Warren Hilton

“ You will often hear some "live-wire" business man spoken of as a "human dynamo." He has the faculty of turning out a stupendous amount of work in a comparatively short time. How he can carry in his mind the details of so many large projects, how he can accomplish so much in actual, tangible results in many directions, how he can pull the strings of so many enterprises without getting lost in the maze of detail, is the marvel of his associates. ”

“ You cannot yourself acquire will-power, confidence and courage without impressing others with your possession of these qualities. Personalities are revealed one to another by faint and suggestive activities all unconsciously perceived. Your concentration of energy will inspire others. You will radiate an "atmosphere" of success. You will subtly influence your associates. You will be a force to reckon with, and the world will know it. Your air of success will draw others to you, will bring business and goodwill, and men and money will seek a share in your enterprises. ”

“ So now, as a business man, unless you have learned the secret of self-mastery, you are unable to concentrate your efforts, your attention is easily distracted, you exhaust yourself in displays of passion, you are forever doing things during business hours that have no relation to your business, you are forever doing things in connection with your business that do not contribute to its progress, you expend just as much energy as the accomplished executive or the successful "hustler," but you fritter it away in unprofitable activities. ”

“ What you required was the impulse of some strong desire that should carry you over the threshold of that first inertia into the wide field of reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power.
Under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, men accomplish feats of mental and physical endurance of which they would have supposed themselves incapable. ”

“ Take an illustration of the way in which this reserve or potential energy is transformed into circulating or kinetic energy. Suppose that you are a countryman and come to live in a large city. The speed with which we do things, our habits of quick decision, the whirlwind of activities of the busy man in town, appal you. You cannot see how we live through it. A day in the business district fills you with terror. ”

“ All proclaim doctrines of exuberant optimism, having a tendency to banish fear-thoughts and self-consciousness and self-depreciation, and to set up in their stead ideas of courage and of achievement and of individual power. If these teachings are successful—that is to say, if they inherently possess the right appeal for the particular individual—they have the happy effect of begetting a stoical indifference to petty physical disorders and social vexations and bringing about a concentration upon the main business of life of the mental energies thus previously wasted. ”

“ One trouble with you now is that you waste your priceless powers in useless anxiety.
The minute business falls off you begin to worry. You fritter your mental energies in fretting until you are incapable of real thought, and being unable to think your way out you get excited. ”

“ There is no reason why efficiency in mental effort should not be gauged just as accurately as in muscular activity. If there are times when your wits are not as keen, when you have not the same grasp of fundamentals, as at other times, it is because you are mentally "overloaded." It may be the result of a great variety of causes. It may be from too many hours of continuous mental effort. But the probabilities are that it is the result of vexation, worry, dissipation, or allowing the mind to be burdened with the strain of vicious, or at least irrelevant and distracting, impulses and desires. ”

“ How to Economize Effort
The fact is that to be a truly busy man you must be never in a hurry. You must work systematically. You must economize effort. You must permit no distractions and do your work leisurely. You must take time to think things over in a natural way. You must waste no thoughts in business hours on social or pleasurable pursuits that would dissipate your mental capital. You must [72] work when you work, and you may play when you play, but your business must be the most fascinating of games and the only one you play during business hours. ”

“ Stop wasting your energy.
Heretofore you have used your powers in a more or less haphazard way, with a vast amount of waste and no efficient direction. From now on you are to exercise more intelligence in this respect and make all your energies contribute to your business progress and your personal success.
You are losing power in fruitless outward activities.
You are losing power in the thinking of useless thoughts. You cannot stop the ceaseless activity of the mind. But you can conserve its forces by directing them into channels that are worth while. ”

“ Difficulties melt into thin air, profound problems find easy solution. Flights of genius manifest themselves. Yet long before midnight such a one had perhaps felt himself yield to fatigue and had tied a wet towel around his head or had taken stimulants to keep himself awake.
The existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested in physical as well as mental effort.
Men who work with their heads and men who work with their hands, scholars and Marathon runners, must alike testify to the existence of reserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon. ”

“ There must be the greatest discrimination and care used in the selection of these ideas that are to constitute such a co-ordinating consciousness. There must be a "re-imaging" or imagination in a literal and practical sense of those ideas only that carry with them impulses to motion in the same general direction. You must have a set purpose in life, and you must yield your powers without hindrance and without reservation to the accomplishment of that set purpose. ”

“ The progressive man adds to the work of today his preparation for the work of tomorrow. He delights in attempting more and more difficult tasks, because in every task he sets himself he sees a step forward in the development of his own abilities. He loves his work more than he loves his pay, and he delves deeper than the exigencies of the moment require, because he craves the power to do more. ”

“ Your finger will actually tremble with the dammed-up energy of the repressed impulse. But the finger will not actually move, because the idea of its not moving is just as much a part of your consciousness as the idea of its moving. Put out of your consciousness this thought of the finger's not moving, and forthwith the finger will bend. ”

“ Pygmies cannot become giants physically or intellectually. But as the puny youth can by systematic exercise broaden his frame and develop his muscles into at least a semblance of the athlete, and can then through his healthier appetite and his faster rate of repair maintain himself without effort at the new standard; so can the mentally inert call forth their reserves of energy and maintain a higher standard of activity and fruitfulness. ”

“ The late Professor James, of Harvard University, often referred to as the founder of modern psychology, spoke thus disparagingly of untrained effort: "Your convulsive worker breaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,—he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. ”

“ I have perfect faith in my own powers! I am absolute master of myself and of my career!" Practice affirmations of this kind persistently, and in time your mind will have permanently acquired the habit of facing the facts of life in the way essential to success. ”

“ There are some business men who look upon psychology as "blue-sky" theorizing or "new thought." There are others who have a hazy idea that it is a sort of unfathomable mystery intended to amuse long-haired scientists. ”

“ You have a vast amount of potential energy over and above what you actually use. You have formed the habit of giving up trying a thing as soon as you have spent the usual amount of effort on it, and this without regard to whether or not you have accomplished anything.
While we all have the power of sustained mental activity, not one in ten thousand of us holds to the top pace. ”

“ Hold the right thoughts persistently in mind, and you cannot help working steadily on toward the goal you are thinking of. Keep steadily at work with the right thoughts persistently in mind and success is sure to come.
Success, then, lies in the concentration of mental energies. And this concentration is to be brought about by holding in consciousness only those ideas that harmonize. ”

“ There you have an illustration of wasted energy. And it is mental energy, for every muscular movement represents the release of thought power. The mental lives of most men are equally aimless. They are lives of ceaseless activity producing nothing. ”

“ Just what you do in any particular case depends upon what mental picture is strongest, is most vivid in consciousness, and thus able to overcome all contrary tendencies.
As life becomes more and more complex, the number and variety of our sensory experiences increase correspondingly. And so it comes about, that we have untold millions of sensory experiences, carrying with them the impulses to muscular response, none of which, on account of the multiplicity of conflicting ideas, is ever allowed to find release and actually take form in muscular activity. ”

“ Impulses and Inhibitions
Every such bodily movement is an expression of energy. The recall to consciousness of the terrifying experience, the recall of the picture of the assembled audience, these things automatically produce bodily activities. So we must conclude that Every idea in memory has associated with it the potential energy necessary for the production of muscular movement.
It does not necessarily follow that the recall to consciousness of a given idea will be invariably followed by an outwardly visible muscular activity expressive of its energy. ”

“ A cool brain is the reverse of a hot box. It carries the business of the day along with a steady drive, and is invariably the mark of the big man. The [58] man who dispatches his work quietly, promptly and efficiently, with no trace of fuss and flurry, is a big man. It is not the hurrying, clattering and chattering individual who turns off the most work. He may imagine he is getting over a lot of track, but he wastes far more than the necessary amount of steam in doing it. ”

“ Give more and more time to your business each day until there comes an impairment in the quality of your work. Stop short of this. You have found your norm of efficiency.
[83]
Chapter V THE SECRET OF MENTAL EFFICIENCY
Where Energy Is Stored
You are called upon to master and conserve the innate energies of your mind. This means that you must (1) find out where these energies are stored, and (2) learn the conditions that determine their activity.
All past experiences are conserved within us in the form of complexes. These complexes consist of ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular activity. ”

“ Concentrate your mental energies on one thing at a time. Stop spreading them around. The promoter may have a dozen big enterprises under way at once, but he takes them up one at a time. He transfers his whole mind and thought from one to the next. ”

“ Few men live on the plane of their highest efficiency. Few search the recesses of the well-springs of power. The lives of most of us are passed among the shallows of the mind without thought of the possibilities that lurk within the deeper pools.
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How the Mind Accumulates Energy
This accumulation of potential subconscious reserve energy is a result of the evolution of man and the growing complexity of his life.
No man could, if he would, respond to all the impulses to muscular action aroused in him by sense-impressions. ”

“ According to the American ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is continuously 'keyed up to concert pitch'—who is ever alert and is always giving attention to his business or profession."
And again: "It is not necessarily true that the greatest and most constant display of energy accompanies the greatest presence of energy. The tug-boat on the river is constantly blowing off steam and making a tremendous display of energy, while the ocean liner proceeds on its way without noise and without commotion. ”

“ Such men appear as giants in comparison with whom ordinary men sink to the size of pygmies. The second fact, which a study of successful business men (or any class of successful men) reveals, is that they never seem rushed for time.
"Such men have time to devote to objects in no way connected with their business. It cannot be regarded as [68] accidental that this characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men during the years of their most fruitful labor. ”

“ You cannot of course be eternally doing the same thing; but make no mistake about it, the only way to succeed at anything is to consciously control your mental energies. You may throw them now into this attack, now into another; but you must always have a tight grip on yourself, or you cannot succeed. ”

“ If there is muscular effort involved, with a correspondingly large amount of waste in the cells and blood, eight hours or more are probably necessary. But if the work is of a sedentary nature, and mainly of the brain, there is naturally a smaller quantity of accumulated waste, and less time is required for removal. Many are the instances of great men, past and present, who [79] have lived healthily and worked unceasingly and strenuously on only four or five hours of sleep, or half the laborer's portion. ”

“ Stored-up energy not in use has been given a name by scientific men. They call it potential energy. In this way it is distinguished from kinetic or circulating energy by which is meant energy that is at work. For example, a ton of coal in the bin contains a certain amount of potential energy, which is capable of being converted into kinetic energy by combustion. ”

“ We have shown you that your ability to achieve depends upon your ability to utilize to the full your underground mental resources.
But success demands that you do more than merely use all your mental energies. ”