Success

Milton D. Stone, Jr.

Canada, 1967

And let’s call it like it is, they call it calling a spade a spade. How do we stack up within ourselves? Because as we talked about, we become what we think about. What do we really and truly think about ourselves? I hope it’s very good. But we’ve got some different places that we need to discuss it, and this first one, this next question is the most important question in the book, and it says “Do I really want to be successful?” Underline that. “Do I really want to be successful?”

We get around all the bogus business now, we get around – we cut all the frills off and all the lace off and get right to the heart of it. This is, this is utmost here. Do I really – ME, me I’m talking about – do I want to be successful. Am I ready willing and able to exert the necessary effort? Am I lazy? Most of us are. We can control it, however.

Am I willing to sacrifice some of my time and effort? When you take that book Psychocybernetics, and it ain’t too long a book, and it might take you a little while to read it and you might do it in 30 minutes a day or you might pick it up and you can’t put it down. But however you do it, this is taking some of your time away from some other times that you could be watching TV or playing golf or riding in a boat, or something like that. But I want you to think about the people you know who are successful and ask yourself this: “”Is there anybody that I know that is successful that doesn’t spend some outside time keeping himself successful?” And you don’t know anybody. A doctor goes to school for a hundred years and then you go into a doctor’s office today and what do you see? All these journals and stuff that's come in where he’s got to keep up -- and you’ve got to keep up. The guy that goes to Dale Carnegie for 13 nights – not days, but 13 nights, from maybe 8 o’clock to 11:30 – this guy wants to be successful. This guy’s putting out some extra time to get there.

Is my attitude right? Is it positive? Do I have a clear picture of my objective? Write this down: “Do I have an objective?” Really? Do I have one?

During adverse conditions do I redouble my efforts to succeed? Well we all go through bad times. We can cut down on these bad times a lot. But I remember this great big old fat salesman, and I think the best salesman I ever met and worked with in my life, and he’s still in that dealership where I was up until 19 months ago. And just about every year he was the best one. And he’d see a bunch of men standing around on an old dead day you know, and somehow or another he didn’t have any of these bad days. Not too many of them. He was always there when you called the roll you know. But he’d, he’d want to needle them a little bit and he’d walk up and he’d say “Boss” he said “you know when things get too tough for everybody else they’re just right for me and you, ain’t it?” And he was kidding. He did it in front of these people just to kind of pump them a little bit, but basically he wasn’t kidding because that’s what he lived by. Things just didn’t get too tough for this fella. He found a way. And therefore he was successful and he was happy.

Am I respected? I didn’t say liked. It’s nice to be liked and respected too but it’s important to be respected.

Can I discuss intelligently – without anger – things that have to do with me? We call this constructive criticism. Some people cannot. They have something up here called a chip. And you know you talk to a guy like that and he blows off at you two or three times and the first thing you know, if you can’t open your mind to constructive criticism, the first thing you know, people don’t care anymore and you’re out there on a island all by yourself and ain’t nobody going to help you. And this is the most pathetic creature in the world. The man that’s alone.

How about your dress? Now a salesman is supposed to dress like a salesman. There’s just one kind of general guide about being a businessman. Now you’re, you’re just as much of an executive as any other salesman who is an executive. Now they say if you spend an hour with a man and then go off somewhere for ten minutes and somebody says what color suit did that guy have on or what did he have on and you can’t remember, then that man’s well dressed for business. On the other hand, if he’s flagrantly violating the local rules so to speak, you will remember him. So be more or less conservative. Be clean, be neat. Keep your hair cut, your shoes shined that kind of thing. Take a bath every now and then.

How are my manners? How about your manners, now? You know the British Empire invented manners, I guess. They developed them to the highest degree. We all come from that same place. We just got off a little quicker than you all did. But manners really are what separate the highly civilized individual from the guy that is uncivilized. That’s what manners are. You can take courtesy and manners and friendliness and empathy and sincerity and things like this with only two days of training and do more with it than the bull in the china closet can do with nine diamonds in his Master Salesman button. This type of thing will carry you somewhere so make sure you work on your manners. If you need to.

Your health, we talked about that a little bit. Bad habits. Drinking, smoking, gambling. Well, it seems that all salesmen, I haven’t known too many salesmen for example that don’t drink a little bit. I don’t know why. Of course, I don’t drink at all – during the day. But anyway, there’s a difference between having a couple or three drinks and having a couple or three bottles. Huh? So let’s write one little ole word down there under that thing and then – all of us got some bad points, but let’s do this: MOD-ER-A-TION.