Dollars and Sense Part 9

Buy farm property that you can rent. It will bring you interest on your money right along, and the tendency of farm land is and always has been steadily forward.

Mr. Yerkes, of Chicago, was a speculator who made millions in the street-car system. He was thoroughly familiar with Hydraulics, and he soaked the stocks as full of water as possible and then unloaded on the investors who speculated in street-car stocks. These speculators are now holding the bag. When Mr. Yerkes closed out his holdings in Chicago he granted an interview, and one truth he uttered in that interview has ever been remembered by the writer. It is so valuable an expression coming from such a successful speculator that we are going to give it to you. It is as follows: "I have never known a business man to successfully speculate in grains or stocks for two years."

The business man who is watching the ticker or calling up the Stock Exchange every day, who takes little flyers, is skating on mighty thin ice.

When you buy farms you are exchanging your money for the most certain thing in the world, for the basis of all wealth is land, and money simply represents the things which come out of the land. The things that grow on the land are exchanged for gold, and the gold is exchanged for things that come out of the land. The Government exchanges the gold for pieces of paper called money, which in reality means that you can exchange these pieces of paper for gold, and you can exchange the gold for the things that come out of and grow upon the land.

The stock broker may not like this chapter because the more speculation the more he benefits. He gets a rake-off every time a man buys and every time a man sells. He plays a sure thing. He is like the man with the Wienerwurst privilege.

Don't Speculate. Invest.

Elimination

One of the greatest brain savers is elimination. Every man should try to operate along lines of the least resistance, eliminate the deterrent influences and all things that fret him.

Do not look for trouble. Do not concern yourself too much over disagreeable things over which you have no control.

Do not build up an intricate system in your business. Have simplicity your ideal. Eliminate all useless moves. If you have disturbing influences in your inst.i.tution, such as an employe who is continually causing friction, eliminate that employe. The man who causes friction is pulling back on the forward impulses of your business, and he is holding back one or more men who are trying to help you forward.

Get rid of useless things that take your time or cause you worry.

Remember that as you grow successful people will come to you under various excuses to get your aid financially or morally. They want you to go into new companies. The officers of the Club to which you belong will ask you to be a director. You will be invited to dinners, asked to speak, asked to do a thousand and one things, and in proportion as you accede to these demands you will find the demands increasing until finally you have little time to attend to your own affairs or to attend to your family.

Have as your center idea--elimination. Everything that takes your time from your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength.

Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfits you for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that is not necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain.

The Specialist

When this nation of ours was born nearly every one was a generalist.

The merchant sold a general line of merchandise. The doctor was also a farmer and a horse trader. In those days there were very few specialists.

As time pa.s.sed some of the wiser individuals turned specialist and succeeded.

The doctor who is a generalist cannot excel in any one branch of medicine, or compete with the specialist who devotes all his time and study and practice towards one point and towards the treatment of a specific ailment. The merchant who sells everything cannot compete with the man who makes it his business to sell one cla.s.s of goods. This is an age of specialists, and what we considered a specialist twenty-five years ago is only a generalist from the present standpoint. The specialist of twenty-five years ago has been divided again and again.

The best doctor today is one who doctors the eye alone, the stomach alone, or the nerves alone. He can do more for you and knows more of your case in five minutes' observation than the generalist would in three months.

With the keen compet.i.tion of these days it is necessary for the individual to be a specialist in business.

Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should be a generalist.

Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, little of electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little of advertising, little of anything else. It is because individuals have made a speciality of one thing, because they have concentrated their energies and their brain power on one thing that the world has progressed.

Recreation is for relaxation, and the business man should see to it that he gets the full benefit of recreation. If he carries specialism into recreation, recreation is spoiled, for the moment a man is a specialist in recreation he strives to excel, and this striving to excel is hard work, and that is the same thing he is doing in business.

The business man who plays billiards and no other game doubtless will play a better game than the generalist who indulges in all sorts of games and recreations, but the man who makes a specialty of billiards finds his powers centered on this game of billiards. He puts his thought on it and wishes to excel, he wishes to make a record, and billiards then become business.

This striving to excel in a game brings forth the same gambling instinct manifested in business. It is his "I will." The business man who plays a good game of billiards some day meets his superior, and the superior is the individual who does nothing but play billiards.

If a man tries to be a specialist in billiards and a specialist in business, even though both callings commence with "B," he will find that a division of effort is a division of results, and he will not be a success in either business or billiards. In proportion as he excels in billiards he will be lacking in business, and vice versa.

We remember the story of a young friend of Herbert Spencer who joined the great philosopher in a game of billiards. The young man played a most excellent game. When they had finished Spencer remarked: "Young man, your education has been greatly neglected, you play billiards too well."

Be a specialist in business and a generalist in pleasure. Play billiards, swim, ride, play golf and indulge in all athletic sports and so long as you get uniform pleasure and recreation from these things you are doing right, you are helping your mind and developing your body and letting your brain rest, so that it may be keen and a greater help in your specialty, which is business.

The world needs specialists, and it needs specialists in recreation as well as business, but the man who tries to be a specialist in business as well as a specialist in recreation will fail in both, or, at least, his success will be only moderate.

It is necessary for life's scheme that we have individuals who have steady incomes so that they do not require to enter the strenuous business life. It is necessary to have such individuals, so that they may devote themselves to being specialists in recreation, otherwise the sports would die out.

If you go in for sport do not expect you can compete with anybody who goes in for sport exclusively. You can't win in two callings or occupations.

The String

There is a string to every proposition, and it behooves you to look out for the string before acceding to the requests that are made of you.

When a stranger comes and offers to do things for you, to let you in on the ground floor, or a.s.sures you that he is working for your interest, you may be sure there is a string to his proposition, and the string is that, as a matter of fact, it is himself instead of you he is looking out for.

Don't bite at the chance that is offered you to get something for nothing. The biggest kind of a string is always in such a proposition.

Remember this, that people are selfish. Each man looks out for his own interest, and even if he is protecting your interest, it is because his own interest will be better conserved by looking out for yours.

Don't decide on important matters too quickly. Don't get tied up in big contracts with strangers until you have found every strand of the string.

Don't be too suspicious but hunt for the string. It pays to be very conservative on all matters in which others are interested.

Sometimes the string in the proposition is legitimate and the other fellow may be more interested than you are, but it certainly behooves you to see what this string is and to understand exactly where the end of the string is tied.

Don't draw up in your sh.e.l.l and look upon every man with a proposition as trying to take advantage of you, but put down this as a truth--There is a string to every proposition, and you must find that string before you close the deal.

Horse Sense

Just how the expression "horse sense" came into use is not known, but the meaning of the combination means good reason, old fas.h.i.+oned logic, simple a.n.a.lysis and actual truth, and the basing of your actions upon simple things rather than complex things.