THE SEVEN LAWS OF SUCCESS(Cont)

The All-important Fourth Law
A person may have chosen his goal. Having it may have aroused tremendous ambition to
achieve it. He may have started out educating and training himself for its
accomplishment, and he may even have good health and still make little or no progress
toward its realization.
After all, success is accomplishment. It is DOING. They say any old dead fish can
float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim up. An inactive person will not
accomplish. Accomplishment is DOING.
Now comes an all-important law.
The fourth success-law, then, is DRIVE!
Half-hearted effort might carry one a little way toward his goal, but it will never get
him far enough to reach it.
You will always find that the executive head of any growing, successful organization
employs drive! He puts a constant prod on himself. He not only drives himself, he drives
those under him, else they might lag, let down and stagnate.
He may feel drowsy, and hate to awaken and get up in the morning. But he refuses to
give in to this impulse.
I remember the struggles I once had with this situation. It was during one of my “Idea-
Man” tours as a magazine editorial representative at age 22. I was having quite a struggle
with drowsiness. Yet I acquired the habit of sleepily answering the morning telephone
call and promptly going back to bed and to sleep. Then I bought a “Baby Ben” alarm
clock which I carried with me. But I found myself arising to turn off, then plunging back
into bed. I was too drowsy to realize what I was doing. I was not sufficiently awake to
employ willpower and force myself to stay up, get under the shower and become fully
awake and alert. It had become a habit.
I had to break the habit. I had to put a prod on myself. I needed an alarm clock that
couldn’t be turned off until I was sufficiently awake to get going for the day.
So one night at the Hotel Patton in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I called a bellboy to my
room. In those days the customary tip was a dime. A half dollar then had about the same
effect that a $20 bill would have today. I laid a silver half-dollar on the dresser.
“Do you see that half-dollar, son?” I asked.
“Yes Sir!” he answered eyes sparkling in anticipation.
After ascertaining that he would be still on duty at 6:30 next morning, I said,” If you
will pound on that door in the morning at 6:30, until I let you in, and then stay in this
room and prevent me from getting back into bed until I am dressed, then you may have
that half-dollar.”
I found those bell-boys would, for a half-dollar tip, even wrestle of fight with me to
prevent my crawling back into bed. Thus, I put a prod on myself that broke the morning
snooze habit and got me up and going!
Often workmen never rise above whatever job they may have because they have no
drive. They slow down, work slowly, poke around, sit down and rest as much as they can.
In other words, they must have a boss over them to drive them, or they would probably
starve. They would never become successful farmers -- for a farmer, to succeed, must get
up early and work late, and drive himself. That is one reason so many must work for
others. They cannot rely on themselves -- they must be driven by one of more energy and
purpose.
Without energy, drive, constant propulsion, a person need never expect to become
truly successful.

THE SEVEN LAWS OF SUCCESS(Cont)

The Basic Third Law

The all-important law coming next in time order is GOOD HEALTH.
We are physical beings. The mind and the body form the most wonderful physical
mechanism we know. But man is made of matter. He is basically 16 elements of organic,
chemically functioning existence.
He lives by the breath of air -- which is the breath of LIFE itself. If the bellows we call
lungs do not keep inhaling and exhaling the oxygen-containing air, man won’t live to
achieve any goal. You are only one heartbeat away from death! As the lungs pump air in
and out, so the heart pumps blood through an intricate system of veins and arteries. These
must be supported by food and water.
And so man IS just what he eats. Some of the most famous physicians and surgeons
have said that 90% to 95% of all sickness and disease comes from faulty diet!
Most people are in utter ignorance of the fact that it does make a difference what we
eat! Most people, and the customs of society, have followed a regimen of eating whatever
tastes good to the palate.
Adults are babies grown up. Observe a nine-month-old baby. Everything that comes
into his hands goes to his mouth!
My youngest brother may not like to read this in print, but I remember when he was
about nine months old, and had managed to creep into the basement coal bin. We found
him trying to eat little chunks of coal -- his mouth and face well blackened!
You may laugh at babies trying to eat silver cups and chunks of coal. Or at people
who dip small mice into a sauce, and, holding them by their tails, dropping them as a
delicious delicacy into their mouths?
If you do, they will laugh back at you. They will tell you that mice eat clean grain and
clean foods, while you dip slimy, slithery oysters and other scavenger seafoods into
cocktail sauces, and consider them a delicacy!
You think adults have actually LEARNED any better than nine- month-old babies?
Go to your fancy grocer’s and you’ll find on his shelves canned eel and canned
rattlesnake.
WHY? As I said, humans know nothing at birth! We have to learn! But most of us do
not know that! And, again, what we don’t know, we don’t know that we don’t know! And
somehow, ever since babyhood, most humans seem to have grown up putting everything
into the mouth. Most have grown up eating just whatever seemed to taste good -- and
whatever they saw others eating. There has been little education or even study ah out
WHAT we ought -- or ought NOT -- to eat.
Most degenerative diseases are modern diseases -- penalties for eating foods that have
been demineralized in food factories -- usually an excess of starch, sugar (the
carbohydrates) and fats. Others are caused by a type of malnutrition -- lack of needed
minerals and vitamins in foods. Then people try to put the “vitamins” back into their
systems by buying pills at the drugstore!
A famous director of a “Physical Fitness” program, lecturing at Ambassador College,
reminded us that the medical profession has made great strides toward eliminating
communicable diseases, yet is having little success coping with the increase of the noncommunicable
diseases -- such as cancer, heart diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases. These
latter are affected by faulty diet.
Of course there are other laws of health -- sufficient sleep, exercise, plenty of fresh air,
cleanliness and proper elimination, right thinking, clean living.
Right now “jogging” has become the physical fitness fad. Even men in their late
forties read a book by a self professing “expert,” and suddenly are straining their hearts
running two miles every day. “More and more exercise!” cry the faddists.
Why do humans tend to go to extremes? Exercise is good -- it profits a little -- but like
most things, it can be carried past the law of diminishing returns. You can get an
overdose that can cause harm. We are prone to forget the admonition of TEMPERANCE
in all things.
What is the value of this excessive exertion in running two miles a day? It induces
blood circulation. It gets circulation even to the extremities. And that is good. Stimulating
blood circulation is important. But we can also DESTROY HEALTH by going to unwise
extremes. There is as much danger in over-doing exercise as in neglecting it.
Circulation can be induced without over-exertion or danger. I have never forgotten a
lecture I heard as a young man in the days of the Chautauqua. The lecturer had been
physical trainer to President Howard Taft. Immediately following the close of the Taft
administration, this physical trainer managed to secure a list of all -- or nearly all -- of the
centenarians in the United States. He personally visited every one. He asked to what they
attributed their long life. One never used tobacco, and gave that as the reason. But
another used tobacco all his life and still lived past a hundred years. One “tee-totaled” --
but another drank beer and brandy all his life. And so it went. When he had interviewed
them all, he analyzed his notes and was surprised to learn that ONLY ONE THING was
common to them all. Yet not one gave it credit for his long life. Every one had taken a
vigorous daily rub-down. Some with a bath towel, following a daily bath. Some with a
brush. But in one way or another, each had stimulated blood circulation even to the
extremities of toes and fingers by daily rubbing or massaging.
Many ask how I (now in my 84th year) keep up the energy, vigor and drive. I’m sure
there is more than one reason -- but I do not “jog” or go in for fads. I WALK -- the best
exercise for one of my age. But ever since I heard that lecture, perhaps 60 or more years
ago, I have taken a daily RUB-DOWN. Method? A generous-size bath towel, following a
daily shower. I try to get enough sleep. I watch elimination (very important). I try to be
careful about my diet. And I have a tremendous INCENTIVE -- a driving PURPOSE in
life, because I have learned what is life’s PURPOSE. That spurs to action! I have a
mission to accomplish that is more important than my life. There’s not much time left --
and it MUST and WILL BE ACCOMPLISHED! Besides all this I draw on a greater and
higher Power. I think that gives the answer.
The average person has never stopped to realize that it is not natural to be sick.
Sickness and disease come only from violation of nature’s laws of body and mind -- the
physical LAWS of health. Most people have not learned that there are any such laws!
They suppose that occasional illness or disease is natural in the course of life. Nothing
could be farther from the truth.
Sickness should not be taken for granted. Some authorities go so far as to say that we
do not catch a cold -- we eat our colds and fevers! They explain that a cold or fever is
merely the unnatural and rapid elimination of toxins and poisons stored up in the glands,
resulting from improper diet.
Now what about the great and the near-great of the world? They usually do not know
all there is to know about the laws of good, vigorous health with clear, alert minds. But,
compared to the average of the population, they know a great deal. They have, as a rule,
enjoyed, shall we say, comparatively good health!
As an example, the President of the United States always has a White House physician
who is constantly watchful over the President’s physical condition. A President is
virtually required to get in certain exercise. President Eisenhower played golf frequently.
President Kennedy took a daily swim. President Taft had a physical trainer who watched
the overweight President daily.
Yet, there are many things that even these important people do not know about the
causes of sickness, disease, debility.
One factor I think has worked universally in favor of such men. Mental attitude does
have considerable influence on physical condition. Most “successful” men -- as the world
evaluates success -- do think constructively, positively, in a mental attitude of confidence.
They do not allow themselves to think negatively or assume an attitude of fear, worry, or
discouragement. They do not allow themselves to get into uncontrolled moods of griping,
complaining. They enforce on themselves emotional balance. And, mindful of the
responsibilities on their shoulders, they probably put more restraint on dissipation than
most people.
Without health one is direly handicapped, if not totally cut off from achievement. The
fourth Law of Success is largely dependent on good health.