Dale Carnegie

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think of it. Go out and get busy.

Psychiatrists declare that most of our fatigue derives from our mental and emotional attitudes... What kinds of emotional factors tire the sedentary (or sitting) worker? Joy? Contentment? No! Never! Boredom, resentment, a feeling of not being appreciated, a feeling of futility, hurry, anxiety, worry--those are the emotional factors that exhaust the sitting worker, make him susceptible to colds, reduce his output, and send him home with a nervous headache. Yes, we get tired because our emotions produce nervous tensions in the body.

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, from now 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.”

Professor William James, the father of applied psychology, has been dead since 1910. But if he were alive today, and could hear this formula for facing the worst, he would heartily approve of 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.

Some readers are going to snort at the idea of making so much over a hackneyed proverb like “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” I know it is trite, commonplace, a platitude. I know you have heard it a thousand times. But I also know that these hackneyed proverbs contain the very essence of the distilled wisdom of all ages. They have come out of the fiery experience of the human race and have been handed down through countless generations. If you were to read everything that has ever been written about worry by the great scholars of all time, you would never read anything more basic or more profound than such hackneyed proverbs as “Don’t cross your bridges until you come to them” and “Don’t cry over spilt milk.” If we only applied those two proverbs--instead of snorting at them--we wouldn’t need this book at all. In fact, if we applied most of the old proverbs, we would lead almost perfect lives. However, knowledge isn’t power until it is applied; and the purpose of this book is to remind you of what you already know and to kick you in the shins and inspire you to do something about applying it.

knowledge isn’t power until it is applied

So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest often. Rest before you get tired.

Your heart pumps enough blood through your body every day to fill a railway tank car. It exerts enough energy every twenty-four hours to shovel twenty tons of coal onto a platform three feet high. It does this incredible amount of work for fifty, seventy, or maybe ninety years. How can it stand it? Dr. Walter B. Cannon, of the Harvard Medical School, explained it. He said “Most people have the idea that the heart is working all the time. As a matter of fact, there is a definite rest period after each contraction. When beating at a moderate rate of seventy pulses per minute, the heart is actually working only nine hours out of the twenty-four. In the aggregate its rest periods total a full fifteen hours per day.

What is the answer to this fatigue? Relax! Relax! Relax! Learn to relax while you are doing your work!

I realize now that people are not thinking about you and me or caring what is said about us. They are thinking about themselves—before breakfast, after breakfast, and right on until ten minutes past midnight. They would be a thousand times more concerned about a slight headache of their own than they would about the news of your death or mine.

George Bernard Shaw was right. He summed it all up when he said: “The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.” So don’t bother to think about it! Spit on your hands and get busy. Your blood will start circulating; your mind will start ticking--and pretty soon this whole positive upsurge of life in your body will drive worry from your mind. Get busy. Keep busy. It’s the cheapest kind of medicine there is on this earth--and one of the best.

<p>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 around 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.</p> <p>So, I banish about 90 per cent of my worries by taking these four steps:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Writing down precisely what I am worried about.</p> </li> <li> <p>Writing down what I can do about it.</p> </li> <li> <p>Deciding what to do.</p> </li> <li> <p>Starting immediately to carry out that decision.&rdquo;</p> </li> </ol>

Seventy per cent of all patients who come to physicians could cure themselves if they got rid of their fears and worries.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

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.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too.

I spent twelve years working with cattle; yet I never saw a Jersey cow running a temperature because the pasture was burning from lack of rain or because of sleet and cold or because her boy friend was paying too much attention to another heffer. The animals confront night, storms, and hunger calmly; so they never have nervous breakdowns or stomach ulcers; and they never go insane.

Epictetus, the great Stoic philosopher, warned that we ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than about removing ‘tumors and abscesses from the body.’

‘De minimus non curat lex’— the law does not concern itself with trifles. And neither should the worrier—if he wants peace of mind.

I know with conviction beyond all doubt that the biggest problem you and I have to deal with—in fact, almost the *only* problem we have to deal with—is choosing the right thoughts. If we can do that, we will be on the highroad to solving all our problems.

Let me repeat: do what the Army does—take frequent rests. Do what your heart does—rest before you get tired, and you will add one hour a day to your waking life.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

The world is full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition.

‘If there is any one secret of success,’ said Henry Ford, ‘it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.’

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Actions speak louder than words, and a smile says, ‘I like you. You make me happy. I am glad to see you.’

You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.

Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest sound and most important sound in any language.

If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.

Learning is an active process. We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

Some anonymous Irish politician is reported to have given this recipe for making a speech: ‘First, tell them that you are going to tell them; then tell them; then tell them that you have told them.’ Not bad, you know. In fact, it is often highly advisable to ‘tell them that you have told them. Briefly, of course, speedily—a mere outline, a summary.

Don’t imitate others. If you speak spontaneously you will speak differently from anyone else in the world. Put your own individuality, your own characteristic manner into your delivery.

One time a young man who aspired to study law, wrote to Lincoln for advice, and Lincoln replied: ‘If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. . . . Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.’

Know your goal. Choose it wisely before you set out to prepare your talk. Know how to reach it. Then set about it, doing it skillfully and with science.

‘I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid,’ wrote Thomas Jefferson, ‘and I find myself much the happier.’

Study the careers of famous speakers and you will find one fact that is true of them all: they practiced. THEY PRACTICED. And the men who make the most rapid progress in this course are those who practice the most.

The truthful, inside story of almost anyone’s life—if told modestly and without offending egotism—is most entertaining. It is almost sure-fire speech material.

You may never be able to speak without some nervous anxiety just before you begin. But, if you will persevere, you will soon eradicate everything but this initial fear; and, after you have spoken for a few seconds, that too will disappear.

If you want confidence, why not do the things necessary to bring it about? ‘Perfect love,’ wrote the Apostle John, ‘casteth out fear.’ So does perfect preparation. Webster said he would as soon think of appearing before an audience half-clothed as half-prepared.

There is a certain responsibility in making a talk, even if it is only to two dozen men or women in a business meeting—a certain strain, a certain shock, a certain excitement. The speaker ought to be keyed up like a thoroughbred straining at the bit. The immortal Cicero said, two thousand years ago, that all public speaking of real merit was characterized by nervousness.

Every day is a new life to a wise man.