Influence
Just as soon as you begin to Think or Do something, you begin to have Influence. Influence is something you can’t keep at home. And when it gets away from you, you can never call it back.
Your Influence makes you Something of Somebody else.
Influence has no boundaries. Once started, though it may seem ever so trifling, yet it may have as its destination the farthermost comers of the Earth. If you would get a conception of Power, realize the Influence of a Strong Man.
It is well to remember that what you have that you can’t help but give away is your Influence.
Bear in mind that your Influence is never wholly absorbed, nor does it disappear into Nothingness. It Counts again and again. Influence has no end.
The three greatest objects in life — Friends, Happiness, Success — are each dependent upon proper Influence. So it is good to know that even the humblest person is, after all, master of his own Influence. He can send it out to scatter Sunshine or Shadows. It’s his Choice.
A man’s greatest Responsibility in this world lies in the way he acquires and gives out — his Influence.
Your Influence to-day is sure to have a tremendous bearing upon the total work of the world. Your Influence upon other people and the Influence of other people upon you is sure to become a Force and a Factor in the complete work of your day and theirs.
See that your Influence is kept true and wholesome and it will return to refresh you, again and again.
Face It
Some people fancy that to Dodge some work that they ought to do is about the easiest possible thing to do. The truth is, however, it is always easier to walk right up to your work and — Pace It.
No one but laggards dig up excuses for Dodging what they should Face.
It is unfortunate that the most costly lessons are many times learned late in life. The greatest reason for this is our timidity and cowardice in Facing every problem just as soon as it Faces us. Many a man has evaded a problem in his youth that he could easily have Solved at that time and then gone on, but which he refused to grapple with until compelled to Face It late in life under cover of the bitterest pangs of sorrow and remorse.
It takes greater courage to Decide to do a thing than it does to Do the thing.
Have you a particularly difficult piece of Work to do to-day? Face It. Have you an Enemy? Face him — and make him your Friend. You feel yourself capable of more important work than you are now doing? Face the new Work, and decide to Master it. Whatever your Problem, Face It — with Courage and without Fear, and with the Calmness that comes to a man when he decides to go ahead according to his Conscience.
Sidestep — Dodge, from nothing. If a thing is worth working out, Face It and Finish it.
Poise
Poise is a large phase of Success already worked out. Pot there can be little of Success without Poise. Poise is keeping your head when everybody else loses theirs.
Poise is Power — square jawed and firm set.
When Blame all seems to come your way; when the fingers of Fault-finders all seem centered in front of your face; when Failure after Failure files into your door; when former Friends form into foes; when Clouds creep onward, black and threatening — then’s the time for Poise!
Then’s the time to face the Crowd and cut the air with your command of Confidence and — Poise.
The Cool heads are the Battle winners.
And you who are ruling and conserving through the art of Poise, you are preserving Peace by being prepared for War.
The Strong Man always Listens — and Thinks. In such an attitude he can consider and weigh with Justice and rare Freedom the most puzzling problems. Poise to such a man is like a Bank full of funds.
Poise put into your Character will balance and proportion it — make it fit and formidable.
How many times you have seen the Man of Action at his desk, calm and collected — with plenty of time for anything important — while about him is confusion and an atmosphere of importance that is, after all, charged with very little importance.
Study out and apply to yourself — Poise. Poise starts when you begin to eliminate Fear and Disorder.
Capacity
Your Capacity is the stored up Power that you have available for your Everyday Doing as well as for the various Emergencies of your Life. Also, Capacity is the Valuation chalked up as your Real Assets which you and you alone know as your own.
Capacity is Possibility.
The very knowledge that you possess Capacity is in itself an inspiration most extraordinary. It enables you to tread your way bravely and under cover of Smiles with Sunshine streaming into every comer of your Heart. For you to know that you have Capacity to go through a piece of work or to the accomplishment of a certain Purpose or Ideal is to you more than Wealth.
Capacity is Possibility.
Many a man has turned away from his employ many a worker whose Capacity he took no time to investigate, but which later had to be reckoned with in Competition. When the late Marshall Field discovered unusual Capacity in a worker, he recognized it and later joined it to his business in the shape of a Partner.
Capacity is Possibility.
Study yourself as you would a masterful piece of machinery, for you are the most wonderful Handiwork that has ever been put together. Each day should find you more familiar with your Abilities and Capacity than the day before. Your latent and undiscovered or unrealized Capacity may now be holding you into Mediocrity. Ask yourself if this is true. Find out what your Capacity suggests and you can be about what you determine to be.
Things to Do
The people who get the most done — and still seem to have the most time on their hands for other things — are the ones who go at their work from a carefully mapped out plan. For in the end, it’s the one who conserves and uses to its full, the 24 hours of Time at his command, that Leads and Rules.
The Successful are they that See and Do — the Unsuccessful are they that See — and do not Do.
Having Things To Do — and doing them according to Plan has produced sufficient Romance in the Business of the World, which if written out, would remain undying in its inspiration to succeeding generations.
A single illustration here. Hugh Chalmers, but a few years ago Office Boy, then Salesman, then Sales Manager, then Vice-President and General Manager, of the National Cash Register Company — now President of a Concern he himself organized and doing business into the millions! Each night Mr. Chalmers’ Secretary writes out on a little slip the ten most important Things To Do for the next Day.
Time used in Thinking out things the night before or at the beginning of each day and putting them into logical order for Action is Time invested in advance.
Victor Hugo says: “He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out the plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all his operations.”
Ancestors
Are you one of those people who like to putter away valuable time figuring out just how you stand as to Ancestors? The fact is, your