how their lack of a job is affecting them. Fix a person’s career and most other things often quickly fall into place.
If security is so important, how does one go about finding it in a job? People get college educations, professional degrees, and do everything within their power to make themselves attractive to employers so they will have security. People rehearse interviewing so they can get a job. People attempt to go into industries or work in sectors with presumed security, whether they are in government, real estate, medicine, or law. Every industry out there has been presumed to be secure at one time or another. However, all of them involve some level of instability.
After studying the employment market for some time, I believe there are several ways to look for security. There is a push and pull between finding security and making a great deal of money. The question is, what do you want and how much are you willing to risk? Since I am a former attorney, I will draw from my experience to give you some career advice, and an indication of how the employment process works in the legal industry.
When attorneys graduate from law school, they typically try their hardest to get the highest-paying jobs they can. The highest-paying jobs are with large law firms and they typically pay around $160,000 a year. Due to the massive amount of money these attorneys make, they are expected to work extremely hard; they are also very quickly let go if they are not billing as expected or if there are issues with their work. These jobs typically do not have a lot of long-term security, and if young attorneys believe they may lose their jobs they will usually try to find another job at another high-paying firm. They will likely keep doing this until they either become a partner at a high-paying firm, or they end up changing careers.
Once attorneys get a few years of experience at a high-paying law firm, they generally start wanting to leave the law firm to work for a corporation. Jobs with corporations are very much in demand. In most cases, corporate jobs pay at least 50 percent less than jobs at law firms. The reason attorneys want to work for corporations, though, is due to the security factor. Security appeals to some attorneys far more than money (jobs with corporations typically also require less work).
Most (over 95 percent) attorneys do not end up with jobs in the highest-paying law firms. These attorneys typically do not change jobs as often and, in my experience, have a lot more long-term security. As an example, almost all of the attorneys I personally know who started practicing law with large firms that paid large salaries are no longer practicing law ten years later. The attorneys I know who went to small law firms or took positions with the government, on the other hand, are still practicing law. This phenomenon bears some examination, and I think there are reasons behind it.
I believe that the attorneys who went to large firms saw so many people lose their jobs (and may have lost their own jobs) that they simply became disillusioned with practicing law because they saw no security in it. Conversely, smaller firms, which typically pay less, do not let people go as aggressively; the attorneys working there experience far more security within the practice of law and therefore continue their legal careers.
Generally, the higher paid or more competitive the job you take, the more insecurity that job will involve. Think about investment banks letting go of thousands of people. You will rarely find an investment banker in his mid-30s even who has been with the same firm his entire career.
I also want to note that the more complex the organization you are in is, the less security you will generally have in your job. For example, giant companies like Yahoo! might suddenly decide to let go of 10 percent of their staff to save money. A larger organization is, in many respects, more impersonal and, due to its complexity, there are forces involved that are simply beyond the control of the people working there.
A few months ago, I went to the dentist and, as I started speaking with the dentist and his staff of four, they told me that they had all been working together for over 20 years! I thought about how rare this is in today’s society, where people move around so frequently between jobs. In considering this, however, I quickly realized the reason. A dental office is not a complex institution. If it is set up in the right area (an economically stable one) and the dentist is respectable (this dentist was also a professor of dentistry at USC), the operation should continue going indefinitely. In this case, the lack of complexity in the dentist’s operation, and the presumed stability of the business, made it a secure work environment. Working in a small dental office is a secure job, it would seem, and in that sense, not much different from the job that the protagonist in American Beauty found working in a fast food restaurant.
There is one last point I want to make that is crucial and involves the people or person you will be working for. I am sure you have heard stories of the crazy boss in a given company who randomly lets people go, or who is altogether unbalanced. If you make your choice of employer based on one thing alone, make sure you are working for a stable person. You can detect a stable boss by many factors, such as the length of time certain employees have worked directly for him or her. Being around stable people is very important in your work environment, and so is feeling comfortable around the people you work with. You need to feel comfortable or you will have reason to doubt your security.
Security in a job is one of the more fundamental issues in all societies and is a basis for conflict between nations and people. Realize that you need to seek security and find it at all costs. This is the most important aspect of any job.
The Multiple Mentality Course
Originally published in the 1920s, ‘The Multiple Mentality Course’ by Harry Kahne, describes a series of exercises leading to the development of greater mental power. The author, who was at one time known as The Incomparable Mentalist and The Man with the Multiple Mind, often demonstrated his ability on stage by doing six different mental operations simultaneously. He believed that each one of us is capable of performing amazing mental feats and through this book, helps the reader to become mentally alive, strong, and vibrant. I am sure this book will help bring out that latent potential that has always been within you.
–Harrison
The Multiple Mentality Course
A Series of the Exercises leading to the Development of Greater Mental Power. A True Course in Right/Left Brain Training, Development of Creative Intelligence and Conscious Fostering of Intuitive Powers.
by Harry Kahne
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement
Introduction
I. How the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence
II. How Multiple Mentalism Differs from Psychology & Psychiatry
III. Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds
IV. Relationship Between Mental & Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism
V. Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple Mentalism
VI. Multiple Mentalism in Trades, Commerce & Professions
VII. The Problem of Middle Aged Men in Business
VIII. What Creative Imagination is & How to Develop it
IX. Specialization Means Narrowing the Mind; Diffusion Means Mental Shallowness
X. Multiple Mentalism as an Aid in Public Speaking
XI. How to Develop Intuition — The Sparkplug of Intelligence
XII. Modern Education & Its Critics Equally at Fault
Acknowledgment
This Multiple Mentalism course is a revised version of the course originated by Harry Kahne in the early 1920s. At that time he was billed as The Incomparable Mentalist and The Man with the Multiple Mind.
He often demonstrated his ability on stage by doing six different mental operations simultaneously. His platform performance entailed standing in front of a large blackboard with a piece of chalk in each hand while conversing with the audience. There was a newspaper on a music rack in front of him. He began reading the headlines while writing upside down and backwards with one hand and mirror language with the other hand.
At his left was another small blackboard on which appeared the number 28,642,981,673 — which was being divided into five unequal parts — these figures he began computing at the bottom of the large blackboard. To his right was another small blackboard on which appeared seven columns of figures which ran into the millions. These were being added and notated as well at the bottom of the larger blackboard in front of him.
This was Harry Kahne’s demonstration of doing six things at one time, i.e., reading, transposing, writing backwards and upside down, holding a conversation, adding and dividing. These six separate processes actually involve fourteen distinct operations, i.e., hearing questions, answering questions, reading a newspaper, transposing what is read, transposing spelling, writing with right hand, writing with left hand, writing upside down, carrying six different thoughts in mind, retaining questions, retaining figures for addition, retaining figures for division, proving previous work and controlling all other physical actions of the body — such as walking, bowing, etc..
At the end of Harry Kahne’s demonstrations, people often asked him, “Do you really believe that nearly everyone can learn to perform the amazing mental feats you demonstrate? Is my brain capable of carrying on four to six independent functions at one and the same time, as yours is? Isn’t the ability to master your training confined to well educated people?” When answering, Harry Kahne admitted he had only an average brain to do things no other man in history had done. Education had no bearing on it.
Introduction
One of the saddest things the people in this complex world of today are confronted with — is the disuse of their brains! We are constantly beset and bombard with ever-increasing demands that we are ill-equipped or unprepared to handle! Hence, very often, stress sets in. Stress can then contribute to physiological and psychological disruptions which bring about disease and illness. Efficiency is down. Accidents and mistakes become more frequent.
Now this course may not turn you into an Einstein or an Edison, but it will help you to think with more of what GOD gave you — Your brain! It is the only course of its kind in the world. If you proceed with it lesson by lesson without deviating or digressing, you will no longer be besieged by situations too hard to cope with! You WILL be master over the most difficult situations and the answers will show themselves easily. This course is the key to clearer thinking. It will elicit that latent potential that has always been within you, and you will mentally grow strong and vibrant — full of life and health.
Have you ever watched an unusual performer do something that you thought was fantastic? Did you ever wonder how he got that way? He certainly wasn’t born with this talent, but instead he learned to develop such a talent by training himself. You are endowed with the same basic mental and bodily functions as such a performer. Of two people, each possessing the same natural ability and identical schooling, one will attain great heights of achievement, while the other remains in a status of mediocrity.
There are many examples in history of those who excel and use their brain. Some mechanics become Thomas Edisons or Henry Fords, while others are “grease monkeys” to the day of their death. This wide discrepancy in the fortunes of men is due to the fact that some see and do the right thing at the right time — while others do not. But… the one man in a thousand who sees correctly and acts with decisiveness at precisely the proper time does not blindly HAPPEN to do so. He sees and acts courageously and correctly because his mind is trained to react efficiently under all circumstances. He has acquired this mental training — this ability to make his brain cells really work — unconsciously. He has not realized that he has been training and developing his mind to do so.
After completing this mental development course, you will no longer suffer the balm of a tired mind, but instead you will be mentally alive and feel at ease with yourself. Problems that plagued you before will become easy to solve and the correct decisions will always be readily available.
Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will be amazed at your own ability to perform mental feats that you previously had not thought possible of yourself. It is then that you will realize the boundless potential of your own mind and what it can do for you. As you proceed through each lesson, your brain power will be increasing in strength. Mentally you will be more equipped to handle everyday situations. No matter what your education or experience, for the first time in your life, you will be truly using your brain power storehouse.
Of course, this course in mind training can only benefit you in proportion to the time and effort with which you devote to it. Don’t try to find easy methods of doing a certain exercise or lesson for you will only be cheating yourself out of the rewards of completing that lesson. When an exercise states that you do it from memory alone, then don’t copy, but do it from memory alone!
Whatever your profession this course will help you perform better and more efficiently. You will find that the difficult and near impossible success can be yours and your hidden dreams can be concrete realizations.
Harry Kahne’s brain was little different from yours. However, such as it was, he taught it to work for him. Really work! All its resources were instantly available when he wanted or needed them. It had been trained to do what he wanted it to do, when he wanted it done. His was only an average brain made to perform certain tasks for him.
In this series of lessons or exercises are all the things you need to make your mind work for you. You will be surprised to find how simple they are and how much actual fun and satisfaction you will get from completing the course. Why, it’s like a game — but with far more value than any game ever possessed!
Follow the instructions conscientiously and you will develop all the cells of your brain. You will train them to work in unison for you. And when they do that, YOU CAN MAKE YOUR MIND DO ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO DO! You can carry on several lines of thought simultaneously. The most difficult problems will seem to solve themselves. The hardest questions, seen in their proper perspective and with all their factors viewed concurrently, become easy to answer promptly and correctly. You will not become perplexed about little things that now cause you setbacks of greater or lesser degrees, because your brain will automatically analyze and evaluate them accurately and give you the right answers at the right time. Such thinking brings SUCCESS!
The first lessons are almost childishly simple. But as you progress from one to another they become more difficult and involved. However, your mind will become correspondingly more able to grasp them and, in a surprisingly short time, you will be actually amazed by your own ability to perform mental feats you had not thought possible — feats of incalculable value to you in the business and professional world. You will realize at last that there is literally NO LIMIT to the extent to which you will be able to make your mind work for you!
With each lesson, you will learn how you can apply the principles of mental function you acquire to help you in your everyday life. There is no lesson that does not have its practical application in achieving financial or social success. When you are only half way through, you will be unwilling to accept a thousand dollars for the ability you already will have acquired. No matter what your education, training or experience, you will be using them to real advantage for the FIRST time in your life!
Obviously, this course can benefit you only in proportion to the time and sincerity with which you follow it. Therefore, devote the prescribed time effort to every lesson. Do not cheat yourself. Do not copy the exercises from the words you put down. Do them from memory — and from memory alone. Do not proceed to any lesson until you have thoroughly mastered the one preceding it. To do so defeats the purpose of the course — defeats your own desires — nullifies your efforts. Be fair with yourself throughout! Soon you will be achieving mental exercises previously never thought possible.
Although the exercises necessarily are performed with words and figures the results they accomplish in building Brain Power will be reflected in your work day by day, no matter what that work may be. You will find that problems now difficult or even impossible for you to cope with resolve themselves into simple matters before you are half way through the course. In short, the Impossible becomes Simple!
And now I shall give you something startling to think about — something at once alluring and encouraging. There lies dormant within every man some thought, idea, plan — call it what you will — that probably is deeply buried in his subconscious mind, doomed never to reach fruition. But if that thought or plan were brought into the light, allowed to develop, it would make its owner a truly outstanding success — a man of achievement to whom people would point. And I say to you that if you train your mind to work for you — to delve into the unexplored resources of your brain and emerge with the treasures hidden therein — spectacular success will be yours! If you are honest with yourself in understanding Multiple Mentalism, if you are earnest and sincere in your desire to rise far above the ordinary, I will show you how to be successful and powerful beyond your fondest dreams! Simply follow my instructions as given on the following pages — and you will amaze yourself and the world at large!
Chapeter I
How the Space Age Degenerates Intelligence
Dr. Alexis Carrel, surgeon, scientist, member of the Rockefeller Institute, winner of the Noble Prize in 1912 for his success in suturing blood vessels and the transplanting of organs, co-discover of the famous Carrel-Dakin solution which made gangrene virtually unknown in World War I and thus saved tens of thousands of lives, said in his book, Man, The Unknown:
“Modern civilization seems to be incapable of producing people endowed with imagination, intelligence and courage. In practically every country there is a decrease in the intellectual and moral caliber of those who carry the responsibility of public affairs. The education dispensed by schools and universities consists chiefly in a training of the memory and of the muscles, in certain social manners, in a worship of athletics. Are such disciplines really suitable for modern men who need, above all other things, moral courage and endurance!” Those statements are truer now than when Dr. Carrel wrote the book in the early 1930s. Now our brightest and best students have shown an average drop in SAT scores since the early 1970s. This controversy abounds in speculative arguments blame television, permissiveness and educational teaching methods.
But the cause of this mental weakness is not difficult to discern. The pioneers who settled our country were many-sided men — we are not. They were at once hunters, trappers, explorers, fighters, teamsters, ship or canoe builders, horsemen, wheelwrights, carpenters, cabinetmakers, well drillers, masons, farmers, blacksmiths, traders, cooks — all these, and more, “specialized” trades and abilities combined in single individuals! No wonder they were possessed of “mental equilibrium, nervous stability”, and other attributes mentioned by Dr. Carrel! They were well balanced because their talents were well rounded. They had nervous stability because they had serene self-confidence based on a knowledge of their ability to cope with any problem that might arise in their world. They had sound judgment, for the most part, because their minds were expanded, embraced many branches of lore and learning, were capable in thinking on many varied planes.
And so with the early merchant. He was at once his own architect, store designer, buyer, stockkeeper, advertising manager, salesman, bookkeeper, and financial wizard. The doctor of only a generation ago was an obstetrician, gynecologists, dentist, opthalmologist, throat specialist — in short, a “general practitioner” in all branches of surgery and medicine.
Today, we have more intelligent exploration, more intelligent farming, better architecture, advertising, accounting, obstetrics, dentistry and surgery. But what Man as a whole has gained, man as an INDIVIDUAL — you and your family and your employer and your employees — has lost. You have lost the capacity for broad-gauge reasoning. You are incapable, at present, of viewing many conflicting factors simultaneously — weighing them side by side at one and the same time — balancing them, one against another, concurrently — reaching almost instantaneously a decision which you know, in the depths of your being, is the correct decision and acting upon it promptly with the courage that comes with such conviction.
By relieving man of the necessity for thinking, except within the exceedingly narrow scope of whatever he has chosen as his life work, this Space Age has dulled and drugged the greater part of Man’s mind. How many men in this day of automobiles could even harness a horse, to say nothing of caring for it? Why, the majority of them do not understand even the automobiles they drive! The workers themselves, who help build our cars by inserting and securing bolt No. 146, do not understand carburation, ignition, or the principles of the transmission and differential. We no longer train our minds to carry thoughts what we wish to impart to our friends when we next meet them. If the thoughts are important, we reach for a phone or send a letter. If they are relatively unimportant, we forget them. Machines and computers have become Masters, and Minds are deteriorating because of ever-decreasing opportunities, and need for, their use!
That is why your mind needs “limbering up”. The very elementary mental gymnastics that I will give you at the start may seem useless almost to the point of foolishness, but they are like the preliminary “warming up” exercises with which athletes indulge before beginning a game. They are simple, easy to do and apparently without meaning. However, they are but the start. As your mind gains flexibility, really “warms” to its task, I shall take you farther and farther until you are performing feats that will astound your friends — and which will reflect themselves in your increased business ability and earning power.
Exercise I
Although this is the simplest of my twelve exercises, it is by far the most important, for it is upon this exercise that all subsequent instructions are based. Now, too, is the time for you to acquire the proper habit of study. “Well begun is half done,” you know, and this exercise — comprising three separate mental drills — affords you the opportunity to establish your earnestness, punctuality and continuity of effort. It is designed to train you to apply yourself to a mastery of Multiple Mentalism and to give you a firm foundation of thought application upon which the rest of the lessons in this course depend.
And right here I want to emphasize what will be repeated time and again throughout the course — that you must not copy this exercise, but must work from memory alone! In this way, and ONLY in this way, will you be able to train your mind to do things for you, when and as you want them done! It is work — but it is fun too. It takes time — but it is worth it! And the results will seem nothing less than miraculous!
First: This the English alphabet:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
You were taught to memorize that in the first grade. Now, with pencil and paper, BUT WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT EVEN ONCE. write the alphabet backwards FIFTY TIMES:
Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A
The first time will be difficult and you may make mistakes. But don’t look, nor copy, nor take too long to “think it out.” Write it backwards, at a fairly even speed, regardless of how slow that speed may be, from MEMORY. This is the first training for your mind. In ten or twenty attempts you will be able to write the alphabet backwards easily. Do it fifty times and you will have mastered it perfectly.
Second: I assume that you now have mastered the alphabet backwards. If you have not, do not stop at the fifty times you have written it, but continue writing it from memory until you have mastered it. Then transpose in 1-3 2-4 order the letters of the alphabet from A to Z, as follows:
A C B D, E G F H, I K J L, M O N P, Q S R T, U W V X, (Y Z),
which are left over from the six combinations of four letters each. Do this FIFTY times from memory. It will be by no means easy the first few times, but you will gain accuracy quickly. However, you will profit nothing if you look at the letters of the alphabet in order to copy the exercise. Its value lies in the training given you by breaking up the sequence of letters in YOUR MIND, without the help of your eyes. You can readily understand how this will lead to mental agility in grasping and revolving business problems in your mind. Therefore, do this exercise AT LEAST fifty times, or as many more times as may be necessary for you to be able to do it quickly and accurately.
Third: In the same way, transpose the letters of the alphabet FIFTY times, in the order of 1-26, 2-25, 3-24, 4-23, 5-22, etc.; the first 13 letters (A to M, inclusive) in their regular order; the last 13 (Z to N, inclusive) backwards; intermingling the two halves of the alphabet thus:
A-Z B-Y C-X D-W E-V F-U G-T H-S I-R J-Q K-P L-O M-N
Do this also from MEMORY. Do not copy or look at the alphabet. And when you are doing this exercise, realizing that you are doing two things at once in your mind. You are writing the first half of the alphabet in its usual sequence, and the last thirteen letters in reverse order. You are making your brain do something for you that it never did before. It is performing a dual operation. When you have done this third part of Exercise I fifty times, entirely from memory, you will have demonstrated that you can make your mind really work for you with a nimbleness heretofore unrealized!
Don’t forget that you cheat only yourself — not anyone else — of you fail to perform these mental gymnastics from memory and if you fail to send ONE HOUR A DAY on the exercises.
And now, I am going to put you on your honor. For your own sake, master this exercise — in all its three parts — before you go on to Chapter II and its accompanying exercise. Each chapter and “drill” in this course is based on all that goes before it. Your success with the second lesson depends on your mastery of the first. Be conscientious — be fair to yourself — and spend all the time you need to do each exercise quickly, accurately and easily. The rewards will delight you!
Chapter II
How Multiple Mentalism Differs From Psychiatry & Psychology
Simplistically, psychology is the study of the normal human mind in the laboratory; that is, in an abstracted, ideal state influenced by actual, everyday environment. Psychiatry is the study of the mind’s functioning, or disorders in the functioning, under workaday conditions. Multiple Mentalism is a training system that enables the average, ordinary mind to cope successfully — and more than successfully — with the circumstances created by modern civilization.
Psychology studies the mind, but does not treat it. Psychiatry treats the maladjusted mind, but does not train the normal brain to use its full powers. Multiple Mentalism neither studies nor treats the mind, but does train and DEVELOP the average brain so that it may function easily at full capacity.
Multiple Mentalism makes no pretense of encroaching upon the domains of psychology or psychiatry — the study of instincts or psycho-neuroses. It is concerned only with taking the mind as it is — rusty, unused, dull and almost to the point of moronism in contrast to what it COULD be — and training it to utilize ALL its component parts. It is at once a method, and a process — an wakening and development of parts of the brain that now lie almost atrophied, or festering with “complexes” and unrecognized inhibitions. It brings these slumbering capabilities to the surface, energizes your thinking, broadens your grasp of things, deepens your understanding, enables you to solve instantly problems that baffle other men, gives you the power to follow several lines of thought at one and the same time, to reach decisions — correct decisions — while others fumble, to attain success that will be granted to you!
And if the rich rewards offered you through Multiple Mentalism seem disproportionate to the seeming childishness of the exercises given you to master, think again! True, you will not become Chairman of the Board in charge of all the DuPont interests because of your ability to write the alphabet backwards — nor will you land any big contracts on the strength of your being able to transpose the letters of the alphabet. But neither would Mohammed Ali expect to enter the ring with a skipping rope and beguile the public with the old childhood formula, “Salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar”! He spends much of his training time in skipping rope — but only to improve his footwork, his co-ordination and his endurance. In other words, the exercises I give you are merely silly if viewed as ends in themselves, which they decidedly are NOT. Considered in their true character, as MEANS to an end, they are most effective, the most fruitful, the speediest and most practical means of mind training that the world ever has known. And actual results will prove that I am understating their value, rather than overstating it.
With this proper understanding of what Multiple Mentalism is, and an appreciation of the exercises’ value, we are ready to proceed.
Exercise II
Do not attempt this exercise until you have mastered the three parts of the first lesson! The mental drill you are about to be given deals with words, and while you may not at first see that it has anything to do with what you learned in Exercise I, Exercise II is based on the TRAINING there given you and follows it in logical sequence. That is why it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that you master the first before taking up the second.
If you have mastered Exercise I, you will agree that it is rather easy, and very interesting, to write the alphabet backwards and to intermingle the letters. Remember, however, that the letters, words and figures used in this training are merely the tools with which you work on your mental processes — as useless in themselves as a slide rule is to a Sunday driver. They are the means — the end result is a mind of such power and adaptability that it will carry you to pinnacles of achievement far beyond your present imagination!
For your first drill in Exercise II, write from memory as many three-letter words as you can; at least thirty of them. Fifty to one hundred would be better. There is not much mental work involved in that, is there? Here are just a few for samples:
MAN DOG CAT THE HAY SEX RUN TOP WAS BUT NOW FOR HIP
|Now, write your list from memory! Do not copy these words, but think up three-letter words yourself and write them on a sheet of paper. Write them a half dozen times until you have them pretty well in mind and can recall them easily. Next, without looking at what you have written (throw the paper in the waste basket!), write as many of those words as you can remember, writing them BACKWARDS from memory, like this:
NAM GOD TAC EHT YAH XES NUR POT SAW TUB WON ROF PIH
Some of the words you have selected will form new and correct words when spelled backwards, but disregard these new words thus formed. For the purpose of this exercise they mean nothing, but are mere coincidences.
The purpose of this drill is to train your mind to see things holistically in their entirety. For instance, when you think of the word “can”, it should mean not just the sequence “c-a-n” to you, but should appear as a picture in your mind, of three letters, each equally important regardless of arrangement. The “a” is as important as the “c” or the “n” even though it is in the middle of the word. You can see the practical application of this is the consideration of commonplace problems of life and business!
Repeat this exercise twenty-five times, each time removing your previous effort from sight and making your new attempt entirely from memory, quickly forwards or backwards. And when that word pictures itself in your mind, it will appear to you not as a static sequence of three letters, but as three separate letters which your mind will be able to group into any form at will.
“But what good will that do me?” you may ask. “What good is it to me to be able to spell short words backwards?” This exercise will have taught your brain to do something it never could do it do before — it will have broken down another rut in which your mind was traveling — it is a step toward untrammeled, original thinking. And it will have developed your brain by just that much — prepared it for further training by the lessons that follow in this course.
Furthermore, it will have trained your brain to see little things, like little words, in their entirety. The small problems of life or business or the home are made up of two or three sides, or questions, or ‘angles”. No matter how simple, every question has at least two sides. The successful man is the one who can see ALL sides at once — the other fellow’s as well as his own. And, knowing the other man’s problem, he is able to take advantage of the situation of his own interests — while the other man, who sees only HIS side of the matter and does not grasp the problem as a whole, is placed at such disadvantage that he usually comes out second best. This exercise is powerful indeed in its potentialities!
Of course, these two chapters will not make you a success overnight in what you are striving for, but they have started your brain on the path to clear, concise, concurrent and analytical thinking — which is an essential to success in any effort.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Visualizing and Memory Drill
Try these drills in your spare time. Make a game of them. You will learn to like them, and all the time you will be developing your brain cells.
Drill A
Write any THREE LETTER WORD you can think of, at the same time spell aloud an entirely different THREE LETTER WORD. Example:
Write: c-a-t Write: p-e-n Write: c-u-p Spell: d-o-g Spell: i-n-k Spell: s-u-m
Continue with this drill, using different words in each attempt, until you are capable of writing ONE THREE LETTER WORD and spelling ANOTHER three letter word at the same time, without hesitation.
Drill B
Do not attempt this drill until you have mastered Drill A
Write a THREE LETTER WORD, writing the letters in reverse sequence — at the same time spell it aloud correctly. Example:
Write: t-a-m Write: t-i-h Write: y-a-p
Spell: m-a-t Spell: h-i-t Spell: p-a-y
Continue this drill, using different words.
Drill C
This drill may be a little more difficult than those preceding, but you can master it. Remember your brain is now more flexible than it was before you started MULTIPLE MENTALISM — and these drills will make it even more flexible.
Write any THREE LETTER WORD spelling it BACKWARDS: at the same time spell ANOTHER three letter word correctly. Example:
Write: t-a-h Write: t-i-f Write: n-i-p
Spell: c-a-p Spell: f-u-n Spell: p-i-t
Continue this drill until it is easy for you, using different words.You are becoming mentally STRONG.
Chapter III
Analytical vs. Synthetical Minds
At the conclusion of Chapter II, I mentioned analytical thinking. Let me make this clear, however: THE DAY OF THE ANALYTICAL MIND IS PAST, at least so far as major success is concerned. And to any of you men or women who pride yourselves upon having an “analytical mind”, I issue this warning: You’ve GOT to go beyond mere analysis and on to synthesis, or you will be a galley slave all your life, chained to the System or the Machine!
Reason it out yourself. In the beginning, primitive man was faced with a horde of unknown, mysterious and terrifying forces. The sun died daily, and was born again next dawn. Thunder threatened dire destruction in Stentorian tones. Forest fires, set by malignant, unseen demons, drove all before them. Floods wrecked the work of years. Dark diseases destroyed whole tribes. Everything about our hairy ancestors was confusion. Only the power of reasoning — analytical reasoning that could assign the right effect to the right cause — sorted things out for him and finally made Earth and its element bearable.
Then came the long period of development when men had a fairly complete understanding of their environment. They began to break more and more things down to their component parts. The jack-of-all-trades began to give way to the specialist, the man who analyzed one particular facet of a business, or a science, or a profession, or a trade. By concentration, he became an expert and won the rewards due to his superior analytical ability. That was when an “analytical mind” was the passport to success.
It is no longer necessary to have analytical ability in order to master an isolated part of any occupation or study. Medicine has been broken down into a score of sub-divisions, from Anatomy to Zoology. Business has been sub-divided into dozens of specialties, from Accounting to Underwriting. The farmer has become not merely an Agriculturist but a specific kind of agriculturist — lost in fields other where the mass of mankind finds little need for thinking at all and where analytical ability seldom distinguishes its possessor from his fellow workers — possessors of pre-analyzed knowledge.
BUT… although the world has an over-abundance of advertising managers, art directors, production managers, operating superintendents, tool makers and designers, auditors, financiers, buyers, stockkeepers, salesmen, market analysts, time and motion men and other executives… there is a definite lack of BIGGER men — men who can view these myriad other groups as you can now view a three-letter word — who can see each in its proper relationship to the others and to the world at large — and can weld from the heterogeneous mass a mercantile giant like Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck, or a manufacturing Goliath like General Motors.
And there you have a glimpse of what Multiple Mentalism will do for you — or, rather, enable you to do for yourself. It will enable you not only to apply analysis to your yourself — the technique of tearing down and studying the component parts of any situation — but, far more important, will give you the constructive ability to assemble the parts into a harmonious whole, a smooth-working organization, or plan, or book, or whatever it is upon which you are engaged. Seeing and understanding all factors simultaneously, you will be able to “synthesize” — build up — while your merely analytical competitor, like the canal boat captain of a vanished era, bemoans the passing of the “good old days”!
Therefore, Exercise III continues the analysis and synthesis drill inaugurated in Exercise II and supplements the training you have given your mind in this course so far.
Exercise III
In Exercise II you became adept at writing three-letter words backwards from memory. And right here I want to emphasize the necessity of spending at least ONE HOUR a day on this course. You can devote time to it while riding to or from work, while eating lunch, or during any of the idle moments with which every man’s day is blessed (or cursed!). No doubt you gained a fair mastery of Exercise II in an hour or so, for it is purposefully so simple that a child can do it and enjoy it. But to train the mind to accomplish a thing readily and instantly, you must train it by repetition until the process becomes automatic. In so doing, the right brain is engaged. It is not enough to be able, when leaving the second lesson, to write backwards any three letter word that comes to your mind, and to do so almost as readily as you would write it forwards. That is just a start. You must go further before taking up Exercise III. Repeat Number II every day for a week. An hour a day. At the end of the week you will find that you are doing it automatically, almost unconsciously, and absolutely without effort.
Then, but not until then, you are ready for Exercise III, in which you are to do this: Write, from memory, 25 to 50 four-letter words. Put them on a piece of paper and study them carefully. Then discard the paper and write them again. Do this several times, until you can quickly recall ALL OF THEM. Then write them backwards from memory. Here are a few samples:
Forwards: KNOB PAIN CASE SILL RING SLIP READ SHOE WOOD
Backwards: BONK NIAP ESAC LLIS GNIR PILS DAER EOHS DOOW
Although they look queer, each is a word with a very definite meaning. The letters are in reverse order, it is true — but, still, each is a word you frequently use and should be able to recognize at a glance, even though written backwards. Now, repeat this twenty-five times — EACH TIME FROM MEMORY — recalling the words in your mind and not looking at them in writing. Take a clean sheet of paper each time you write the group anew. After you have perfected yourself in this drill, you will be able to recognize the words Pale, Hump, Coon, even when you see them in reverse order, thus: Elap, Pmuh, or Nooc.
And what’s that to you? Well, it means that you have now taken the first step toward being able instantly to see all sides of simple problems, no matter in what guise they may confront you. And with this as a basis, you will build your ability to conquer life’s most difficult situations. The drills I give you in the exercises to come, make greater and greater demands upon your brain — develop it constantly to a point far beyond what you would now dream possible.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Double Concentration Drill
Drill A
Memorize this verse:
The night has a thousand eyes,
The day but one —
Yet, the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
Drill B
Recite the verse above ALOUD; at the same time write your name and address.
Example:
“The night has a thousand eyes,”
Robert Armstrong
“The day but one —”
1642 West Allison St.
“Yet, The light of a whole life dies”
Cincinnati, OH
“When love is done.”
Drill C
Recite ALOUD the verse given above, while writing a friend’s name and address. This will be a bit more difficult, but MASTER it and then try this:
Recite ANY poem, prayer or song you well know, while writing your own name and address or the name and address of a friend, or any addresses you are accustomed to writing. Continue these drills until they are easy for you to accomplish.
Chapter IV
Relationship Between Mental & Physical Health & Multiple Mentalism
Let me make this clear as promptly and emphatically as possible: Multiple Mentalism is not in any way, shape or form — directly or indirectly — a system of mental healing! At least, no more than fishing or tennis constitute business training.
However, there is a definite relationship and interdependence between bodily health and mental health. If you are weak, run-down and physically ill, your mind cannot attain its fullest efficiency until you have built up your body. The converse is equally true — if your mind is worried, stressful and in ill health, your physical organs or their functions also suffer and you cannot achieve perfect bodily condition until your mental “set” is right.
Sounds like vicious circle, doesn’t it? But in reality it is not. The human body is the one thing we know of that literally can “lift itself by its own bootstraps.” If your physical health is below par and your mental health is suffering accordingly, you can make your first steps toward recovery either through the mental or the physical. If you choose the latter, proper exercise, diet and living habits will not only start you along the road to physical health but, also, will in marked measure alleviate your mental symptoms. Having got so far — with the physical condition somewhat better, proportionately, than the mental — you should turn your attention to bettering your state of mind. Mental exercise, straighter thinking and better mental discipline can then put your mind in better health, relatively, than your body — which can again overtake and surpass your physical condition. In other words, you advance the health, first of one and then of the other, physical and mental, just as you place first one foot and then the other forward until you reach your objective.
And that explains why Multiple Mentalism — without actually being a “mind cure” or “faith cure” in any sense of the words — really has helped many to better health. This system of mind training gives your brain exercise, diversion and discipline — puts it far ahead of your body in strength and energy, because there are limits to what the body can do but no limits to the capability of the human mind! There is nothing surprising in the fact that Multiple Mentalism, by stimulating, energizing and strengthening their minds, quickly uprooted the physical symptoms.
Just as Multiple Mentalism facilitates your building up of your body, a thoroughly sound body will enable you to reap even more benefit from my training — will make it possible for your brain capacity to grow just that much more. And so I urge you again to devote at least one hour every day to the Exercises. Practice them at every opportunity. Transpose the letters and words you see on billboards, and jumble the type in your daily paper — seize every opportunity to make your mind more proficient.
Moreover, you will find within the next thirty days that you are so much more efficient at your work — because of these drills I am giving you — that you will be able to spare more time from the office for physical exercise and play. You are on your way to full enjoyment of abundant health such as you never before aspired to! No wonder that you should do full justice to each lesson I give you, taking plenty of time to it and mastering it fully before taking another step forward and upward!
Exercise IV
This is your first complex exercise. It utilizes all the training you have given your mind through Exercises I, II and III. It consists of putting words together, exactly as you must put ideas together in life in order to obtain the fullest measure of business or professional success. Probably it will take you several days to become proficient in the mental gymnastics I now introduce — but they will give you a very definite mental ability that you do not have at present.
Take 24 of the three-letter words you memorized in Exercise II, or any 24 other three-letter words that come to mind. Write them a few times so that you are thoroughly familiar with them. Then pair any two of the 24 that first occur to you, and intermingle their letters in sequence. Here is what I mean:
OIL & BIT = O B I I L T
and, likewise:
KEY & MAP = K M E A Y P
Pair up the 24 words into any 12 pairs, writing their letters, as above, in 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 order. Then start all over with the same or different letters. Mix the words in any pairs that occur to you. Intermingle their letters in the order given. Do this 20 MINUTES every day.
In the second 20-minute period of your hour’s exercise, pair a three-letter word with a four-letter word and intermingle their letters:
WERE & HAS = W H E A R S E
and, similarly:
COME & AIL = C A O I M L E
Do this FOR 20 MINUTES EVERY DAY, using a different pair every time you do it, until you can take any three-letter word and intermingle its letters with those of any four-letter word as rapidly as you could spell each word correctly by itself. This drill should immediately follow your 20-minute practice in intermingling three-letter words.
Now, for the last 20-minute period of your daily drill, do the same exercises as the two preceding, EXCEPT: pair and intermingle four-letter words, one with another, instead of using three-letter and four-letter words, thus:
LIKE & PAIR = L P I A K I E R
and also:
FOAM & LOVE = F L O O A V M E
You may realize how essential I consider it when I repeat a bit of advice given you in every exercise so far: NEVER “COPY” THE DRILL. Do it from memory! FROM MEMORY ALONE. Use your “mind’s eye”, not your physical eye. In doing this, you acquire that same miraculous ability with which the blind amaze the world — the power to recreate, in your own mind, everything about you at the moment and anything you have seen in the past. Your mind OPENS — it embraces THE WORLD IN ITS ENTIRETY. It is ILLUMINATED — dark, obscure corners become LIGHT. Your mind is awake — it LIVES. The whole earth is WITHIN YOUR MENTAL VISION — and you are master of it! That is the power possessed by the blind, in some measure — and which you can not only acquire, too, but to which you can ADD the inestimable value of sight. Truly, I exaggerate but little when I tell you that practicing these exercises until you reach perfection in them will make you nothing less than a Super-man — a being apart from those around you!
So, make your mind WORK. Don’t “coddle” it by copying — nor “baby” it by taking less than an hour’s drill every day. Take MORE, if you need it. The BIG thing is: to master — master thoroughly — each and every lesson as you go along. Perfect yourself in it before proceeding to the one following. In this way, and in this way ONLY, you will get full value from Multiple Mentalism, the SOLE course of its kind in the world.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Numerical-Word Drill
Drill A
Recite aloud the numerals from 1 to 100. At the same time write as many FOUR LETTER words correctly as you can. Continue practicing this drill until you can keep an even pace, counting and writing..
After a few attempts you should be able to write 15 or more 4-letter words without stopping your counting, although you may have to pause occasionally to think of words.
Drill B
Recite numerals from 3 to 99, while writing 4-letter words, spelled backwards.
EXAMPLE: BOAT — as you count aloud “by threes”.
SPELLED: TAOB
A friendly bit of advice to you: The more difficult you find these exercises, is the sign that you need them, so MASTER them by all means.
Chapter V
Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple Mentalism
Exercise IV may have seemed difficult at first. But by the time you take up this chapter, you will — if you are fair to yourself — have mastered Exercise IV and will now be able to do the drill easily.
This is as good a time as any for me to go on record with this statement, substantiated by every scientific authority on the workings of the human mind: THINKING NEVER HURT ANYBODY! Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s outstanding philosophers, said: “It probably is easier for great men to do great things than it is for little men to do little things”. So, if you have found it difficult to do the little exercises I have thus far given you, your brain has not yet really begun to realize its capacity and it still stamps you, comparatively, as a “little” man. However, to quote another famous figure in history, Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. Consequently, the effort you devote to these exercises will lead you surely and uninterruptedly to GREATNESS OF INTELLECT. And greatness of intellect is characterized by greatness in other things — in understanding, in sympathy, in charity and in our daily conduct. Many ends well worth striving for!
And if, in the striving, you occasionally feel a touch of “brain fatigue”, remember this: physical exercises that build up your muscles and framework are invariably accompanied, at first, by physical stiffness. This stiffness is in itself PROOF that the exercises are benefiting you — calling into play parts of your body that have been “rusting”, unused. So with the mental exercises that are given here. If they seem to make your brain stiff and somewhat “numb”, you may be sure that they are helping you. The stiffer they make you feel, in fact, the more you have been in need of just this kind of “limbering up”, and the more good you will get from it.
You are now becoming able to carry on four or five mental processes simultaneously. Your thoughts of self are no longer able to crowd other thoughts out of your mind. Expressed in another way, Multiple Mentalism has left you still conscious of self, but no longer self-conscious! You are four or five times the individual you formerly were and you have outgrown your childish self-consciousness just as you have outgrown the clothes you wore as a child!
The same factors account for the disappearance of stuttering and stammering in several others who have perfected themselves in these drills. Where thought was too rapid for words, consequently crowding the consciousness so that no part of the mind was free to direct the speech, they stuttered and stammered. With the ability to think several things at once, they were free to complete their lines of thought while other parts of their brains followed along, putting the thoughts into words and seeing that the words were properly uttered, clearly and impressively. So, too, with those who hem’d and haw’d and er’d while sparring for time in which to think. Mental agility — the ability to see and weigh all sides of a question simultaneously — now enables them to speak right out, without impediment.
Some stutterers and stammerers, we are told by psychiatrists, are victims of neuroses and complexes all unknown to themselves. Even so, when they are relieved of these neuroses, freed from these complexes by Multiple Mentalism, is there anything in that “cure” to surprise the thinking man? Complexes and neuroses hide in dark corners of the mind — hidden from sight — unpleasant experiences or desires that we wish to forget — unhappy memories or unworthy desires that our conscious minds do not want to face but which melt away instantly when dragged out into the light and dissolved by the illumination of Reason and Understanding. As you already can see, by its effects on your own mind, Multiple Mentalism opens up chamber after chamber in your brain — airs and purifies it — lets in the sunshine of Intelligence to disperse any unwholesome, buried memories that may be festering there — gives you mastery in your own mind, over all that it is and all that it contains.
After all the foregoing, you might expect Exercise V to be a drill featuring Peter Piper and his peck of pickled peppers, or the ragged rascal who ran ’round the rugged rock! However, it is not. You will find it, instead, a continuation of No. IV — a trifle more complex, perhaps — but even more interesting. If you have been faithful in your practicing and have mastered the four exercises given you so far, you have reached the point where your increased mental abilities are a constant source of amazement and pleasure to you!
Exercise V
Warning: if you have to any degree slighted the previous lessons, GO BACK AND MASTER THEM NOW, or you will fall by the wayside in your effort to acquire a Multiple Mind! Exercise V will absolutely stop 999 out of every thousand men who have not approached it by mastering Nos. I, II, III and IV. However, if you have been conscientious and regular in your practice and can now intermingle three-letter and four-letter words with ease and speed, these gymnastics will give you a genuine thrill!
First, write 24 four-letter words from memory. It is easy, of course. You have used so many of them in the preceding lesson. Now, take any two of your four-letter words (select them in your “mind’s eye”, NOT by looking at the list you have written!) and intermingle their letters so that you spell one word frontwards; the other, backwards. Like this:
HOLD & SOIL = H L O I L O D S
and
PIPE & PUFF = P P I U P F E F
Naturally, you understand that this is to be done entirely from memory — utilizing the blind man’s gift of seeing with his mind — and writing the intermingled letters on a clean sheet of paper, without having the words themselves before you as a guide. Just select the words, reach for a clean sheet of paper and write down S N U O R O E L after having selected, for example, the words SURE and LOON in your mind. Do not write SURE and LOON, themselves, at all — just their letters, intermingled as explained, and NOTHING ELSE. Pair off other four-letter words and write them similarly for 30 minutes. Do not overdo yourself by practicing more than 30 minutes at present, for you must spend at least a week, and perhaps more, on Exercise V. You will have time tomorrow and in the days following to become really proficient in this and the following drill (also a part of Exercise V). It is better, you know, to take six hours in six days, for drilling than to take even twelve hours in a single day. You learn better, and retain what you learn, which you cannot hope to do if you “cram”.
After you have practiced the above lesson for 30 minutes, go on to words of five . Write JSULMLPSAF if you have selected JUMPS and FALLS. Pair off five-letter words and write them thus FOR 30 MINUTES — no more, no less, for the first day.
Tomorrow and in the days following, until you have MASTERED this drill thoroughly, spend AT LEAST 30 minutes daily on four-letter words and five-letter words. Thirty minutes EACH, that is. Or more. Two hours in all if you can find the time — an hour and a half if you cannot manage two hours — but, at all costs, AT LEAST one full hour. And KEEP AT IT, day after day, until you can make four-letter and five-letter words “jump through the hoop” for you, in accordance with this drill.
How does this fit into your daily life and help you in solving business or household problems? Well, think it over. Something occurs on your job, let us say. Perhaps someone has been advanced over others’ heads, or someone has been unexpectedly discharged, or a deal that you thought was “in the bag” falls through. Why? You may be sure that any totally unexpected happening of any importance was preceded by an entire series of events — long and short and, perhaps, seemingly unrelated to the action in which they culminate. The most recent event in the series is probably familiar to you, but you may not see its connection with other, partially forgotten events. Now that your mind is becoming trained to break down and reconnect words, to take ten apparently unrelated letters and see them in their true relationship to each other, as two separate and distinct words, your mind will become equally able to analyze and reconstruct events in your business life — to understand that which is now a puzzle to you.
Better yet: Perhaps a series of events is now under way, but has not yet culminated in any definite action. With your new-found ability to recognize seemingly heterogeneous elements as coherent entities, you will in many cases find yourself anticipating forthcoming actions and “beating the other fellow to the gun”, or preparing yourself in advance to handle situations that otherwise would prove too much for you.
Need I say that when you can do this, and your rivals cannot, you — and not they — will win out in business competition?
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Calculating Drill
This is NOT an arithmetical drill in the sense that it is designed to improve your arithmetic. However, even before the time of Omar Khayam, various mathematical exercises were much in vogue to develop judgment, reasoning power and mental alertness. The following drill will stimulate your brain to greater nimbleness than you would have dreamed possible just a few weeks ago.
Drill A
Spell your own name aloud and add this row of figures:
9+28+56+124+43+68
Work on this drill for days, create more additions, and while adding RECITE the alphabet ALOUD. Spell your friends names, recite poetry. As the new awakened cells are called into play, continue creating more difficult additions.
Drill B
Spell your own name and MULTIPLY:
6 x 42 9 x 18 8 x 17 6 x 56 4 x 37 3 x 59 9 x 39
Spell your friends names, using new ones at each attempt:
8 x 45 7 x 78 8 x 29 7 x 345
Create your own problems, adding, multiplying or subtracting.
Drill C:
| 154 | 567 | 437 | 989 | 873 | 756 |
| -132 | -234 | -342 | -657 | - 675 | -546 |
Chapter VI
Multiple Mentalism in Trades, Commerce & Professions
Success in business requires certain attributes — intelligence, observation, understanding, constructiveness and memory; whether you are a truck driver, an accountant or an attorney. Multiple Mentalism is a definite and potent aid in developing these requisites and is a truth self-evident to all who have carefully and honestly followed my admonitions and exercises thus far. Nevertheless, some consideration of this mental training in its relation to success in various occupations should prove helpful at this point.
Take the matter of intelligence, for a start. Intelligence is by no means a matter of formal education or schooling. Dictionaries define it as: “Mental acuteness, sagacity, understanding.” Far different from mere learning, isn’t it? A mind may be literally stuffed with facts but, unless it can use them, its possessor is stupid. The plumber, the salesman and the pharmacist all have infinitely better chances for advancement if their minds are active, are constantly using what knowledge they have as well as that which they acquire from day to day. That is but one of many reasons for the mental gymnastics I give you.
In the preceding paragraph, I mentioned the knowledge that we acquire from day to day — but many of us acquire little or no new knowledge in the ordinary course of our work. Such unfortunates are the victims of lack of observation — which, in turn, is one of the deleterious effects of modern civilization. We see so many things, one crowding on the heels of another — automobiles flashing past, traffic lights winking on and off, animated window displays frantically trying to catch our attention, advertisements screaming to be noticed, radio loudspeakers blasting almost incessantly, throngs of people scurrying past — that the undisciplined mind becomes a muddled morass of confused impressions, totally devoid of the power to see and understand. In other words, unable really to observe intelligently — to retain fresh knowledge that is worthy of retention and to reject trivialities that would be only mental dead weight. Multiple Mentalism, by enabling you to apprehend instantly what is, to the untrained mind, a hopeless jumble, gives you that priceless quality of the superior mind: Observation. It is an important factor in your success!
A hundred truck drivers may drive the same route, hauling the same loads, daily. And yet, only one of them may be observant enough to notice that his loading platform is too high or too low — causing a waste of effort and time (which is money) in picking up his loads. The same driver is apt to notice whether a trailer or a self-contained truck is best suited to the character of the work. He may notice that most of his time is spent idling in traffic and that one larger truck is more desirable than two lighter, speedier jobs — or that the reverse is true and his type of hauling could be done more efficiently by replacing one large truck with two or three smaller ones. A driver so observant is slated to be transportation superintendent or a highly productive salesman for some truck agency, or owner of his own trucking concern!
Understanding and constructiveness are but other phases of analysis and synthesis, both of which were discussed in Chapter III, but memory is another mental trait developed by the training you are here giving yourself.
We all have good memories, insofar as memory is defined as the mind’s capacity for retaining impressions of names, faces, personalities, scenes and events. That is a trait common to all Mankind — every brain records indelibly every impression made upon it, whether or not its possessor was conscious of the impression at the time it was made. But the ability to recall those impressions, at will, is not so common.
As an illustration of this fact: Psychologists have introduced a subject to someone he never met before, given him five or ten minutes with this stranger and then after the stranger has left the room, requested the subject to write his description. Almost invariably, the description is incomplete, inaccurate, and most vague. It might well apply to any four of the first six men you meet on the street. Even such obvious details as age, height, weight, and color are given incorrectly or omitted entirely! All of which might seem indicative of lack of observation as well as of faulty memory. however, when the subject is then hypnotized and questioned concerning the appearance of the man he has just met, his description is positively startling in its completeness and accuracy! Even such details as the initials on intricately intertwined monogram rings, the shades of color in multi-hued fabrics and the number of pencils or other impediments from a vest pocket are clearly given! You see, the facts were there but the subject could not recall them.
My training, you must agree, not only makes you observant and thereby assures your noticing every pertinent factor applying to a person, thing or event but, also, is developing almost hourly your capacity for recalling those factors at will. The same brain “muscles” that pull a word into your consciousness, reverse the sequence of its letters and interpose them between the letters of a correctly spelled word (all of which, as you know, is done in the MIND), will enable you to pull into consciousness again the names, faces, conversations and characteristics of people you met long before. You will be able to recall events long past, as well as scenes you thought forgotten. Not by any mnemonic tricks of association or Magic Memory Formulae, but by simple and natural mastery of your mental processes! Multiple Mentalism enables you to make your mind do what you want it to do, when you want it done. Regardless of interrupting factors that woefully distract undisciplined minds, your brain is your faithful ally and servant, always alert to do your bidding — ready instantly with whatever you require of it!
The accountant whose mind obeys its master sees and properly interprets the relationship between selling cost and sales price, between overhead and production figures, between volume and net income. He is on the way to becoming treasurer or financial agent! Similarly, the attorney who is sharp to seize upon discrepancies in his opponent’s arguments, who is exact in drawing his own parallels with established precedents, who is quick to identify contradictions between present and past testimony, is well in line for fat retainers and generous fees! And these are the talents latent within us all — machinist, farmer, physician and chef — talents that will blossom and bloom through Multiple Mentalism. A rich harvest… yours for the reaping!
Exercise VI
Since we have just discussed memory, I am — for a diversion — going to introduce an amusing little parlor trick which will entertain and mystify your friends and associates and, t the same time, strengthen your memory, or power to recall. Observe this “Magic Square”:
| 10 | 23 | 20 | 17 |
| 21 | 16 | 11 | 22 |
| 15 | 18 | 25 | 12 |
| 24 | 13 | 14 | 19 |
What is distinctive about it? If you are observant, you will note that its columns — whether added vertically, horizontally or diagonally — yield the same total, 70. I am going to show you how you can challenge your friends to draw such a square, in blank (without numbers in it), and name any total they wish you to obtain. Then, almost without pause, you will be able to write in the correct figures to yield any desired total, no matter whether the columns are added up and down, across or diagonally!
The first step is to draw and number a “key” square, thus:
| 1 | 14 | 11 | 8 |
| 1 | 7 | 2 | 13 |
| 6 | 9 | 16 | 3 |
| 15 | 4 | 5 | 10 |
Look carefully at what you have drawn. Note carefully the positions of the “key” numbers, 1 to 16 inclusive. Fix each numbered square in your mind. Now, conceal your diagram and draw a new one, exactly like it, FROM MEMORY. Number each square exactly as numbered above — BUT DO NOT LOOK at the above or your own previous drawing. Draw and number the squares FIFTY TIMES, numbering the smaller squares 1 to 16, in numerical sequence. AFTER you have done this, draw the squares in blank, then write in the numbers by horizontal columns, thus: (1st line), 1-14-11-8; (2nd line), 12-7-2-13; 93rd line), 6-9-16-3; (4th & last line), 15-4-5-10. Repeat this drill until you have mastered it completely. Then, starting with a drawing of the unnumbered squares, and WITHOUT looking at previous efforts, insert the numbers by vertical squares; as (1st column) 1-12-6-15; (2nd column) 14-7-9-4; (3rd column) 11-2-16-5; and (4th & last column) 8-13-3-10. Do these three drills at least FIFTY TIMES each, from memory, or until you are as familiar with the arrangement and numbering of the sixteen squares as you are with the sequence of letters of the alphabet — only more so!
Now, with the “Magic Square” well fixed in your mind, you are ready to puzzle your friends. Drawing the squares in blank, ask someone to name the total he wants you to reach. From whatever figure he names, subtract 30 and divide the remainder by 4. Obviously, your friend must name a number as high as 34, or higher. Assume that the number given you is 86. Subtract 30, as explained. You now have 56 for a remainder. Divide 56 by 4 — an easy mental calculation. This gives you 14. Write 14 into square #1 (the 1st square in the upper left hand corner), 15 into square #2 (3rd square in line 2 of the “Magic Square” as you have memorized it), 16 into square #3 (4th square in line 3), 17 into square #4 (2nd square in line 4), 18 into square #5, 19 into square #6, 20 into square #7, and so on until you have written them all in, concluding with the number 29 in square #16. You will find that, no matter how you add the numbers you have written in, 86 is the total!
| 14 | 27 | 24 | 21 |
| 25 | 20 | 15 | 26 |
| 19 | 22 | 29 | 16 |
| 28 | 17 | 18 | 23 |
“Fine!” you say, “but what do you do if, after subtracting 30 in accordance with these directions, the remainder is not evenly divided by 4?” Well, that doesn’t make the trick any harder. Suppose you had been given the number 88 instead of 86. You would proceed as above, except that when you divided 58 by 4, you get 14 with 2 left over. Number your squares exactly as in the example given above — 14 in square #1, 15 in #2, 16 in #3 and so on UNTIL you reach square #13. In square #13, instead of writing 26 as you did when working for a total of 86, add 2 (the “left-over” you had when dividing 88 minus 30 (58) by 4. That is, write in 28 instead of 26 — skipping 26 and 27 entirely. Add 2, also, to each of the remaining squares to and including #16 — which means following 28 (Square #1) with 29 (square #14), 30 (square #14) and 31 (square #16). You now have a square numbered like your first one, which totaled 86, except for the squares 13 to 16 inclusive, where you have subtracted 28 for your former 26, 29 for 27, 30 for 28, and 31 for 19 and have omitted 26 and 27 entirely. Your rows, columns and diagonals will now add to 88, the required sum! When your remainder after subtracting 30 from the sum required of you is not evenly divisible by 4, the “carryover” must always be 1, 2 or 3 — it cannot be anything else, of course. Whichever it is, add it to the numbers that would normally appear in squares 13 to 16 inclusive, had the figure been evenly divisible by 4 — as explained above. A simple trick, but effective!
Now that we’ve had our fun, let’s get back to the intermingling of the letters of words — taking six-letter words this time, and intermingling their letter in multiple. This requires more application and concentration than have been demanded of you up till now, so you had better make DOUBLY sure that you have mastered the first five exercises!
Take any 6 six-letter words and write them in a vertical column, i.e.:
POWERS
EXPERT
HONEST
PUZZLE
MEMORY
HEALT
Memorize your words (not these!) and write them in the same order as often as may be necessary to make you fully acquainted with the sight of them in your “mind’s eye”. Then dispose of the paper upon which you have listed them and, FROM MEMORY ALONE, set them down like this:
Take the first letter of the first word, follow it with the first letter of the second word, and so on, taking the first letter each of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth words — which would give you, had you used the same words I used above, the letters PEHPMH. Now add, in the same line, the second letter of each of the 6 words. You now have PEHPMHOXOUEE. Continuing in the same line, take all the third letters, then the fourth, followed by the fifth and sixth of the of the 6 six-letter words. Here is what you get:
| P | E | H | P | M | H | O | X | O | U | E | E | W | P | N | Z | M | A | E | E | E | Z | O | L | R | R | S | L | R | T | S | T | T | E | Y | H |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
The numbers are the keys to the words in their original sequence. that is, the six letters numbered 1 spell POWERS; those numbered 2 spell EXPERT; the 3s spell HONEST, etc.
Do this again and again from memory, using the same six words you originally select and never peeking at what you have written before. Spend at least an hour doing it. Tomorrow, select 6 new six-letter words, and practice another hour with those words. Spend a minimum of one hour every day for a week, taking 6 new words each day.
Believe me, you won’t find this exercise as easy to master as the ones ahead of it in my training! But stay with it! Even if it takes two hours or more a day, spend all the time necessary, for as many days as are needed to make you really adept at mingling any six common words or names in multiple sequence, quickly and correctly. It will pay you!
Chapter VII
The Problem of Middle-Aged Men in Business
Men of 40 are prone to lament: “The most stupid blunder business men make today is to refuse to employ men in their forties, fifties and sixties. Why, that is exactly when a man is most valuable to them! He has acquired judgment, is rich in experience and, for obvious reasons, is far more interested in holding down his job to the complete satisfaction of his employer!”
Is this complaint justified? We know that employers frown upon the middle-aged applicants but are they, as a rule, right in doing so? Let us look at the average middle-aged man who seeks a new connection. Not the exceptional middle-aged man, but the average. What has age given him — and what have the years taken away?
Our middle-aged man has gained a wealth of experience — but in doing so, he usually has lost his elasticity of mind. He is no longer willing to pioneer. New methods, new paths deter him. He prefers to travel by the compass of precedent. And this indicates that he has gained in judgment — but what a loss he has suffered in daring! He no longer has the courage to originate, to create or to take what are, to a younger man, perfectly sound and promising business chances. He is steady as a plow horse is steady — and with as little enthusiasm! And what he has acquired in the way of assurance, he has lost in open mindedness. He is no longer capable of viewing old problems in a new light. The rut has closed in on him. Youthful ambition and energy have been replaced by the timidity and inertia of age — and he asks little better than to be left alone, to achieve some measure of security for his declining years!
An exaggerated picture? Not at all! Look about you. You will see in every office and shop, the very man I have described. What a pity!
And that shows you, more graphically than almost any other example I could give, why Multiple Mentalism is such a boon to all who expect to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. If a man is not too firmly caught in the clutches of old Father Time, my exercises restore to his mind the lost elasticity of Youth. His brain regains its nimbleness and agility. Every day means to him a new day and a new start. he is open minded — no longer trammeled by the shackles of precedent. He is willing and able, now, to approach old problems from new angles. Thanks to his new found ability, which my training has given him, he sees in them factors he had not noticed before. And each heretofore unseen factor suggests its own solution. His mind, constructive now, builds new methods to overcome the obstacle or circumvent the difficulty. What wonder that Multiple Mentalism restores his courage, his enthusiasm and his ambition! And his increased brain power gives new meaning to the word “energy”. He is able to do with ease things that would have exhausted him before he tackled these mental gymnastics. Tasks that once fatigued him, he now takes in his stride.
Such radical changes in a man’s mind and in his outlook are bound to be reflected in his bearing. He walks jauntily, with a new confidence. He approaches prospective employers serenely, radiating Power and Poise. he is welcomed by executives who would have shut their doors to him but a few months before!
Now do you see why my most enthusiastic “boosters” are men in their forties and early fifties? They have good cause for their enthusiasm.
And while we are on the subject of age, let me say that I do not recommend these mental exercises for youths. The youthful mind should be spent in gathering knowledge and experience. After its owner has acquired a foundation of education and experience, Multiple Mentalism should be taken up to develop that mind and to “cash in” the experience and knowledge previously gained. Not knowledge — but the most effective use of knowledge — is Power!
Roughly speaking, I set 25 to 50 years as the age limits of those who can profit most by my training. Of course, some boys are men at 22; some men have not shed the final traces of adolescence at 35; some are old at 40; while some are young at 65. So, when I say that men from 25 to 50 years of age form the group that Multiple Mentalism will benefit most, I am being purely arbitrary. In the light of the explanation I have given you, each man must make his own decision.
Exercise VII
Even before you saw these exercises, your mind was capable of doing more than one thing at a time. It was able to direct your hand to make penciled notes of telephone conversations — to control your hands, feet, eyes and ears in driving a car while carrying on a conversation — and many other such simple simultaneous acts. However, it probably could not do two things simultaneously and do them well. Your handwriting or word-choice, or both, suffered when you took notes while conversing on other subjects. Most automobile accidents are caused by inattentiveness — the driver’s inability to do justice to his driving while carrying on a conversation or listening to the radio. And the effort of trying to do more than one thing at a time wears down the average man — causes nervousness, stress, heart afflictions, and other so-called “degenerative” ailments.
Now, however, your brain is able to do more things at once than you may have realized. Our 20th President, James A. Garfield, could not only write with either hand with equal ease, but he could also write the two classical languages, Latin and Greek, at the same time, one with his right hand, and the other with his left! Let’s look at how far YOU have come along the road to mental mastery.
Chapter I gave you a thorough knowledge of the alphabet, backwards, and enabled you to break the alphabet into two distinct parts. You have known one of these parts since you finished your first grade in school, but the other was a new part with the letters in a new sequence. And then you mastered the mental trick of carrying the first half of the alphabet in its proper sequence, while mingling the second half with it, in reverse order. Simple? Yes, but it takes two simultaneous mental operations!
Chapters II and III further increased the ability you gained in Chapter I. You became capable of the same mental gymnastics in more complex form — thinking of three-letter and four-letter words in two ways — spelled forward and in reverse.
A military man would say that you had consolidated your gains, in Chapter IV, where you kept two unrelated words in mind and pictured their letters arranged alternately, one set of letters with the other, at one and the same time.
Then came your first hurdle, Chapter V. When you had topped it, you were possessed of still another accomplishment. Your brain could do three things at once: (1) carry two words in mind; (2) carry one of them spelled backwards; and (3) combine the letters of both into one sequence, spelling one of the words in normal order and the other backwards. Chapter VI increased the complexity of these same mental tasks.
In Exercise VII, you will again increase your mental capacity, to which science knows no limit. Your mind will do four things concurrently — not merely for the sake of doing four things but so that, when the demands of life force it upon you, you will be able to carry on four separate lines of thought without undue nervous strain. However, the nervous strain to which the untrained mind is subjected and the physical contortions in which many of us indulge when trying to think beyond our present ability to do so, do cause fatigue. Hence, the more you can do with your mind, the less effort and the more pleasure (as well as profit!) there is in living.
Write 6 six-letter words in a vertical column, just as you did in Exercise VI, except: Write only the 1st, 2nd and 3rd words forwards. Write the other three backwards. To illustrate:
WONDER
THGIRB (BRIGHT)
HEALTH
ERUTAN (NATURE) Memorize the list, then throw it away!
ASSERT
SUINEG (GENIUS)
Now, working in your mind alone, without reference to any written list, assemble the letters of your six words as you did in Exercise VI, but putting the letters of words #4, #5 and #6 in backwards. Also, instead of taking the words in the order in which you have listed them, take word #1, then word #6, then #2, followed by #5, and ending with the words numbered 3 and 4. The above list would work out this way:
W S H E A T O U E R S H N I A U S G D N L T E I E E T A R R G H N T B
To help make this clearer, I have underscored the initial letters of each of the 6 words used, when spelled properly.
Stop a moment and realize what this gymnastic means. It involves your (1) memorizing 6 words; (2) carrying three of them, spelled properly, in your mind; (3) carrying three of them spelled backward; and (4) writing 36 letters in an entirely new and unfamiliar sequence. If you find it quite difficult to do this at first, you can readily understand why!
I’ll tell you a way to cheat the difficulty of this exercise. If you write a letter, then skip five spaces and write the next that appears in the word you are spelling, then jump five more spaces to the next letter, etc., you can write the line quite easily — BUT YOU WILL BE CHEATING YOURSELF and you will be setting yourself a long way back. So, forget the short cuts and, for your own sake, play the game! Keep all 6 words before your mind’s eye, in the 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 order explained to you, and write the 36 letters in sequence illustrated above.
I have not sprung this bit of advice on you so far, because it has not been necessary, but I say now: Spend at least an hour a day on this lesson for a full week, even if you think you have mastered it long before the week is up. More than with any of the others, this exercise requires frequent repetition in order to train your brain as it should be trained — to accomplish what has seemed the Impossible in your life until now. Remember, we are building up your brain to take the hill of $uccess “in high gear”.
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Recollection Drill
Given below are nine subdivisions or classifications. Under each heading, write names of appropriate subjects. One such name, with letters jumbled, appears under each classification. When you come to it, write it correctly in the space below it, then continue writing more names, as before. Under “FLOWERS”, for example, you might write “daisy, “rhododendron”, etc., until you encounter the jumbled flower. Write it correctly, then continue your list. So with all nine subdivisions. This will stimulate your recall and recognition.
| FLOWERS | KITCHEN UTENSILS | ANIMALS | PRESIDENTS | STATES |
| ___________ | ___________ | ___________ | ___________ | ___________ |
| __________ | __________ | __________ | __________ | __________ |
| ___________ | ___________ | ___________ | ___________ | ___________ |
| ____________ | ____________ | ____________ | ____________ | ____________ |
| ____________ | ____________ | ____________ | ____________ | ____________ |
HRAHMYCENMSUT
OLNCRDEA
MPOLTOCASNIO
ABRVENU
EWXECMOIN
Chapter VIII
What Creative Imagination is — And How to Develop it
It has been said, “That man is most original who knows the greatest number of sources from which to plagiarize.” Again, wasn’t it Solomon who said there is nothing new under the sun?
To understand clearly what “creative imagination” is, consider some of the books, pictures, plays or business enterprises that you would call examples of creative ability. Take Woolworth, for example. There was an outstanding merchant! Made millions of dollars, he did. Showed the business world something new, too, if I’m not mistaken. Yet, articles sold for 5 cents and 10 cents long before Woolworth’s day — and other store operators had price limitations before Woolworth came along. However, price limitations were definitely set in the so-called “exclusive” stores. Snobbishly, because it appealed to their snobbish trade, they would not handle merchandise priced below certain figures. All that Woolworth did was to reverse that process — just as you reverse the letters in a word, now that you have completed more than half my training. See how simple his technique, once you look at it?
All that Henry Ford did, to start with, was to add one more factor to what other automobile makers were doing. They were trying to build cars that would run. Their aim, at that time, was no higher. They had their eyes only on the production end — overlooking entirely the market and its demands. Ford coordinated the two as easily as you mingle the letters of two words — and became one of the richest men in history. He aimed to build a car that not only would run, but that also would sell. Nothing to it — after it had been done!
We are told that there are only five or seven plots in all literature. Shakespeare used them over and over again — merely making new combinations of old elements. With only 26 letters in our alphabet, we have nearly a million English words — and an English literature of prose, poetry and plays that must include countless billions of words!
Do I make my meaning clear? Have I answered the questions raised by the title of this chapter? “Creative imagination” is simply the ability to combine old elements into new forms. Its development, in yourself, involves only the ability to cast aside the restrictions of precedent — to forget entirely what has been done before in your field — to refuse to accept any idea or method merely because it is long-established — and to approach any given matter with a fully open mind.
When you see the word GARAGE and, at the same moment, see it spelled EGARAG in your mind’s eye, you are casting off hidebound conventionality. You are thinking freely. Your mind is not a slave of things as they are. And you can do the same with other problems in your life — see them forwards and backwards at one and the same time — see them in a different guise than that in which they appear to most others — and, so seeing them, solve them in what may well be a startling new manner!
There’s the whole secret of Creative Thinking, explained so simply that, like Woolworth’s and Ford’s accomplishments, it seems almost childish. But children, you must bear in mind, are wise with a wisdom that surpasses that of age. Their thinking is independent, not loaded with the thoughtless habit of years. Theirs are inquiring minds — taking nothing for granted, twisting and turning and examining every new fact that comes to them. Do likewise — as Multiple Mentalism makes it possible for you to do — and you will find life’s major problems simpler than those of childhood! What’s more, your Creativeness, your daring thinking, will bring rich monetary rewards!
Exercise VIII
You are about to train your mind to see the words of an entire sentence spelled backwards — another step toward perfecting yourself in the ability to recognize the relationship between apparently unrelated events of elements and build up, anew, fresh creations from old material.
Think of (don’t write!) a sentence containing three or four short words. Fix it in your mind without touching pencil to paper. Then write the sentence backwards — without having seen it on paper in its correct form. The sentence:
HERE COMES THE BRIDE thus becomes EDIRB EHT SEMOC EREH;
and
LOOK AT THE SHIP now becomes PIHS EHT TA KOOL.
I know this seems far easier than earlier exercises, but that is because, first, it really is not a difficult exercise; and, second, because your mind is immeasurably better trained that it was when you undertook, say, Exercise IV. You can see words and sentences in their entirety, which you couldn’t do before.
Practice ever longer sentences, with ever longer words. Ones like these:
NOITCARTSID STAEFED NOITARTNECNOC (Concentration defeats distraction)
STNEDICCA SESAERCNI GNIVIRD YTLUAF (Faulty driving increases accidents)
STSIRUTLUCIRGA STSISSA NOITAGIRRI (Irrigation assists agriculturists)
One hour a day on this, faithfully, will find you able, after three or four days, to write sentences backwards in from only a half to a third more time than it takes you to write them in the customary manner. To aid your practice, make a game of it. Glance only once at billboards, road signs, etc., then look away quickly and spell them backwards — aloud, if possible; silently, if necessary. You’ll be astounded at the progress you can make by using moments normally wasted. Profitable progress, too!
Chapter IX
Specialization means narrowing the mind; Diffusion means mental shallowness: How Multiple Mentalism broadens and deepens the Intelligence ~
The specialist has been defined as “a man who learns more and more about less and less, until he ends up by knowing everything about nothing at all!” By that same token, an all-around man — jack of all trades — general practitioner — is “a man who learns less and less about more and more until he knows nothing whatsoever about everything there is”!
Multiple Mentalism enables you to avoid pitfalls. By developing your brain so that it becomes really observant, it broadens your knowledge of many varied subjects. By giving you the ability to see familiar things in brand new settings, it deepens your understanding of men, objects and occurrences. By arousing your latent power to think of many things simultaneously, it gives your mind versatility, poise and a firmer grasp of situations and problems. And by putting you in complete control of your brain, for the first time in your life, it makes it possible for you to remain, at will, oblivious to that in your environment which is worthless to you, and to become more fully appreciative of that around you which can be of help to you in your business, social or personal life.
To put it another way: You are rapidly becoming a well-rounded personality with a more competent, well-rounded intellect. You are well on your way to becoming truly outstanding among your associates; to attaining a prominence, because of your new-found mental capability, that will bring your speedy advancement in whatever you undertake. You are almost “over the hump” now, in the training contained in this course. A final spurt or two will carry you to the very zenith of mental ability! So, with the goal in sight, let’s go!
Exercise IX:
Once more, your exercise becomes more intricate than those which came before it. And, as before, you will find it easy, despite its greater intricacy, if you have been honest with yourself in practicing the preceding drill (No. VIII)
To begin Exercise IX, think of two sentences, each containing three or four short words. DON’T WRITE THEM IN THE NORMAL WAY. The very first time you touch the paper with your pencil, in this exercise, write you two sentences with their letters intermingled, thus:
G S I E R M L A S G L Y I A K L E P D S O Y L O L B S
which combines GIRLS LIKE DOLLS (spelled forward) with BOYS PLAY GAMES (spelled backwards)
This may stump you a bit at first, but it will soon become easy if you have practiced the first eight exercises faithfully. In about three-quarters of an hour, of your first hour’s drill, you will be writing short sentences this way almost without hesitation.
Tomorrow, take on four-word sentences, but keep the thoughts and words very short and simple at first. As short and simple as:
M T E A N E W O O T R S K T T N O A L W I O V H E W
which is merely MEN WORK TO LIVE (spelled forwards) combined with WHO WANTS TO EAT (spelled backwards).
Naturally, you cannot space the letters according to words — but, as that would be unnecessary for a mind trained as yours now is, it is unimportant. You can readily understand what you are doing, without that.
Give at least an hour every day to this drill. Make your sentences longer and your words more difficult as you progress. You will find this one of the hardest drills in my training, but I assure you that it is also one of the most valuable. For the first time, you are making practically all of your brain cells work — except, obviously, those which control your various physical activities.
In concluding this drill, I am going to make a new suggestion. I suggest that you take the mental processes involved in this exercise and deliberately apply them to some specific problem in your business or your home. Do not content yourself with merely calling the problem to mind, and hoping that the mental processes will take place automatically! Call them into play, consciously and deliberately. Turn the problem over and over in your mind. Twist it. Look at its various component parts forwards and backwards. Fit one into another and see how the new relationship affects them.
Do this — and you will see, beyond all question or argument, how thoroughly practical this training is in fitting you to cope more advantageously with everyday affairs! You will find that the most stubborn problems do yield easily to this form of solution — that the answer often pops into your head so quickly and easily that you are ashamed of not having thought of it long ago!
Multiple Mentalism is a $uccess course indeed. I no longer need tell you that. You must have realized it, yourself, several chapters back. You know now that it actually and literally means, “MORE POWER TO YOU”!
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Acceleration Drill
Drill A
For this drill, use your daily newspaper. Read and study for a few moments a headline in your newspaper (a sentence containing 8 or 9 words) Now take a pencil and jumble the letters in each word as you write the sentence. try not to miss any of the letters. Then check back to see if you have made any mistakes. Do this, using new headlines each time, until it becomes easy for you. Example:
MORE RAIN NEEDED IN THE MIDWEST TO SAVE CROPS
Write:
REOM ANIR EDENED IN HTE DEWSIMT OT VASE OSPRC
You need not follow any set rule in jumbling the letters in the words. Write them so each word has no meaning in the manner that you spell it.
Continue on this drill — you will find it fascinating and interesting.
Chapter X
Multiple Mentalism as an Aid in Public Speaking
Chapter V tells you how many men and women have overcome self-consciousness through Multiple Mentalism. Their “multiple minds”, acquired by means of this training, enables them to be conscious of themselves without being self-conscious. This is the first step to effective public speaking.
But this course goes even further in equipping you to speak well, to large or small audiences. Quite aside from the reason given above, our new brain development gives you the self-confidence — self-assurance — the innate knowledge that you can cope with the situation when you rise to your feet and begin to talk. This has a steadying influence which makes your words impressive and convincing.
In addition, you will find that you speak more clearly and logically than ever before. Your brain is better able to marshall facts and to present them in their most reasonable sequence. No longer need you utter your arguments in the order in which they presented themselves to you when planning your speech, or in which you may originally have memorized them. Your training in jumbling of letters of words and the words of sentences permits you easily to intermingle your arguments in the order that seems to you most effective. If other speakers have preceded you, and you wish either to rebut what they have said or to emphasize arguments that were lacking in strength as they gave them, your mind is nimble enough to fit this new material into what you had planned to say, and to do it coherently and appealingly.
Interruptions cannot throw you off your stride, thanks to the discipline to which you have subjected your brain. If you find it necessary to pause, waiting for exactly the right word to come to mind, you will not be embarrassed or flustered by your momentary hesitation. On the contrary, your calmness and deliberation will have a favorable effect on your listeners. They will be impressed, consciously or subconsciously, by your cool and collected manner. You will find yourself able to sway audiences as never before!
This advantage alone, disregarding all the other tremendous benefits of Multiple Mentalism, may mean thousands of dollars to you. As you advance in the business, professional or political world, you will meet increasing demands for formal or informal talks. Your ability to fulfill these demands so readily can mean the favorable vote of an important board of directors; the welding together of a political body that will carry you to prominence and greater opportunity! If it accomplished nothing else, the help that Multiple Mentalism can give you in public speaking is absolutely priceless!
Exercise X
Have you noticed that the exercises are getting shorter and easier to explain, but increasingly difficult to do? That shows that you are approaching the climax and reaching the peak of mental power! Exercise X, for example, takes only a few lines to explain but sets you a real task in concentration and calls upon principles you have mastered earlier in your training.
Take pencil and paper. Write a word of seven or more letters correctly while, at the same time, you spell aloud another word (preferably of the same number of letters). In other words: WriteENGRAVE slowly, while you spell aloud E-V-E-N-I-N-G. When you write E (for “engrave”), say E (for “evening”); when you write N, say V; write G and say E; write R and say N; write A and say I, write V and say N; and write E as you say G. That gives your brain cells a workout!
Practice doing this with seven-letter and longer words. Do it fully one hour a day until you have the knack of it down pat.
Next: Write one word backward, and spell another forward, aloud. I mean: Write ETALER (RELATE) while you call off, aloud, the letters L I S T E N, just as you did in the first part of this drill EXCEPT that one word, the written one, is now to be done backward.
You will find this more difficult than the first section of Exercise X — but stick to it and you will be giving your mind some more exceedingly helpful training!
Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator:
Mental Agility Drill
Drill A
Below is a sentence pertaining to an important event in American history. The words, however, have all been misplaced. See how quickly you can reassemble them into a coherent sentence:
two ninety Columbus fourteen year discovered the America in of
Drill B
The letters in the names of six famous men have been intermingled. Each name contains six letters. See how quickly you can unscramble them and identify the six famous men. The underlined letters are the first initial.
Here is a clue: One an ex-president — an inventor — a financier — a tennis champion — a leader with many followers — a judge.
E N W I H N D A I D U E I G L N G D S R S A H L O O O H E I N M N G S T
Drill C
As with the names above, the names of three American rivers are here given. Each river has eleven letters in its name. The thirty-three letters have been jumbled. What are the three rivers?
S I H M I A Q S N S H N I S M E N U G A N P I L A O U O P E S A S
Drill D
As in the two drills above, letters have again been jumbled. This time, the names of four minerals have their letters intermingled. The names are of unequal length. What are the minerals?
R H C C M M R L A E O O U U E A D L P P I I
Drill E
This is somewhat more involved — a good limbering up exercise for your mind. the letters in two sentences have been intermingled. One sentence concerns a household pet — the other concerns the weather. Both are short and simple, containing four short words each. See how long it takes you to decipher the two sentences.
T h I m y r d r n g t i o y d n w y a a o a t a a a e
Chapter XI
How to Develop Intuition — the “Sparkplug” of Intelligence
We know intuition under another name: Inspiration. When we say that a man writes, speaks or acts as one inspired, we mean that he has grasped intuitively — which is, instantly — the right thing to do and has done it at the right time. Is this the same as rapid reasoning? In its result, yes — although intuition usually brings that result far sooner that reasoning does. But even though the results are the same, the process of reasoning is different from intuition. More labored and cumbersome.
For example, suppose we have a problem consisting of three different elements, which we will call A, B, and C. Assume that element A seemingly has no relationship whatever with element C, but that it is practically identical with element B. Now, assume further that close examination shows that element B is substantially the same as element C. The reasoning man will work it out thus: “If A is the same as B, and B is the same as C, then A and C must also be the same.” Of course, that is very elementary reasoning, but you can see that it involves the mind’s traveling from to B, thence to C, then back again to B and A for comparison and check up and finally, after this verification of identity, the mind bridges the gap from A to C and the chain of logic is complete.
Contrast this with that of the intuitive mind, faced with the same problem. Intuition seizes upon and understands A, B and C (all three of them) simultaneously. It does not travel from A to B to C and back again, but apprehends all three elements at one and the same time. You might say that it fuses them into their common identity in a flash, just as an oxy-acetylene torch fuses tow metals in a single blast. Another way of putting it would be to compare reasoning to a slow fuse, while intuition more nearly resembles a fulminating cap. Reasoning travels slowly along a marked highway while intuition cuts across lots and gets there just so much faster.
This differentiation between reasoning and intuition makes it clear that Multiple Mentalism definitely and effectively develops your intuitive powers. Your brain is trained to seize upon many factors at once, to compare them simultaneously, and your several trains of concurrent thought naturally merge into a complete understanding of the problem or situation as a whole — an understanding based on the correct evolution and sequences of the various factors involved. In five words: MY TRAINING UNFAILINGLY DEVELOPS INTUITION!
Exercise XI
Write down 3 five-letter words. Look at them until they are firmly fixed in your mind. Then put the paper where you cannot see it.
Now, on a new sheet of paper, write two of the words with their letters intermingled, spelling one forwards and the other backwards — and while doing this, spell the third word aloud, slowly. Like this:
While writing CRAORNROYH (CARRY and RONOH, which is HONOR written backwards), spell aloud M-O-N-E-Y. It’s dollars to doughnuts you will not do this correctly the first five times you try it — but you now have the brain power to master it with but little practice. Give an hour to this drill today, using different groups of 5-letter words. Take longer, if you need more time to attain speed and accuracy in the drill.
Tomorrow, repeat your practice of this exercise for at least an hour, but use 6-letter words instead of words with only five letters. For example: Write EYNLEIRSGAYE (ENERGY, frontwards, and EASILY, backwards) while saying aloud slowly P-O-R-T-E-R.
On the following days of the week, take longer and longer words until the drill becomes as easy for you while using words like CONGLOMERATION as it was with simpler words.
For variation, try using words of unequal length, intermingling the letters of a 6-letter word with those of a 10-letter words, while spelling a 12-letter word aloud. Try doing this with the first three words that come to mid, regardless of their lengths. Take unfamiliar words as well as familiar ones. Spell a word such as SUBSTANTIATION aloud while writing DEFIES and WORLDLY with their letters intermingled.
Let me repeat the suggestion I made at the conclusion of Exercise IX. Now that your brain cells have been awakened and trained really to work for you, make a conscious effort to use in your daily life the principles of kinetic thinking you acquired through these drills. Put them to practical application. See for yourself how the quality and quantity of your work improve. Learn why so many speak of Multiple Mentalism as a $uccess Course. See how rapidly promotion and profits will follow on the heels of this priceless training!
Chapter XII
Modern Education and its Critics Equally at Fault
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Never Fib or Stretch the Truth on Your Résumé or in Interviews
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
-Abraham Lincoln
What You Will Learn
|
Don’t exaggerate your qualifications on your résumé or in your interviews. The fact of the matter is there is no good reason to do this. I have a secret to tell you, and it is something far too many people fail to understand when they are conducting a job search. It is something that can change how you approach your job search forever. Before I share this with you, however, I want to tell you a quick story. It is a story that has stuck in my mind for a long time, and it relates to why you never need to exaggerate in interviews or on your résumé. Several years ago, I was once interviewing with a New York law firm for a position. I went out to lunch with a group of associates and they told me that the attorney I would be speaking with after lunch “did not like anyone.” They also made some statements about how strange the guy was. When I went into the attorney’s office (he was a tax attorney), I immediately noticed that the chair he asked me to sit in was turned at an odd angle to where he was sitting at his desk. Essentially, this meant that I had to turn my head very awkwardly to the side in order to speak with him. The sight of me sitting in such an awkward position probably would have appeared freakish to any onlooker.
Given the extreme order of his office, I realized before I even sat down that I should not move the chair. I understood that this attorney had a sense of order that could be considered obsessive, and that I should not disturb that sense of order.
Around this same time I had read a book about neurolinguistic programming (NLP), which discussed how we tend to like people who are like us. The meaning of NLP is much more complicated than this; however, it essentially states that we can better relate to people by “modeling them” in terms of their posture, body movements, breathing, language, and so forth. I liked what I read about NLP and believe that, in some respects it did work in terms of helping me gain trust and get into the minds of other people.
Sitting there in that chair, I tried to imagine why this guy would want me seated in such a strange posture. I looked at his desk and noticed that everything was very well centered. The books were in excellent order. I realized after a short time that he probably liked me sitting the way I was because of the fact that it made him feel like he was in control, and that I could not make any sudden movements towards him. It made him feel like he was guarded and protected.
In my interview I spoke about the importance of order, the importance of protecting oneself (in general terms) by doing good work, and other topics I thought he would appreciate, in response to his questions. I could tell this made him very comfortable, and it seemed to make him like me a great deal. What I realized right then and there was that it did not really matter how good my qualifications were or how good my résumé was. What mattered most was that I was likable to this interviewer.
Over the years, having worked with thousands of people as a recruiter and having spoken with thousands of individual employers about their interview experiences, I do not think I have heard more than a few times of an interviewer complaining about someone’s qualifications. What I have heard employers complain about, however, is that an interviewee was awkward, rude, or bragged too much. This response, which I have heard from numerous employers, has shown me how important a candidate’s likability in the interview is–over his or her résumé.
A few years ago I was interviewing a potential manager for our company. Everyone around this manager thought that he was exceptional in all respects. His mind picked things up very well and he was always able to rapidly recite various statistics about his department. All of his statistics were accurate and he had, by all accounts, a lot of potential.
When he interviewed, I had left the decision of whether or not to hire him to other managers at our company. The other managers made the job offer to him, and then came back to me stating that the individual (who was already very highly compensated) would not accept a new job unless he was paid an additional $200 a month. His justification for this demand was that he was changing jobs to make more money than he was currently making with another employer.
I told the managers right then and there that I did not approve of this hire. I told them the manager would probably leave for a higher-paying job the second it came along. The man also told me he was leaving his current job because he needed to gain more experience. All of these reasons signaled to me that the guy would probably be doing the same if he worked for our company, regardless of how the job went. Despite my protests, the manager was hired.
The manager started and, after a year, he was doing very well. I was spending a lot of time with him discussing various projects. One day I asked him how he liked his job.
“I am getting very good experience here,” he told me. “Which is good for my résumé.”
When I heard this I knew the manager would not be around for much longer. I was reminded of the events that had happened when he was hired. I realized that this was a person who would simply move on, in order to gain more experience or better pay.
Every few months, I get calls from former employees asking for references. I want nothing more than success for my former employees because their success is a reflection on me. In these telephone calls, the former employees often ask me to lie about their experience and responsibilities at the company. I have had people who work in my call center ask me to say that they were computer programmers for our company. I have had people who were recruiters ask me to say they had previously worked for us, managing a team of twenty people. Of course, this was not true either.
What is so sad about these telephone calls is, deep down, I know that the employee must feel a profound sense of inadequacy. I have always cautioned employees and job seekers to be truthful. People are typically hired because they find common ground with an employer and they are likable, not because of some isolated accomplishment from their past.
Achievements are important. What you have done is important. The most important thing, however, is how likable you are. This is generally why people are hired. Your achievements can be shaded any way the interviewer wants to shade them.
The thing that upsets me most about people who lie on their résumés or exaggerate their achievements is that they are missing the boat. All of us are human, and no one is perfect. You don’t need to exaggerate. Potential employers will either sense in an interview or find out shortly after you are hired that you do not have the skills or experience you boasted about. My career advice is that it is more important to be yourself and to present yourself as a likable individual and a team player.
The most important thing you can do when going into interviews and writing your résumé is come across as someone who is interested in trying hard and making an effort. Someone who learns from mistakes. Someone who is going to help the company and be very loyal. Someone who is going to be a stable addition to the company.
Your résumé is what it is. There is no need to embellish it. There is no need to try to make yourself out to be more than you are in an interview. You want people to like you. You do not want to be seen as insecure or pushy. You want the company to like you. Being caught up in a lie or exaggeration is not in your best interest and it weakens your case dramatically in the eyes of an employer.
Are You Here? The Importance of Being Present in Your Job and Job Search
What You Will Learn
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What makes someone successful in his or her career? When it comes down to it, I believe one of the greatest determinants of success is whether or not you are “here.”
“Being here” takes two forms. The most obvious is to be here physically. Coming into the office each day and going through the motions is the most basic way to be here and the minimum requirement for success. An example of being here for a salesperson would be coming into the office and making a certain number of cold calls each day. If this is done, and nothing more, the salesperson will experience some degree of success. However, in all likelihood the success will be mediocre.
A more significant way of being here is to have a connection to your work. I am sure each of us knows many people who are, for one reason or another, never really present. Being absent even when you are physically present, shows in (1) not listening to those around you, or not otherwise paying attention to your environment, (2) not taking the time to understand where your work fits into the larger picture, and (3) not taking any interest in the people and activity going on around you. Such a person is unable to extrapolate “signs” and various important signals from his environment. The most important thing anyone can do in their career is be here, completely present and focused. In my job as a recruiter, I saw first-hand that every major success was a result of my ability to be here, focused on my job and attuned to my clients’ needs:
-I understood my candidates and thought a great deal about their situations.
-I wrote a letter fro my clients that showed passion, and had a clear and compelling message.
-I spoke in depth with the candidate and developed a greater bond.
-The bond I had with my candidates drove me to deepen my relationships with law firm clients so they would want to hire from me.
-I sought even more opportunities and got creative with the employers who would consider my candidates.
-The more my candidates and I bonded the more we continued our search together, even after an initial round of submissions may not have produced any results.
I found that I was more likely to place the candidates I took the time to get to know and understand. Conversely, for virtually every candidate I did not place, I was typically guilty of not being fully present with him or her. I simply went through the motions with my submissions and hoped something good would come from that alone. Sure, that approach had worked for me a few times, but rarely was success that simple. When absently going through the motions one can hardly expect to produce meaningful results.
The career advice I will give is that you need to be present in life and in your career, and to feel a connection to your work. You need to be engrossed in what you are doing and feel the passion and energy that comes from that. This breeds career longevity and success. The more you are here, the more you are also likely to keep your job when companies go through transitions or downsizing. If you are here you may even find yourself getting a promotion, even in the most unlikely of times.
Several years ago, I gave a lengthy speech about the importance of legal recruiting. At the time, I was very concerned about instilling passion in the recruiters who worked for me and showing them the value of this at all costs. Passion changes everything. I wanted my workforce of recruiters to believe in what they were doing and in the people they were doing it for. I wanted them to help their candidates to the greatest extent possible. After the speech, I overheard one lady speaking to another, and she said something I will never forget: “I would rather work for a place that cares about what it is doing and takes it seriously than work at a place that does not.”
This stuck with me. I think we all want to be surrounded by passion in what we do. Time and again you hear about how important it is to love what you do. Passion and commitment are attributes people notice. These qualities help build careers. Your boss or future employer wants to see that you love what you are doing. If an employer is deciding to hire one person over another they are likely to hire the person who connects to his or her work, instead of the person who does not. If an employer is deciding to lay off one person over another, they are likely to keep the person who is passionate over the person who is not.
My favorite example of this is in hiring an attorney. If you had been falsely accused of committing a crime, which attorney would you hire?
Attorney A
- Does not belong to any special groups involving what you do, or your situation.
- Is difficult to reach on the phone.
- Does not seem that passionate about what he does and does not seem to take a sincere interest in you.
- Has held multiple jobs at different firms.
- Is very interested in golf and wants to talk about it a lot.
- Likes to collect cars.
Attorney B
- Is a frequent speaker on matters involving the wrongly accused.
- Is the president of the local bar association.
- Recently wrote a book about the wrongly accused and how travesties of justice occur every day in America.
- Admits to having few hobbies because he spends his free time reading about the rules of evidence and how they can be used to free the wrongly accused.
- Calls you early in the morning and late at night to discuss your case.
- Is always reachable.
A person who has been falsely accused will almost invariably choose Attorney B. The person who is here will always win over the person who is not. We want enthusiasm and commitment. We want presence.
Watching for Waste in Your Job
What You Will Learn
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Several years ago I was moving from one house to another, and I hired three day laborers from outside of a U-Haul branch, where I had rented a truck. One of the workers was a man with a strong European accent, who seemed very intense. He worked as fast as he could–practically running as he moved things out of my house and into the truck. He also frequently burst out in a paranoid type of shouting at the other two men, talking about how they needed to be more careful or they might scratch or dent a piece of furniture. In a nutshell, this man was trying to save me money by working faster and trying to prevent damage to the furniture. At the end of the day, I paid him much more than the other men. I also knew that I would hire this man again for any future work, given the chance. I appreciated that he wanted to save me money by working efficiently, and that he was willing to protect me. This is the same thing your employers are looking for.
In a tough economy there are many forces acting upon us, and most companies are forced to cut back. Businesses often start by cutting advertising and other non-essentials, such as company lunches and expense accounts. Finally, companies start looking towards your job. Employees cost lots of money, which means that eliminating jobs can save a company a substantial amount of money. This is why unemployment numbers rise whenever the economy gets tough.
I know the owner of an answering service, who also worked on phone systems during his spare time. I was speaking with him after September 11, 2001, when the U.S. economy was starting to slow down severely. I asked him about the status of his business. My estimate was that his answering service would be experiencing a dramatic slowdown due to the stress on the economy, believing that in a rough economy people would simply no longer have a use for answering services and would cut back.
“Are you kidding?” he said. “My business is going through the roof. Every business owner that walks by a receptionist and sees her filing her nails instead of working quickly realizes that’s not money well spent. If he gets rid of her and transfers all of the calls to an answering service, he’ll see savings very soon.”
This is the sort of thing I have been seeing in companies across the country, as we go into another economic contraction. This has a real relevance to your job, and it is career advice you need to understand. It is the difference between people who survive in recessions, who do well and stay employed, and those who end up being cut.
I want to digress for a moment and share with you a quick image. If you have ever been to Germany and watched workers in factories, you know that it is an amazing sight. As you may be aware, German factory workers are among the highest (if not the highest) paid workers in the world. What is so interesting about German factory workers is the incredible intensity they bring to their work. They are so serious in their day-to-day work that the difference between them and the typical American factory line is staggering.
However, the Germans also charge more for their work.
When a recession is at hand, or when an industry is experiencing a contraction, companies very quickly look to start saving as much money as possible. They look around to see who is working hard and adding value, and who is not. When my parents were in their prime, working in the late 1960s through the 1980s, most people would join a company and stay there for their entire careers. The United States at some point grew very arrogant, and its manufacturing, agricultural, and information technology sectors were pretty well isolated from the rest of the world–and from serious competition. Other countries in Europe and Asia still had a lot of catching up to do, while this country was awash in wealth and major waste.
My grandfather used to say that you should only buy cars made on Friday because the men on the line were typically still hung over from the weekend on Tuesday. This is literally something people used to request when purchasing cars made in the United States. This is an indication of how fat the United States had allowed itself to become during this time period. It is hard to believe, but true.
My parents lived in a world in which it was almost impossible to get fired from a job. When you joined a company, you typically had major employment security. There was a ton of money going around the United States, and it was obviously just a different time and place.
With the Internet, computer programming can be done anywhere in the world. Phones can be answered anywhere in the world. Designs can be done anywhere in the world. Engineering can be done anywhere in the world. Legal work, incredibly, is now being done everywhere in the world. This country is no longer isolated from the rest; it is now forced to compete with people from areas of the world where there are drastically lower cost structures. Americans’ jobs have become expendable in many respects.
This brings me to your career. In your job, you need to ensure that you are always providing as much value as possible. If you see waste occurring in your job, and you know the work you or others are doing can be done in a more efficient way, you need to point this out to your superiors. If you come to a realization that there is no way your employer can make money from the work you are doing, you should be concerned. This is not something that is in your best interest, especially when you think long-term.
In my career, I have seen plenty of people who have managed to constantly force themselves out of jobs. People who talk their bosses into one raise after another when times are good may find that, when the economy turns and the company realizes it can hire someone at half the cost, they will be out of a job. People who do not put in extra effort, or who create lots of waste in the company, may find themselves out of a job when a recession or restructuring hits. You need to ensure that you are always creating value–far more value than you are worth.
I once spoke with someone once who was telling me how everyone who did a certain type of recruiting received an annual salary of $80,000, plus a commission. When I did the math, I realized that it would be impossible for any recruiting company to make money while paying recruiters that much. Absolutely impossible! Why would any firm do that? However, assuming the firm did actually pay its recruiters that much money, it was certain that these would be some of the first jobs to go when times eventually got tough.
The people who become most impressive during downturns and who grow within companies are the people who point out cost-saving measures and capitalize on financial opportunities that benefit the company, not just themselves. I would encourage you to be one of these people. If you are a manager, you need to ask yourself if you can get more work done with fewer people. This will make your supervisors happy. If you are an extremely successful salesperson, you need to ask yourself if you can show other salespeople in your organization how to sell like you, and how to be more successful.
If you look around at your workplace, I’ll bet you can see numerous ways you could increase efficiency and save your company money. This is exactly what your employer needs to see you doing.
Watching waste and being vigilant about efficiency impresses employers and justifies your continuing, successful role in the company.
The Power of the Positive
What You Will Learn
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I believe that one of the most powerful things in the universe is the mind. Through our minds we can change the world. Skyscrapers, rocket ships, submarines–everything that exists has been conceived in the minds of men and women. If you think about this, you will quickly realize the power of thought and how profound it is to your life. If you can conceive of something it is quite possible that you can achieve it.
I would like to tell you a couple of stories about the power of the mind. Much of this is personal and related to human interaction, but when it comes right down to it I believe that it can apply directly to you and your job search. I also believe it may be some of the best career advice you ever receive.
Throughout my life I have been an observer in many respects more than a participant. I enjoy observing people and how they interact. I enjoy learning what types of people seem consistently happy and what distinguishes these people from those who are not happy. I have friends I have kept in contact with for 25 years or more, and some of these people are extraordinarily happy, while others are not. For our purposes today, I would like to focus on the happy ones. The happy people are those who have been consistently healthy, consistently employed, and have had lives that most of us would envy.I remember first speaking with one of my oldest and dearest friends over 20 years ago. I noticed the strangest thing every time I would speak with him. If I brought up a piece of negative news, or criticized something while talking to him, he would immediately end the conversation. If we were on the telephone he would say he had to go. If we were speaking in person he would walk away. This was how he acted; however, he was very polite about it. He did the same thing in large social situations. If we were in a group of people speaking and negative news came up, he would excuse himself and do something else.
Throughout the years I have seen many people like this. These are people who simply do not want any part in any negativity. They do not want to hear negative news about other people, and they are not at all interested in negative news of any kind. It does nothing for them, and they have no desire to participate.
There is something special about these sorts of people. I have known some of them to be smart and others not so smart. I have seen people like this who are driven and not driven. But one thing I know is this: These people are always well liked, wherever they go. They rarely lose jobs and they are almost always successful. The thing about these sorts of people is that they do not allow negative thoughts to enter their mind. They are, almost universally, only concerned with positive thoughts and spreading goodwill. As a consequence, people really like being around these people. Employers are no exception.
For some of high school I lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and attended an international school where the students were from pretty much every country–Sweden, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, you name it. At the end of ninth grade, students had to decide whether they would enroll in something called the International Baccalaureate Program (IB), or stay in the school’s regular course of study. The IB program was much more difficult, and fewer than 10 percent of students enrolled in it.
One day I was speaking with one of the smartest girls in my history class, and I asked her if she was going to enroll in the program. She was from Sweden. “No, of course I am not,” she said. “That program is only for people who are going to get into good schools when they graduate.” I kept asking different people this question and, one after another, very intelligent people (people I believed were much more intelligent than I was) all told me that they simply were not intellectually equipped for those higher level classes. The significance of this was profound. In many European countries the students not enrolled in the IB program were basically setting themselves up for attending trade schools (rather than universities), and working in mediocre professions. Choosing this “regular” course of study did not have this serious of an impact in the United States, but it certainly did over there.
Many were staying away from the IB program, despite their intelligence, because somewhere along the line they had come to believe they were not intelligent enough to handle that course of study. They were, in effect, allowing their own negativity to make their decision for them.
It should also be noted that the converse was also true. Many students were selecting themselves for the IB course of study, who did not seem qualified. These students were allowing their positivity to influence them. These were the sorts of students who always believed they would find a way. And these were the same sorts of students who were not interested in negative conversations.
A couple of years later I was attending a private high school in Michigan and I had a teacher who I also picked as my advisor. This teacher was really exceptional, and most of the students he advised ended up going to very good colleges. I noticed that he too was always extremely positive. He spoke to the students closest to him in terms that only allowed success. For example, he would tell a student that he was confident he or she would get As in every course for the next semester, as if he already knew this would occur. The student might be only a B student, and would therefore look at the teacher incredulously. Nevertheless, the student would end up getting As the next semester.
Nothing has more power than telling someone “I see you doing this,” or “You are this kind of person, and you can do this.” There is a special kind of energy involved when this happens. You can literally change the course of people’s lives based on the sorts of expectations you set for them–whether those expectations are positive or negative. Do you ever have people around you who are setting low expectations for you? How do you perform when this occurs?
Our capacity to achieve starts within our minds, our conception of self. We have to think positively of ourselves in order to do well. We also cannot let negative thoughts enter our minds. This may be easier said than done, but I have known numerous people who are able to do this consistently. It works, and it is an incredibly powerful thing when it is done correctly.
All this brings me back to you and your job search. Regardless of whether the market is thriving or in a meltdown, you are employable. You are the type of person who always manages to find an opportunity. You are very good at your job and people can see this. You are perfect for every job you are applying for.
You need to keep thoughts like this going through your head at all times. These are the only thoughts you can afford when you are searching for a job. No other thought matters. If people around you are saying negative things about the market, do not listen to them. Walk away, or hang up, and avoid them. Negative information does you absolutely no good. Negative energy depresses. You need to be up.
The happiest people and the most successful people think positive thoughts. You need to believe religiously in your abilities, your strengths, and the strength of the market. Like attracts like. Positive attracts positive. I want you to succeed and be all you are capable of being. Do not listen to negative news about the market. Do not surround yourself with negative people at the office. You need to be in a positive space. This is where the jobs, money, and happiness are.
You deserve it all.
To Succeed in Any Job You Need to Create Work
What You Will Learn
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To be denied the right to work is to be denied the right to participate in the society in which we live. It is for this reason that having the opportunity to work is probably the most important part of your existence. Work is not something to be detested; instead, it is a path to mental and economic stability, happiness, and purpose in our lives. To be around people who think otherwise is never in your best interest. To associate work with something negative is also never in your best interest. The most important of all of your career skills is the ability to create productive work. The ability to create productive work is something that will change your career for the better, and it can also take you further than you might have ever believed in your chosen path.
Perhaps you know how to create work in your chosen profession and are doing it already. Perhaps you are not creating work in your chosen profession, or you detest work. Regardless of your current attitude towards work, you need to understand how to create work. The people who create work in our society are the ones who are the happiest, the ones who rarely lose their jobs, the ones who make the most money, and the ones who are the most stable in all respects throughout their lives. You need to know how to create work. Creating work is essential to your existence.
As a manager and also as someone who works very hard at my job, one of the most distressing things that I see is people who fail to create work in their jobs, or who look for ways to avoid work. I am a firm believer in the importance of work, not just from the standpoint that work provides us money with which to live, but also because the act of work is how we participate in society.
One of my jobs is managing a legal recruiting firm called BCG Attorney Search. As part of this job, I have had the opportunity to work with numerous recruiters throughout the years. Some of these recruiters have been absolutely exceptional, and others have been quite marginal. It is very easy for me to tell an outstanding legal recruiter from an average one. My conclusions are based on the recruiter’s ability to create work. Regardless of your profession, understanding the key behind this observation and what it means will be of great assistance to you.
A legal recruiter’s job typically involves (1) working with candidates who approach the legal recruiting firm seeking placement and (2) finding new candidates to work with. I have always sat in an office with legal recruiters and have had the pleasure of watching them very closely. Several years ago I remember having a recruiter who would come in at 8 a.m. every day and would generally leave by around 12 to 1 p.m. most days. When I would ask him why he was leaving so early he would generally say something to the effect of “there are no new candidates today.” What he was saying was that he had done all of the work that had been presented to him–no more and no less. My obvious question for him was along the lines of, “Why not go out and look for new candidates?”
There is always plenty of work for anyone in sales to do beyond the tasks that are immediately presented to them. They can call old leads. They can send letters to old clients, trying to reactivate some old accounts. They can call old sales and see how the product is working out. They can look for new sources of sales. They can socialize to meet new potential clients. The list of work you can do to find more work and be good at your job is almost endless.
In my career, I have run across all sorts of people. I have met countless people who I know have jobs making $500,000 a year or more. By simply examining their work ethics, I always know if they will last at this income level over the long-term. The ones who fail my observational test are never on top for long. The only thing I am looking for is whether this person knows how to create work in his or her job. When you create work you always have something to do and you are always adding value.
Work is most often not something that jumps right into our line of sight. In any job you have it is important to realize that someone created the job you are doing. It is up to you to maintain this job, ensuring that this job continues to create value for your employer. You should also take the initiative to add tasks to this job that continue to make it as effective and profitable for your employer as possible.
For example, a secretary’s main job may be to answer the phone. While waiting for the phone to ring, there should also be other jobs that the secretary is working on, to be more productive. The ability to create work will give the secretary more value to her employer, and will gain the secretary more appreciation. Few sane employers would ever let someone like her go.
In my job I have managed hundreds of employees. I have had the opportunity to work with some truly exceptional people. I would estimate that, in terms of people who are truly exceptional and indispensable in good times and in bad, the proportion of exceptional performers to average performers is around one in 10. That is, only one in 10 people are really, truly exceptional performers. The exceptional performers are the people whom employers rely upon and try to hang on to in all economic climates. The poor to average performers are not as important to the organization. In fact, unless a job is extremely well defined and measured, the poor to average performers will in many cases drag the company down to some degree. What I have noticed from all truly stellar performers is that they have the ability to consistently create work that the company values.
These workers tend to appear to have the happiest personal lives and make the most money in their jobs. I have seen this pattern enough times in my career that I really believe there is something to it. These same individuals also typically have the most employment stability. When they come to work at our company they may have been with their previous employer 10 years or more. They always have good references. They are the sorts of people companies and groups want to keep around.
One of the most infuriating things for me as a manager is when I walk around the office and see people screwing around, not really doing any work. As our organization grew several years ago I wanted to ensure that our employees were always working on productive tasks, so I started giving managers weekly tasks to do. I would write these tasks up on a Sunday night and then speak with our managers in a one-on-one meeting each week to gauge the tasks. The meetings tended to follow two sorts of tracks (and generally still do to this day):
One type of manager would come into the meeting, his team having accomplished most of the tasks, and he would be very familiar with the status of each of the tasks. He would be excited to report on his progress, and would be aware of the exact amount of work required to complete each task, and would provide me with an estimated date of completion. This manager might also suggest new tasks in addition to the existing tasks that needed to be done, for the organization’s benefit. In addition, ongoing tasks that were started would always be brought to completion, and never stopped once they were underway. Before ever requesting additional staff, this type of manager would always ensure that their people were fully utilized and were doing their work as efficiently as possible.
The other type of manager would come into the meeting and would have accomplished few of the tasks. He might even be slightly annoyed at having to report on the status of the tasks. He would state that certain tasks had not been completed or started, for reasons that were very trivial–and only served to help him avoid starting the tasks. This manager would go on to complain about his workload, and would request more staff. In subsequent meetings, I would find that tasks that the manager had started had, for some reason, suddenly been abandoned. The manager would never suggest new work that could be done.
While I hate to make the distinction between managers in such a black and white manner, this is something I have seen over and over and over again. It goes without saying that the people I want on my team are the managers who are proactive. You do not need to be a manager to be proactive, however. Everyone needs to be proactive in his or her job in order to create work.
You need to be working for companies and people who are proactive in creating work. Young companies are generally hungrier and know how to create work better than older ones. Companies that are expanding and not contracting generally know how to create work. You need to be creating work inside your organization. I believe that entrepreneurs are the engines of our society, because they are constantly trying to create work and, in the process, they create new jobs.
In the movie About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson plays an actuary in Omaha who retires from his job after a long career. In the movie we see Nicholson go back to the office weeks after retirement in an effort to give the organization some sort of information he had been working on prior to his retirement. He speaks to his replacement in the job he once held, and is politely told that he is no longer needed. Nicholson is crushed and the audience realizes that the fact that he is no longer needed by the company, to him, almost means he is no longer part of society.
People who cannot work in society are the most unhappy and troubled. To work is to be part of society, an active participant. To be prohibited from working is to be cast out by society. There is nothing more crushing to people than being prohibited from working.
After taking vacations most of us are happy to get back to work. Work defines our psyche and our sense of purpose. People with no sense of purpose often go mad.
You need to create work in your job, and to continue to create work. You should also stay away from people in your job who are critical of the act of work. While I believe unions have their place, they can be very dangerous in many respects because their goal is often to protect you from doing too much work. Work is healthy for you and it gives you purpose. If anything, you should have more work rather than less. People who try to give you distaste for work are extremely dangerous because your identity and life, for the most part, revolve around work.
You have a more wonderful and productive life and existence the closer you are to work. The more productive work you create, the better you will do in your job. Cherishing your work and creating more work will change your career and life.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars.