It is not necessary for a young man to worry much about the kind of business for which he is best fitted, the one that will rouse him to his highest effort and in which he will be most efficient. If he has studied himself thoroly and given himself the best possible education and preparation, he should seize the best opportunity available at the start and then trust a little to fate. Every year of experience in business will add to, his knowledge of himself, as well as of business, and soon the career of his choice will stand clearly before him.
1 A man's first purpose, therefore, should be to make himself fit for business ; then his second purpose, to discover the business for which he is best fitted; then that crowning purpose, to realize his ideal in that business.
8. The head and the heels.—There is a story of an Irish maid who answered a "general housework" ad vertisement, and when asked what wages she wished., replied: "That depends, mum; five dollars if I have to think-, three dollars if I don't." Her heels were cheaper than her head.
As I have had occasion to say several times in this book, thinking is work and the average man declines to think unless the situation compels him to. If a man desires to increase his efficiency, however, he must at all times be willing to think and plan. He must think as he plans the program of the day, and still more as he plans the business program for the week or the month. Before the end of his business year he must think intensely about plans for enlarging or bettering his business during the coming year. What ever his position in business, whether that 'of manager or of subordinate, be will not be really efficient unless he think-s and plans in order that there may be im provement in his work. In other words, a man de siring to be efficient must be constantly seeking to "make his head save his heels." As everybody knows, the general of an army who enters a battle without having carefully thought out a plan of campaign is pretty certain to meet defeat. A man who builds a factory without having first care fully considered the costs, the supply of labor and his marketing problem, can succeed only by a lucky accident. In the case of big enterprises the necessity for thinking and planning is evident. It is in the small affairs of business, in the daily routine, that men get into a rut and jog along as if no further think igg and planning could be of any use. Efficiency
requires a mind alert, always on the lookout for bet ter ways of doing even small things.
9. Habit.—Habit may be a man's enemy or his friend. If a man desires to be what is called a "top notcher" in efficiency, he must make habit his 'ever faithful ally.
A habit is the result of repetition. It is habit that makes most of us right-handed. Any boy can quickly become left-handed if he has the will to do with the left hand what he formerly has done with his right. Eating three meals a day is a habit with most people; when the dinner hour comes they eat whether they are really hungry or not, and they usually think they are hungry. Walking itself is a habit, acquired in childhood after almost infinite practice.
When we have done anything in a certain way so often that we automatically do it whenever the oc casion arises, we have acquired a habit—we can now do one more thing without conscious thought be forehand. Since there are many things which we do day after day, it is evidently desirable that we find the best way of doing each and do it the best way regularly until finally the doing becomes a habit. A business man, to be efficient, should have the habit of punctuality, of attending to correspondence promptly, of going to bed and getting up at regular hours, of daily exercise, of courtesy to all with whom he deals, of tact, or consideration for others, of even temper, of square-dealing, of concentration. ill other zcords, he must have before him an ideal and get into the habit of acting just as that ideal would act in his place. Only in this way can he forrn habits which are his friends and helpers.
Bad habits are the product of indolence. Most people do not like to think, and they do things off hand in what seems to them the easiest way. A man who learns to play golf without an instructor must think and practise a good deal before he can even grip his club properly. The best way of doing many things does not always seem at first the easiest or the most natural. We learn those best ways only by thinking and practice, and that means work. Hence most of us go about handicapped by several bad habits, losing time and wasting energy.