How to Eliminate Fifty Per Cent of Tour Business Worries

IF you are a business man, you are probably saying to yourself right now: "The title of this chapter is ridiculous. I have been running my business for nineteen years; and I certainly know the answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tell me how I can eliminate fifty per cent of my business
worries-it's absurd I" Fair enough-I would have felt exactly the same way myself a few years ago if I had seen this title on a chapter. It promises a lot-and promises are cheap.

Let's be very frank about it: maybe I won't be able to help you eliminate fifty per cent of your business worries. In the last analysis, no one can do that, except yourself. But what I can do is to show you how other people have done it-and leave the rest to you!
You may recall that on page 25 of this book I quoted the world-famous Dr. Alexis Carrel as saying:
"Business men who do not know how to fight worry die young."
Since worry is that serious, wouldn't you be satisfied if I could help you eliminate even ten per cent of your worries? ... Yes? ... Good! Well, I am going to show you how one business executive eliminated not fifty per cent of his worries, but seventy-five per cent of all the time he formerly spent in conferences, trying to solve business problems.
Furthermore, I am not going to tell you this story about a "Mr. Jones" or a "Mr. X" or "or a man I know in Ohio"- vague stories that you can't check up on. It concerns a very real person-Leon Shimkin, a partner and general manager of one of the foremost publishing houses in the United States: Simon and Schuster, Rockefeller Centre, New York 20, New York.
Here is Leon Shimkin's experience in his own words:
For fifteen years I spent almost half of every business day holding conferences, discussing problems.
Should we do this or that-do nothing at all? We would get tense; twist in our chairs; walk the floor; argue and go around in circles. When night came, I would be utterly exhausted. I fully expected to go on doing this sort of thing for the rest of my life. I had been doing it for fifteen years, and it never occurred to me that there was a better way of doing it. If anyone had told me that I could eliminate
three-fourths of all the time I spent in those worried conferences, and three-fourths of my nervous strain-I would have thought he was a wild-eyed, slap-happy, armchair optimist. Yet I devised a plan that did just that. I have been using this plan for eight years. It has performed wonders for my efficiency, my health, and my happiness.
It sounds like magic-but like all magic tricks, it is extremely simple when you see how it is done.
Here is the secret: First, I immediately stopped the procedure I had been using in my conferences for fifteen years-a procedure that began with my troubled associates reciting all the details of what had gone wrong, and ending up by asking: 'What shall we do?' Second, I made a new rule-a rule that everyone who wishes to present a problem to me must first prepare and submit a memorandum
answering these four questions:
Question 1: What is the problem?
("In the old days we used to spend an hour or two in a worried conference without anyone's knowing specifically and concretely what the real problem was. We used to work ourselves into a lather discussing our troubles without ever troubling to write out specifically what our problem was.)
Question 2: What is the cause of the problem?
("As I look back over my career, I am appalled at the wasted hours I have spent in worried conferences without ever trying to find out clearly the conditions which lay at the root of the problem.)
Question 3: What are all possible solutions of the problem?
("In the old days, one man in the conference would suggest one solution. Someone else would argue with him. Tempers would flare. We would often get clear off the subject, and at the end of the conference no one would have written down all the various things we could do to attack the problem.)
Question 4: What solution do you suggest?
("I used to go into a conference with a man who had spent hours worrying about a situation and going around in circles without ever once thinking through all possible solutions and then writing down:
'This is the solution I recommend.')
"My associates rarely come to me now with their problems. Why? Because they have discovered that in order to answer these four questions they have to get all the facts and think their problems through.
And after they have done that they find, in three-fourths of the cases, they don't have to consult me at all, because the proper solution has popped out like a piece of bread popping out from an electric toaster. Even in those cases where consultation is necessary, the discussion takes about one-third the time formerly required, because it proceeds along an orderly, logical path to a reasoned conclusion.
"Much less time is now consumed in the house of Simon and Schuster in worrying and talking about what is wrong; and a lot more action is obtained toward making those things right."
My friend, Frank Bettger, one of the top insurance men in America, tells me he not only reduced his business worries, but nearly doubled his income, by a similar method.
"Years ago," says Frank Bettger, "when I first started to sell insurance, I was filled with a boundless enthusiasm and love for my work. Then something happened. I became so discouraged that I despised my work and thought of giving it up. I think I would have quit-if I hadn't got the idea, one Saturday
morning, of sitting down and trying to get at the root of my worries.
1. I asked myself first: 'Just what is the problem?.' The problem was: that I was not getting high enough returns for the staggering amount of calls I was making. I seemed to do pretty well at selling a prospect, until the moment came for closing a sale. Then the customer would say: 'Well, I'll think it over, Mr. Bettger. Come and see me again.' It was the time I wasted on these follow-up calls that was causing my depression.
2. I asked myself: 'What are the possible solutions?' But to get the answer to that one, I had to study the facts. I got out my record book for the last twelve months and studied the figures.
I made an astounding discovery! Right there in black and white, I discovered that seventy per cent of my sales had been closed on the very first interview! Twenty-three per cent of my sales had been closed on the second interview! And only seven per cent of my sales had been closed on those third, fourth, fifth, etc., interviews, which were running me ragged and taking up my time. In other words, I was wasting fully one half of my working day on a part of my business which was responsible for only seven per cent of my sales!
3. 'What is the answer?' The answer was obvious. I immediately cut out all visits beyond the second interview, and spent the extra time building up new prospects. The results were unbelievable. In a very short time, I had almost doubled the cash value of every visit I made from a call!"
As I said, Frank Bettger is now one of the best-known life-insurance salesmen in America. He is with Fidelity Mutual of Philadelphia, and writes a million dollars' worth of policies a year. But he was on the point of giving up. He was on the point of admitting failure-until analysing the problem gave him a boost on the road to success.
Can you apply these questions to your business problems? To repeat my challenge-they can reduce your worries by fifty per cent. Here they are again:
1. What is the problem?
2. What is the CAUSE of the problem?
3. What are all possible solutions to the problem?
4. What solution do you suggest?
Part Two In A Nutshell
RULE 1: Get the facts. Remember that Dean Hawkes of Columbia University said that " half the
worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient
knowledge on which to base a decision."
RULE 2: After carefully weighing all the facts, come to a decision.
RULE 3: Once a decision is carefully reached, act! Get busy carrying out your decision-and dismiss
all anxiety about the outcome.
RULE 4: When you, or any of your associates are tempted to worry about a problem, write out and answer the following questions:
a. What is the problem?
b. What is the cause of the problem?
c. What are all possible solutions?
d. What is the best solution?

Basic Techniques In Analysing Worry

How To Analyse And Solve Worry Problems

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew):

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling

Will the magic formula of Willis H. Carrier, described in Part One, Chapter 2, solve all worry problems? No, of course not. Then what is the answer? The answer is that we must equip ourselves to deal with different kinds of worries by learning the three basic steps of problem analysis. The three steps are:

1. Get the facts.

2. Analyse the facts.

3. Arrive at a decision-and then act on that decision.

Obvious stuff? Yes, Aristotle taught it-and used it. And you and I must use it too if we are going to solve the problems that are harassing us and turning our days and nights into veritable hells.

Let's take the first rule: Get the facts. Why is it so important to get the facts? Because unless we have the facts we can't possibly even attempt to solve our problem intelligently. Without the facts, all we can do is stew around in confusion. My idea? No, that was the idea of the late Herbert E. Hawkes,

Dean of Columbia College, Columbia University, for twenty-two years. He had helped two hundred thousand students solve their worry problems; and he told me that "confusion is the chief cause of worry". He put it this way-he said: "Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision. For example," he said,

"if I have a problem which has to be faced at three o'clock next Tuesday, I refuse even to try to make a decision about it until next Tuesday arrives. In the meantime, I concentrate on getting all the facts that bear on the problem. I don't worry," he said, "I don't agonise over my problem. I don't lose any sleep. I

simply concentrate on getting the facts. And by the time Tuesday rolls around, if I've got all the facts, the problem usually solves itself!"

I asked Dean Hawkes if this meant he had licked worry entirely. "Yes," he said, "I think I can honestly say that my live is now almost totally devoid of worry. I have found," he went on, "that if a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries usually evaporate in the light of knowledge."

Let me repeat that: "If a man will devote his time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge."

But what do most of us do ? If we bother with facts at all- and Thomas Edison said in all seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labour of thinking"-if we bother

with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that bolster up what we already think-and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that justify our acts-the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify our preconceived prejudices!

As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true.

Everything that is not puts us into a rage."

Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a

hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five-or maybe five hundred!

What can we do about it? We have to keep our emotions out of our thinking; and, as Dean Hawkes put it, we must secure the facts in "an impartial, objective" manner.

That is not an easy task when we are worried. When we are worried, our emotions are riding high. But here are two ideas that I have found helpful when trying to step aside from my problems, in order to see the facts in a clear, objective manner.

1. When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions.

2. While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other words, I try to get all the facts against myself-all the facts that are damaging to my wishes, all the facts I don't like to face.

Then I write down both my side of the case and the other side of the case-and I generally find that the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremities.

Here is the point I am trying to make. Neither you nor I nor Einstein nor the Supreme Court of the United States is brilliant enough to reach an intelligent decision on any problem without first getting the facts. Thomas Edison knew that. At the time of his death, he had two thousand five hundred notebooks filled with facts about the problems he was facing.

So Rule 1 for solving our problems is: Get the facts. Let's do what Dean Hawkes did: let's not even attempt to solve our problems without first collecting all the facts in an impartial manner.

However, getting all the facts in the world won't do us any good until we analyse them and interpret them.

I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyse the facts after writing them Sown. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: "A problem well stated is a problem half solved."

Let me show you all this as it works out in practice. Since the Chinese say one picture is worth ten thousand words, suppose I show you a picture of how one man put exactly what we are talking about into concrete action.

Let's take the case of Galen Litchfield-a man I have known for several years; one of the most successful American business men in the Far East. Mr. Litchfield was in China in 1942, when the Japanese invaded Shanghai. And here is his story as he told it to me while a guest in my home:

"Shortly after the Japs took Pearl Harbour," Galen Litchfield began, "they came swarming into Shanghai. I was the manager of the Asia Life Insurance Company in Shanghai. They sent us an 'army liquidator'-he was really an admiral- and gave me orders to assist this man in liquidating our assets. I didn't have any choice in the matter. I could co-operate-or else. And the 'or else' was certain death.

"I went through the motions of doing what I was told, because I had no alternative. But there was one block of securities, worth $750,000, which I left off the list I gave to the admiral. I left that block of securities off the list because they belonged to our Hong Kong organisation and had nothing to do with the Shanghai assets. All the same, I feared I might be in hot water if the Japs found out what I had done. And they soon found out.

"I wasn't in the office when the discovery was made, but my head accountant was there. He told me that the Jap admiral flew into a rage, and stamped and swore, and called me a thief and a traitor! I had defied the Japanese Army! I knew what that meant. I would be thrown into the Bridge house!

"The Bridge house 1 The torture chamber of the Japanese Gestapo! I had had personal friends who had killed themselves rather than be taken to that prison. I had had other friends who had died in that place after ten days of questioning and torture. Now I was slated for the Bridge house myself!

"What did I do? I heard the news on Sunday afternoon. I suppose I should have been terrified. And I would have been terrified if I hadn't had a definite technique for solving my problems. For years, whenever I was worried I had always gone to my typewriter and written down two questions-and the answers to these questions:

l 1. What am I worrying about?

l 2. What can I do about it?

"I used to try to answer those questions without writing them down. But I stopped that years ago. I

found that writing down both the questions and the answers clarifies my thinking.

So, that Sunday afternoon, I went directly to my room at the Shanghai Y.M.C.A. and got out my typewriter. I wrote: "I. What am I worrying about?

I am afraid I will be thrown into the Bridge house tomorrow morning.

"Then I typed out the second question:

l 2. What can I do about it?

I spent hours thinking out and writing down the four courses of action I could take-and what the probable consequence of each action would be.

1. I can try to explain to the Japanese admiral. But he "no speak English". If I try to explain to him through an interpreter, I may stir him up again. That might mean death, for he is cruel, would rather dump me in the Bridge house than bother talking about it.

2. I can try to escape. Impossible. They keep track of me all the time. I have to check in and out of my room at the Y.M.C.A. If I try to escape, I'll probably be captured and shot.

3. I can stay here in my room and not go near the office again. If I do, the Japanese admiral will be suspicion, will probably send soldiers to get me and throw me into the Bridge-house without giving me a chance to say a word.

4. I can go down to the office as usual on Monday morning. If I do, there is a chance that the Japanese admiral may be so busy that he will not think of what I did. Even if he does think of it, he may have cooled off and may not bother me. If this happens, I am all right. Even if he does bother me, I'll still have a chance to try to explain to him. So, going down to the office as usual on Monday morning, and acting as if nothing had gone wrong gives me two chances to escape the Bridge-house.

As soon as I thought it all out and decided to accept the fourth plan-to go down to the office as usual on Monday morning-I felt immensely relieved.

When I entered the office the next morning, the Japanese admiral sat there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He glared at me as he always did; and said nothing. Six weeks later-thank God-he went back to Tokyo and my worries were ended.

As I have already said, I probably saved my life by sitting down that Sunday afternoon and writing out all the various steps I could take and then writing down the probable consequences of each step and calmly coming to a decision. If I hadn't done that, I might have floundered and hesitated and done the wrong thing on the spur of the moment. If I hadn't thought out my problem and come to a decision, I would have been frantic with worry all Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't have slept that night. I would have gone down to the office Monday morning with a harassed and worried look; and that alone might have aroused the suspicion of the Japanese admiral and spurred him to act.

"Experience has proved to me, time after time, the enormous value of arriving at a decision. It is the failure to arrive at a fixed purpose, the inability to stop going round and round in maddening circles, that drives men to nervous breakdowns and living hells. I find that fifty per cent of my worries vanishes once I arrive at a clear, definite decision; and another forty per cent usually vanishes once I

start to carry out that decision.

So I banish about ninety per cent of my worries by taking these four steps:

l 1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.

l 2. Writing down what I can do about it.

l 3. Deciding what to do.

l 4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.

Galen Litchfield is now the Far Eastern Director for Starr, Park and Freeman, Inc., III John Street, New York, representing large insurance and financial interests.

In fact, as I said before, Galen Litchfield today is one of the most important American business men in Asia; and he confesses to me that he owes a large part of his success to this method of analysing worry and meeting it head-on.

Why is his method so superb? Because it is efficient, concrete, and goes directly to the heart of the problem. On top of all that, it is climaxed by the third and indispensable rule: Do something about it.

Unless we carry out our action, all our fact-finding and analysis is whistling upwind-it's a sheer waste of energy.

William James said this: "When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome." In this case, William James undoubtedly used the word "care" as a synonym for "anxiety".) He meant-once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don't stop to reconsider. Don't begin to hesitate worry

and retrace your steps. Don't lose yourself in self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don't keep looking back over your shoulder.

I once asked Waite Phillips, one of Oklahoma's most prominent oil men, how he carried out decisions.

He replied: "I find that to keep thinking about our problems beyond a certain point is bound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any more investigation and thinking are harmful.

There comes a time when we must decide and act and never look back."

Why don't you employ Galen Litchfield's technique to one of your worries right now?

Here is:

l Question No. 1 -What am I worrying about? (Please pencil the answer to that question in the space below.)

l Question No. 2 -What can I do about it? (Please write your answer to that question in the space below.)

l Question No. 3 -Here is what I am going to do about it.

l Question No. 4 -When am I going to start doing it?

A Magic Formula For Solving Worry Situations

Would you like a quick, sure-fire recipe for handling worry situations-a technique you can start using right away, before you go any further in reading this book ?

Then let me tell you about the method worked out by Willis H. Carrier, the brilliant engineer who launched the air-conditioning industry, and who is now head of the world-famous Carrier Corporation in Syracuse, New York. It is one of the best techniques I ever heard of for solving worry problems, and I got it from Mr. Carrier personally when we were having lunch together one day at the Engineers' Club in New York.

"When I was a young man," Mr. Carrier said, "I worked for the Buffalo Forge Company in Buffalo, New York. I was handed the assignment of installing a gas-cleaning device in a plant of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company at Crystal City, Missouri-a plant costing millions of dollars. The purpose of this installation was to remove the impurities from the gas so it could be burned without injuring the engines. This method of cleaning gas was new. It had been tried only once before- and under different conditions. In my work at Crystal City, Missouri, unforeseen difficulties arose. It worked after a fashion -but not well enough to meet the guarantee we had made.

"I was stunned by my failure. It was almost as if someone had struck me a blow on the head. My stomach, my insides, began to twist and turn. For a while I was so worried I couldn't sleep.

"Finally, common sense reminded me that worry wasn't getting me anywhere; so I figured out a way to handle my problem without worrying. It worked superbly. I have been using this same anti-worry technique for more than thirty years.

It is simple. Anyone can use it. It consists of three steps:

"Step I. I analysed the situation fearlessly and honestly and figured out what was the worst that could possibly happen as a result of this failure. No one was going to jail me or shoot me. That was certain.

True, there was a chance that I would lose my position; and there was also a chance that my employers would have to remove the machinery and lose the twenty thousand dollars we had invested.

"Step II. After figuring out what was the worst that could possibly happen, I reconciled myself to accepting it, if necessary. I said to myself: This failure will be a blow to my record, and it might possibly mean the loss of my job; but if it does, I can always get another position. Conditions could be much worse; and as far as my employers are concerned- well, they realise that we are experimenting with a new method of cleaning gas, and if this experience costs them twenty thousand dollars, they can stand it. They can charge it up to research, for it is an experiment.

"After discovering the worst that could possibly happen and reconciling myself to accepting it, if necessary, an extremely important thing happened: I immediately relaxed and felt a sense of peace that I hadn't experienced in days.

"Step III. From that time on, I calmly devoted my time and energy to trying to improve upon the worst which I had already accepted mentally.

"I now tried to figure out ways and means by which I might reduce the loss of twenty thousand dollars that we faced. I made several tests and finally figured out that if we spent another five thousand for additional equipment, our problem would be solved. We did this, and instead of the firm losing twenty thousand, we made fifteen thousand.

"I probably would never have been able to do this if I had kept on worrying, because one of the worst features about worrying is that it destroys our ability to concentrate. When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. However, when we force ourselves to face the worst and accept it mentally, we then eliminate all those vague imaginings and put ourselves in a position in which we are able to concentrate on our problem.

"This incident that I have related occurred many years ago. It worked so superbly that I have been using it ever since; and, as a result, my life has been almost completely free from worry."

Now, why is Willis H. Carrier's magic formula so valuable and so practical, psychologically speaking? Because it yanks us down out of the great grey clouds in which we fumble around when we are blinded by worry. It plants our feet good and solid on the earth. We know where we stand. And if we haven't solid ground under us, how in creation can we ever hope to think anything through?

Professor William James, the father of applied psychology, has been dead for thirty-eight years. But if he were alive today, and could hear his formula for facing the worst, he would heartily approve it.

How do I know that? Because he told his own students: "Be willing to have it so ... .Be willing to have it so," he said, because "... Acceptance of what has happened is the first step in overcoming the consequences of any misfortune."

The same idea was expressed by Lin Yutang in his widely read book, The Importance of Living.

"True peace of mind," said this Chinese philosopher, "comes from accepting the worst.

Psychologically, I think, it means a release of energy."

That's it, exactly! Psychologically, it means a new release of energy! When we have accepted the worst, we have nothing more to lose. And that automatically means-we have everything to gain ! "After facing the worst," Willis H. Carrier reported, "I immediately relaxed and felt a sense of peace that I hadn't experienced in days. From that time on, I was able to think."

Makes sense, doesn't it ? Yet millions of people have wrecked their lives in angry turmoil, because they refused to accept the worst; refused to try to improve upon it; refused to salvage what they could from the wreck. Instead of trying to reconstruct their fortunes, they engaged in a bitter and "violent contest with experience"-and ended up victims of that brooding fixation known as melancholia.

Would you like to see how someone else adopted Willis H. Carrier's magic formula and applied it to his own problem? Well, here is one example, from a New York oil dealer who was a student in my classes.

"I was being blackmailed!" this student began. "I didn't believe it was possible-I didn't believe it could happen outside of the movies-but I was actually being blackmailed! What happened was this : the oil company of which I was the head had a number of delivery trucks and a number of drivers. At that time, OPA regulations were strictly in force, and we were rationed on the amount of oil we could deliver to any one of our customers. I didn't know it, but it seems that certain of our drivers had been delivering oil short to our regular customers, and then reselling the surplus to customers of their own.

"The first inkling I had of these illegitimate transactions was when a man who claimed to be a government inspector came to see me one day and demanded hush money. He had got documentary proof of what our drivers had been doing, and he threatened to turn this proof over to the District Attorney's office if I didn't cough up.

"I knew, of course, that I had nothing to worry about-personally, at least. But I also knew that the law says a firm is responsible for the actions of its employees. What's more, I knew that if the case came to court, and it was aired in the newspapers, the bad publicity would ruin my business. And I was proud of my business-it had been founded by my father twenty-four years before.

"I was so worried I was sick! I didn't eat or sleep for three days and nights. I kept going around in crazy circles. Should I pay the money-five thousand dollars-or should I tell this man to go ahead and do his damnedest? Either way I tried to make up my mind, it ended in nightmare.

"Then, on Sunday night, I happened to pick up the booklet on How to Stop Worrying which I had been given in my Carnegie class in public speaking. I started to read it, and came across the story of Willis H. Carrier. 'Face the worst', it said. So I asked myself: 'What is the worst that can happen if I refuse to pay up, and these blackmailers turn their records over to the District Attorney?'

"The answer to that was: The ruin of my business-that's the worst that can happen. I can't go to jail.

All that can happen is that I shall be ruined by the publicity.'

"I then said to myself: 'All right, the business is ruined. I accept that mentally. What happens next?'

"Well, with my business ruined, I would probably have to look for a job. That wasn't bad. I knew a lot about oil- there were several firms that might be glad to employ me. ... I began to feel better. The blue funk I had been in for three days and nights began to lift a little. My emotions calmed down. ... And to my astonishment, I was able to think.

"I was clear-headed enough now to face Step III-improve on the worst. As I thought of solutions, an entirely new angle presented itself to me. If I told my attorney the whole situation, he might find a way out which I hadn't thought of. I know it sounds stupid to say that this hadn't even occurred to me before-but of course I hadn't been thinking, I had only been worrying! I immediately made up my mind that I would see my attorney first thing in the morning-and then I went to bed and slept like a log!

"How did it end? Well, the next morning my lawyer told me to go and see the District Attorney and tell him the truth. I did precisely that. When I finished I was astonished to hear the D.A. say that this blackmail racket had been going on for months and that the man who claimed to be a 'government agent' was a crook wanted by the police. What a relief to hear all this after I had tormented myself for three days and nights wondering whether I should hand over five thousand dollars to this professional

swindler!

"This experience taught me a lasting lesson. Now, whenever I face a pressing problem that threatens to worry me, I give it what I call 'the old Willis H. Carrier formula'."

At just about the same time Willis H. Carrier was worrying over the gas-cleaning equipment he was installing in a plant in Crystal City, Missouri, a chap from Broken Bow, Nebraska, was making out his will. His name was Earl P. Haney, and he had duodenal ulcers. Three doctors, including a celebrated ulcer specialist, had pronounced Mr. Haney an "incurable case". They had told him not to eat this or that, and not to worry or fret-to keep perfectly calm. They also told him to make out his will!

These ulcers had already forced Earl P. Haney to give up a fine and highly paid position. So now he had nothing to do, nothing to look forward to except a lingering death.

Then he made a decision: a rare and superb decision. "Since I have only a little while to live," he said, "I may as well make the most of it. I have always wanted to travel around the world before I die. If I am ever going to do it, I'll have to do it now." So he bought his ticket.

The doctors were appalled. "We must warn you," they said to Mr. Haney, "that if you do take this trip, you will be buried at sea."

"No, I won't," he replied. "I have promised my relatives that I will be buried in the family plot at Broken Bow, Nebraska. So I am going to buy a casket and take it with me."

He purchased a casket, put it aboard ship, and then made arrangements with the steamship company in the event of his death-to put his corpse in a freezing compartment and keep it there till the liner returned home. He set out on his trip, imbued with the spirit of old Omar:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend;

Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,

Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and-sans End!

However, he didn't make the trip "sans wine". "I drank highballs, and smoked long cigars on that trip,"

Mr. Haney says in a letter that I have before me now. "I ate all kinds of foods-even strange native foods which were guaranteed to kill me. I enjoyed myself more than I had in years! We ran into monsoons and typhoons which should have put me in my casket, if only from fright-but I got an enormous kick out of all this adventure.

"I played games aboard the ship, sang songs, made new friends, stayed up half the night. When we reached China and India, I realised that the business troubles and cares that I had faced back home were paradise compared to the poverty and hunger in the Orient. I stopped all my senseless worrying and felt fine. When I got back to America, I had gained ninety pounds. I had almost forgotten I had ever had a stomach ulcer. I had never felt better in my life. I promptly sold the casket back to the

undertaker, and went back to business. I haven't been ill a day since."

At the time this happened, Earl P. Haney had never even heard of Willis H. Carrier and his technique for handling worry. "But I realise now," he told me quite recently, "that I was unconsciously using the selfsame principle. I reconciled myself to the worst that could happen-in my case, dying. And then I improved upon it by trying to get the utmost enjoyment out of life for the time I had left. ... If," he continued, "if I had gone on worrying after boarding that ship, I have no doubt that I would have made

the return voyage inside of that coffin. But I relaxed-I forgot it. And this calmness of mind gave me a new birth of energy which actually saved my life." (Earl P. Haney is now living at 52 Wedgemere Ave., Winchester, Mass.)

Now, if Willis H. Carrier could save a twenty-thousand-dollar contract, if a New York business man could save himself from blackmail, if Earl P. Haney could actually save his life, by using this magic formula, then isn't it possible that it may be the answer to some of your troubles? Isn't it possible that it may even solve some problems you thought were unsolvable?

So, Rule 2 is: If you have a worry problem, apply the magic formula of Willis H. Carrier by doing these three things-

1. Ask yourself,' 'What is the worst that can possibly happen?"

2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.

3. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

Live in "Day-tight Compartments"
In the spring of 1871, a young man picked up a book and read twenty-one words that had a profound effect on his future. A medical student at the Montreal General Hospital, he was worried about passing the final examination, worried about what to do, where to go, how to build up a practice, how to make a living.
The twenty-one words that this young medical student read in 1871 helped him to become the most famous physician of his generation. He organised the world-famous Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford-the highest honour that can be bestowed upon any medical man in the British Empire. He was knighted by the King of England.
When he died, two huge volumes containing 1,466 pages were required to tell the story of his life. His name was Sir William Osier. Here are the twenty-one words that he read in the spring of 1871- twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry : "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."
Forty-two years later, on a soft spring night when the tulips were blooming on the campus, this man, Sir William Osier, addressed the students of Yale University. He told those Yale students that a man like himself who had been a professor in four universities and had written a popular book was supposed to have "brains of a special quality". He declared that that was untrue. He said that his intimate friends knew that his brains were "of the most mediocre character".
What, then, was the secret of his success ? He stated that it was owing to what he called living in "daytight compartments." What did he mean by that ? A few months before he spoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where the captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and-presto !-there was a clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one another-shut off into watertight compartments. "Now each one of you,"
Dr. Osier said to those Yale students, "is a much more marvelous organisation than the great liner, and bound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out the Past-the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future -the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe-safe for today ! ... Shut off the past ! Let the dead past bury its dead. ... Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death. ... The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. ... The future is today. ... There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. ... Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments'."
Did Dr. Osier mean to say that we should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow ? No. Not at all.
But he did go on in that address to say that the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today's work superbly today.
That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.
Sir William Osier urged the students at Yale to begin the day with Christ's prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread."
Remember that that prayer asks only for today's bread. It doesn't complain about the stale bread we had to eat yesterday; and it doesn't say : "Oh, God, it has been pretty dry out in the wheat belt lately and we may have another drought-and then how will I get bread to eat next autumn-or suppose I lose my job-oh, God, how could I get bread then ?»
No, this prayer teaches us to ask for today's bread only. Today's bread is the only kind of bread you can possibly eat.
Years ago, a penniless philosopher was wandering through a stony country where the people had a hard time making a living. One day a crowd gathered about him on a hill, and he gave what is probably the most-quoted speech ever delivered anywhere at any time. This speech contains twentysix words that have gone ringing down across the centuries : "Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Many men have rejected those words of Jesus : "Take no thought for the morrow." They have rejected those words as a counsel of perfection, as a bit of Oriental mysticism. "I must take thought for the morrow," they say. "I must take out insurance to protect my family. I must lay aside money for my old age. I must plan and prepare to get ahead."
Right ! Of course you must. The truth is that those words of Jesus, translated over three hundred years ago, don't mean today what they meant during the reign of King James. Three hundred years ago the word thought frequently meant anxiety. Modern versions of the Bible quote Jesus more accurately as saying : "Have no anxiety for the tomorrow."
By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety.
During the war, our military leaders planned for the morrow, but they could not afford to have any anxiety. "I have supplied the best men with the best equipment we have," said Admiral Ernest J. King, who directed the United States Navy, "and have given them what seems to be the wisest mission. That is all I can do."
"If a ship has been sunk," Admiral King went on, "I can't bring it up. If it is going to be sunk, I can't stop it. I can use my time much better working on tomorrow's problem than by fretting about yesterday's. Besides, if I let those things get me, I wouldn't last long."
Whether in war or peace, the chief difference between good thinking and bad thinking is this : good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of one of the most famous newspapers in the world, The New York Times. Mr. Sulzberger told me that when the Second World War flamed across Europe, he was so stunned, so worried about the future, that he found it almost impossible to sleep. He would frequently get out of bed in the middle of the night, take some canvas and tubes of paint, look in the mirror, and try to paint a portrait of himself. He didn't know anything about painting, but he painted anyway, to get his mind off his worries. Mr. Sulzberger told me that he was never able to banish his worries and find peace until he had adopted as his motto five words from a church hymn : One step enough for me.
Lead, kindly Light ...
Keep thou my feet : I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
At about the same time, a young man in uniform-somewhere in Europe-was learning the same lesson.
His name was Ted Bengermino, of 5716 Newholme Road, Baltimore, Maryland-and he had worried himself into a first-class case of combat fatigue.
"In April, 1945," writes Ted Bengermino, "I had worried until I had developed what doctors call a 'spasmodic transverse colon'-a condition that produced intense pain. If the war hadn't ended when it did, I am sure I would have had a complete physical breakdown.
"I was utterly exhausted. I was a Graves Registration, Noncommissioned Officer for the 94th Infantry Division. My work was to help set up and maintain records of all men killed in action, missing in action, and hospitalised. I also had to help disinter the bodies of both Allied and enemy soldiers who had been killed and hastily buried in shallow graves during the pitch of battle. I had to gather up the personal effects of these men and see that they were sent back to parents or closest relatives who would prize these personal effects so much. I was constantly worried for fear we might be making embarrassing and serious mistakes. I was worried about whether or not I would come through all this.
I was worried about whether I would live to hold my only child in my arms-a son of sixteen months, whom I had never seen. I was so worried and exhausted that I lost thirty-four pounds. I was so frantic that I was almost out of my mind. I looked at my hands. They were hardly more than skin and bones. I was terrified at the thought of going home a physical wreck. I broke down and sobbed like a child. I was so shaken that tears welled up every time I was alone. There was one period soon after the Battle
of the Bulge started that I wept so often that I almost gave up hope of ever being a normal human being again.
"I ended up in an Army dispensary. An Army doctor gave me some advice which has completely changed my life. After giving me a thorough physical examination, he informed me that my troubles were mental. 'Ted', he said, 'I want you to think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass. When we start in the morning, there are hundreds of tasks which we feel that we must accomplish that day, but if we do not take them one at a time and let them pass through the day slowly and evenly, as do the grains of sand passing through the narrow neck of the hourglass, then we are bound to break our own physical or mental structure.'
"I have practised that philosophy ever since that memorable day that an Army doctor gave it to me.
'One grain of sand at a time. ... One task at a time.' That advice saved me physically and mentally during the war; and it has also helped me in my present position in business. I am a Stock Control Clerk for the Commercial Credit Company in Baltimore. I found the same problems arising in business that had arisen during the war : a score of things had to be done at once-and there was little time to do them. We were low in stocks. We had new forms to handle, new stock arrangements, changes of address, opening and closing offices, and so on. Instead of getting taut and nervous, I remembered what the doctor had told me. 'One grain of sand at a time. One task at a time.' By repeating those words to myself over and over, I accomplished my tasks in a more efficient manner and I did my work without the confused and jumbled feeling that had almost wrecked me on the battlefield."
One of the most appalling comments on our present way of life is that half of all the beds in our hospitals are reserved for patients with nervous and mental troubles, patients who have collapsed under the crushing burden of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows. Yet a vast majority of those people would be walking the streets today, leading happy, useful lives, if they had only heeded the words of Jesus : "Have no anxiety about the morrow"; or the words of Sir William Osier : "Live in day-tight compartments."
You and I are standing this very second at the meeting-place of two eternities : the vast past that has endured for ever, and the future that is plunging on to the last syllable of recorded time. We can't possibly live in either of those eternities-no, not even for one split second. But, by trying to do so, we can wreck both our bodies and our minds. So let's be content to live the only time we can possibly live : from now until bedtime. "Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall," wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. "Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means."
Yes, that is all that life requires of us; but Mrs. E. K. Shields, 815, Court Street, Saginaw, Michigan, was driven to despair- even to the brink of suicide-before she learned to live just till bedtime. "In 1937, I lost my husband," Mrs. Shields said as she told me her story. "I was very depressed-and almost penniless. I wrote my former employer, Mr. Leon Roach, of the Roach-Fowler Company of Kansas City, and got my old job back. I had formerly made my living selling books to rural and town school boards. I had sold my car two years previously when my husband became ill; but I managed to scrape together enough money to put a down payment on a used car and started out to sell books again.
"I had thought that getting back on the road would help relieve my depression; but driving alone and eating alone was almost more than I could take. Some of the territory was not very productive, and I found it hard to make those car payments, small as they were.
"In the spring of 1938, I was working out from Versailles, Missouri. The schools were poor, the roads bad; I was so lonely and discouraged that at one time I even considered suicide. It seemed that success was impossible. I had nothing to live for. I dreaded getting up each morning and facing life. I was afraid of everything : afraid I could not meet the car payments; afraid I could not pay my room rent;
Afraid I would not have enough to eat. I was afraid my health was failing and I had no money for a doctor. All that kept me from suicide were the thoughts that my sister would be deeply grieved, and that I did not have enough money to pay my funeral expenses.
"Then one day I read an article that lifted me out of my despondence and gave me the courage to go on living. I shall never cease to be grateful for one inspiring sentence in that article. It said : 'Every day is a new life to a wise man.' I typed that sentence out and pasted it on the windshield of my car, where I saw it every minute I was driving. I found it wasn't so hard to live only one day at a time. I learned to forget the yesterdays and to not-think of the tomorrows. Each morning I said to myself : 'Today is a new life.'
"I have succeeded in overcoming my fear of loneliness, my fear of want. I am happy and fairly successful now and have a lot of enthusiasm and love for life. I know now that I shall never again be afraid, regardless of what life hands me. I know now that I don't have to fear the future. I know now that I can live one day at a time-and that 'Every day is a new life to a wise man.'"
Who do you suppose wrote this verse :
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own :
He who, secure within, can say :
"To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day."
Those words sound modern, don't they ? Yet they were written thirty years before Christ was born, by the Roman poet Horace.
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
Why are we such fools-such tragic fools ?
"How strange it is, our little procession of life I" wrote Stephen Leacock. "The child says : 'When I am a big boy.' But what is that ? The big boy says : 'When I grow up.' And then, grown up, he says : 'When I get married.' But to be married, what is that after all ? The thought changes to 'When I'm able to retire." And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone. Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour."
The late Edward S. Evans of Detroit almost killed himself with worry before he learned that life "is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour." Brought up in poverty, Edward Evans made his first money by selling newspapers, then worked as a grocer's clerk. Later, with seven people dependent upon him for bread and butter, he got a job as an assistant librarian. Small as the pay was, he was afraid to quit. Eight years passed before he could summon up the courage to start out on his own. But
once he started, he built up an original investment of fifty-five borrowed dollars into a business of his own that made him twenty thousand dollars a year. Then came a frost, a killing frost. He endorsed a big note for a friend-and the friend went bankrupt.
Quickly on top of that disaster came another : the bank in which he had all his money collapsed. He not only lost every cent he had, but was plunged into debt for sixteen thousand dollars. His nerves couldn't take it. "I couldn't sleep or eat," he told me. "I became strangely ill. Worry and nothing but worry," he said, "brought on this illness. One day as I was walking down the street, I fainted and fell on the sidewalk. I was no longer able to walk. I was put to bed and my body broke out in boils. These boils turned inward until just lying in bed was agony. I grew weaker every day. Finally my doctor told me that I had only two more weeks to live. I was shocked. I drew up my will, and then lay back in bed to await my end. No use now to struggle or worry. I gave up, relaxed, and went to sleep. I hadn't slept two hours in succession for weeks; but now with my earthly problems drawing to an end, I slept like a baby. My exhausting weariness began to disappear. My appetite returned. I gained weight.
"A few weeks later, I was able to walk with crutches. Six weeks later, I was able to go back to work. I had been making twenty thousand dollars a year; but I was glad now to get a job for thirty dollars a week. I got a job selling blocks to put behind the wheels of automobiles when they are shipped by freight. I had learned my lesson now. No more worry for me-no more regret about what had happened in the past- no more dread of the future. I concentrated all my time, energy, and enthusiasm into selling those blocks."
Edward S. Evans shot up fast now. In a few years, he was president of the company. His company-the Evans Product Company-has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange for years. When Edward S. Evans died in 1945, he was one of the most progressive business men in the United States. If you ever fly over Greenland, you may land on Evans Field- a flying-field named in his honour.
Here is the point of the story : Edward S. Evans would never have had the thrill of achieving these victories in business and in living if he hadn't seen the folly of worrying-if he hadn't learned to live in day-tight compartments.
Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said : "You cannot step in the same river twice."
The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change.
The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell ?
The old Romans had a word for it. In fact, they had two words for it. Carpe diem. "Enjoy the day." Or, "Seize the day." Yes, seize the day, and make the most of it.
That is the philosophy of Lowell Thomas. I recently spent a week-end at his farm; and I noticed that he had these words from Psalm CXVIII framed and hanging on the walls of his broadcasting studio where he would see them often :
This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
John Ruskin had on his desk a simple piece of stone on which was carved one word: TODAY. And while I haven't a piece of stone on my desk, I do have a poem pasted on my mirror where I can see it when I shave every morning-a poem that Sir William Osier always kept on his desk-a poem written by the famous Indian dramatist, Kalidasa :
Salutation To The Dawn
Look to this day !
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence :
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendour of achievement.
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day !
Such is the salutation to the dawn.
So, the first thing you should know about worry is this : if you want to keep it out of your life, do what Sir William Osier did -
1. Shut the iron doors on the past and the future. Live in Day-tight Compartments
Why not ask yourself these questions, and write down the answers ?
l 1. Do I tend to put off living in the present in order to worry about the future, or to yearn for some "magical rose garden over the horizon» ?
l 2. Do I sometimes embitter the present by regretting things that happened in the past-that are over and done with ?
l 3. Do I get up in the morning determined to "Seize the day"-to get the utmost out of these twenty-four hours ?
l 4. Can I get more out of life by "living in day-tight compartments" ?
l 5. When shall I start to do this ? Next week ? Tomorrow ? ... Today ?