CHAPTER II. _the Man-Stuff You Have for Sale_

The Man-Stuff You Have For Sale

Your knowledge of sales principles and methods, and your skill in selling ideas must be combined with right sales-manhood if your complete success in sales-man-ship is to be made certain. Particular man qualities are necessary to make you a master salesman in your chosen field. "A good man obtaineth favor." So we will study now the elements of character required for the most effective sales-man-ship, and how to develop them.

We shall not consider "Man" in the abstract, nor exceptional ideals of manhood. Our thought of the sales man will be concentrated on qualities you have or can develop, that are necessary to make you most efficient in selling ideas about yourself.

Some radical changes in your present character may be required. But you will need principally to grow in order to attain the full stature of sales manhood that is necessary to gain complete success. If your manliness is dwarfed now, you cannot succeed largely in selling true ideas of your best and biggest capabilities, until you rid yourself of the character faults that are stunting your growth as a sales man.

Realize at the outset that the time has passed forever when the little man, with the narrowly selfish outlook for "Number One," might succeed. The demand of the future will be, however, not so much for BIG men as for big MEN. The world no longer looks up to Kaisers and Czars. Success has ceased to be merely a towering figure. Hereafter the one sure way to succeed will lead through the door of brotherly understanding of the other fellow, into the common heart of mankind. Only salesmanship can open that door with certainty.

We are entering a new business era, where the old individualistic methods of attaining so-called "success" will be worse than useless. Many of them even now are forbidden by law. All the practices of the "profiteer" and his ilk are discountenanced by far-seeing people. Men of vision perceive that the size of To-morrow's Success will be measured in direct proportion to its quality of human service.

"SERVICE" is the motto of the highest salesmanship. Therefore, in shaping your plans to succeed, start with the resolve to make yourself a truly big sales MAN. Do not copy the little, selfish models of Yesterday. Study the signs of the times. To be out-of-date is equivalent to being a failure.

You will need to be big in ability, in imagination, in energy, in your ideals--but most of all you must be big in MANHOOD. If you are little and selfish in your life purpose, you cannot be certain of success in selling to a truly BIG man the idea that you are fully qualified for his service. Before making any attempt to sell yourself into a desirable position, take pains to develop as much man quality as characterizes your prospective employer. You cannot comprehend him if you fall short of his standard of manhood. To-day the biggest buyers of brains and brawn recognize their obligations of human brotherhood. If you are little and self-centered, how can you reach into the mind and heart and soul of another man who is genuinely BIG? How can you impel him to think as you wish?

The little man even doubts the existence of big manhood. He cannot comprehend such size. A pint measure, however much it is stretched, is utterly unable to contain a bushel. But the larger measure easily holds either a pint or a bushel. Similarly if you are big in manhood, you can comprehend alike the little man and the big man. You will be able to deal successfully with both.

It is not sufficient, however, that you grow to the full stature of your biggest man possibilities. It is necessary also that you be clothed in the characteristics of manhood in order to be recognized as a man. When you were only an infant, you were safety-pinned into a square of cloth once doubled triangularly. You graduated to rompers at a year and a half or two. Then you put on knee-pants, and afterward youth's long trousers. Now you wear the clothes of a full-grown man. You would not think of dressing in knickerbockers, or rompers, or--something younger, to present your qualities and services for sale. Yet your outer garb is much less important to the success of your salesmanship than is your clothing of manhood.

If you hope to assure yourself of man's-size success in life, plan that wherever you are you will make the instant impression that you are "every inch a man," not just an overgrown baby or boy. Follow the example of Paul, that incomparably great salesman of the new ideas of Christianity. He wrote in his powerful first sales letter to the Corinthian field, "When I became a man, I put away childish things." Compel respect by your sound virility. Have a well-founded consciousness that in manhood you are the equal of any other man, and you can make everybody you meet feel you are a man all through.

What is your size as a sales man now?

Ask yourself this question, and answer it frankly. In order to make sure of selling yourself into the opportunities you want, you must take your own measure and fit your manhood to the selling process you have begun to learn. Beyond a doubt you are now a sales man of some size. You are selling your physical or mental powers, your services of this kind or that, with a degree of efficiency directly proportionate to your man-power.

If you are only a ¼ m.p. salesman at present, you lack three-fourths of the man capacity needed to handle with certain success all the opportunities of full-size manhood. You were not limited by Nature to ¼ m.p. size. You were born with full man capacity. You are like a gasoline motor developing but a quarter of the power it was designed to produce--not because of any structural fault in the engine, but simply for the reason that it does not function now as it was intended to operate, and as it can be made to work in the future if it is overhauled and put in perfect condition. The full power capacity originally built into the motor needs to be brought out. Likewise your man-power plant requires to be made as efficient as possible, in order to assure you of full man-capability for achieving success.

Maybe your chief fault is poor fuel, and what you most need is good "gas." You have not been filling up your mind with the right ideas. Or, perhaps, your piston rings leak; and you lack the high compression of determined persistence. Another fault might be in your carburetor--you are not a good "mixer." Or your spark of enthusiasm may be weak. It is possible, too, that your fine points are caked over by the carbon of accumulated bad habits. Maybe you have a cracked cylinder--your health is partly broken down. The fault is in your timer, perhaps. You are not "on the job" when you should be.

No matter what ails your particular engine, it can be repaired or rebuilt into a full one-manpower motor of efficiency. If you limp and pound along with but a quarter of your capability, it is your own fault for not overhauling your power plant. Don't continue as a ¼ m.p. man and blame anybody else, or curse your bad luck because you can't make speed and carry the load necessary to succeed. Stop trying to go on crippled or clogged in manhood. Run yourself into the repair shop right away and "get fixed."

You can make your manhood over.

There is full-man capability in you. You can get it all out and put it to work for your success.

You have the ability to re-make your character entirely, without changing your individual nature.

You must accomplish transformation into your best self before you can make the most of your opportunities to sell your abilities and services. It will not suffice that you just are willing, or desire, to become a first-class salesman of your particular "goods of sale." Merely acquiring information or knowledge of the selling process is not enough to assure your success in life. Even the most skillful practice of all the sales principles and methods you learn will be insufficient to guarantee your success--if you do not develop your full man capacity for sales-man-ship.

The result of the necessary changes and growth in your manhood will be an enlarged conception of all men--your greater capacity to understand and to handle any one else successfully.

It is entirely possible for you to develop and cultivate every essential quality of the master sales-man, and still to be just yourself.

The high grade professional salesman makes the best appearance of which he is capable. Surely you can do that, too. You can train yourself to grace and ease in your bearing. However unsatisfactory your features may be, you certainly are capable of looking pleasant, and therefore of being attractive. It is possible for you to have well-kept hands and hair; to wear suitable, clean clothes; to be neat.

First-class salesmanship requires, too, a high degree of physical capacity for the most effective performance of the selling process. You need health, virility, energy, liveliness, and endurance, in order to sell effectively the idea that you are physically able to fill the job you want most. Physical incapacity is a handicap in almost any vocation. It can be remedied. It must be remedied as fully as possible in your case. You may not be very robust naturally, but you can make the most of the constitution you have, with certain success as the incentive for your fullest possible physical development. Few of us are as well as we might be.

Whatever your physical shortcomings, there can be no doubt that you are capable of developing all the essential mental equipment of the successful salesman. You only need to comprehend a few elemental laws of mind science; and then to train yourself to the utmost of your particular ability--in perceptive power, alertness, accuracy, punctuality, memory, imagination, concentration, adaptability to circumstances, stability, self-control, determination, tact, diplomacy, and good judgment.

Does this seem like a long list of difficult accomplishments? Examine the items, and realize how easy it is to develop these mental qualities of masterly salesmanship.

Perception is simply looking at things with your mind as well as with your eyes.

Alertness is no more than mental sharp ears.

Accuracy results from taking pains to be right.

Punctuality is a habit of mind that anyone can develop.

Memory is acquired by practice in remembering things.

You use some imagination every day--use all your imaginative power.

Likewise you occasionally concentrate your thoughts. More exercise in concentration will develop this mental characteristic.

You adapt yourself to circumstances when necessary, or when you choose. You can train yourself so that you will be prepared to meet anything that may happen.

You have a degree of stability of character, otherwise you never would accomplish anything. Increase your steadfastness by sticking to more purposes.

Similarly determination, self-control, tact, diplomacy, and good judgment are merely the natural results of continual practice to develop these mental qualities.

The principal emotional or heart qualities required in masterly selling are ambition, hopefulness, optimism, enthusiasm, cheerfulness, self-confidence, courage, persistence, patience, earnestness, sympathy, frankness, expressiveness, humor, loyalty, and love of others. Think of these one by one, and realize how many of them you already possess to a considerable degree.

You may not be optimistic; perhaps you lack self-confidence, or maybe you are wanting in courage. But with the possible exception of these three "heart" qualities of the master salesman, you are not deficient now in the emotional essentials of successful salesmanship. You need only a higher degree of each.

Develop all your capability in the other qualities, and you will find you have become an optimist. Your self-confidence, too, will grow as fast as you increase your ability. When you are full of optimism and self-confidence, you will not find it difficult to create courage within yourself. Then you will have the complete emotional equipment of a master salesman. The exact way to develop courage with certainty is explained in the second chapter of "The Selling Process," with especial reference to the professional salesman, who must meet his prospects courageously in all circumstances if he would succeed.

Nor is it hard for you to qualify yourself ethically for mastery of the selling process. Surely your intentions are right. You mean to be honest and truthful. You can be of good moral character. You expect to be reliable. It should be easy for you to love your chosen work.

There remains, finally, the essential of spiritual capacity for selling. It comprises idealism, vision, faith, desire to serve, ability to understand other men. Perhaps you are deficient in some of these spiritual qualities now. But with idealism all about you in the spirit of the world cannot you, too, lift your eyes to higher purposes than the satisfaction of merely selfish desires? Are you not able to look broadly, instead of narrowly at life? You know you must have faith--that you cannot make sure of success if you doubt. Your mission as a true salesman of yourself should be to serve your prospects by satisfying their real needs for the abilities you have. Love of others results from serving them with what you can supply that they lack.

In no respect, then, from personal good appearance to spiritual capacity, need you be other than your best possible self to qualify for certain success with the selling process.

Reference has been made repeatedly in these pages to the necessity for change and growth in your man character before you can become a master salesman of your full capability for success. Of course you cannot change your nature into a different nature; any more than one form of life can be transformed into an entirely distinct form of life. It is impossible to develop a carrot into a calla, or to make a dog of a pig. But the elements of any particular form of life may be altered, most radically.

So you can develop: (1) the use; (2) the degree of activity; (3) the quality, of any element in your present salesman equipment.

For example, it is generally recognized that suitable clothes help to create a good impression. Therefore you should use to the highest degree of activity and of quality what you know about the effect of dress in helping to create a good impression. But, to particularize, do you (use your knowledge) polish your shoes, even if it is no more than flicking off the dust with your handkerchief, every chance (highest degree of activity) you get when they need it? And when you polish your shoes in the morning preparatory to starting your day's work, do you just give them "a lick and a promise," or do you "make 'em shine?" (Highest degree of quality.)

The "stupid" pig can be taught to do as phenomenal tricks as the "intelligent" dog. It is possible to train a pig so that he will appear to be able to discriminate among colors, to tell time, even to perform simple operations in arithmetic. At the circus or vaudeville we sit in wonder while the "educated" stupid pig, alertly afraid of the trainer's whip, performs stunts of seeming intelligence. Under the stimulus of fear he acts like a quick-thinking dog. In truth he has been changed by training, from the pig characteristic of utter stupidity to the dog characteristic of rudimentary intelligence. But in nature and form he remains just a pig. If you should see him among other pigs in a pen, you never would mistake the "educated" pig for a fat puppy.

In the trained pig the use of his pig mind is developed to an unusual degree of activity and of quality to save himself from punishment and to gain the tidbits that reward his performance of tricks. The purpose of the trainer is accomplished by changing and developing the mind functioning of the pig. No trainer would attempt to change the nature of a pig--to develop a pig into an elephant, a different creature. Only characteristics can be changed or developed.

Luther Burbank has accomplished with plants even more extraordinary changes and developments in characteristics than have been achieved by the most expert trainers of animals. He could not make a carrot into a calla; but he did take the dwarf natural calla plant and develop it into a splendid lily that bears flowers measuring a foot across the petal. He also multiplied the characteristic colors of the natural calla and has evolved great blossoms of a score of shades, from pure white to jet black.

The noted plant wizard developed, too, the naturally small, hard, dry, sour prune and transformed it into a juicy, sweet fruit that is bigger and more delicious than our common plum.

He also succeeded in altering radically an element of the natural walnut, which had a characteristic covering skin of bitter tannin over the meat inside the nut shell. For countless centuries walnut trees had been in the habit of covering the meat of their nuts with this tannin skin. Luther Burbank trained selected walnut trees to give up this fixed bad habit, and to produce nuts the meats of which were not enveloped in bitter coverings.

Since expert trainers have been able to accomplish such marvelous changes and developments in the characteristics of lower animals and plants--not changes in the form of life, but alterations so nearly miraculous that they seem almost to be changes in nature--is there the least doubt that you, a man, excelling every other animal, and every plant in consciousness and intelligence, are capable of the most radical, elemental changes in your present self?

Cannot you, then, certainly develop and use to a much higher degree of activity and quality the MAN characteristics you now possess? Of course you can! You need but to learn the science of yourself--to get full knowledge of what you are and of what you might be--by studying the big, best qualities in you. After that you will need to make the most of what you learn about your true self. Intensive self-study will reveal to you all the possibilities of your enlarged and bettered personality. When you know you have developed your biggest, best manhood, you certainly will feel increased power to sell your "goods."

Of all living creatures, Man is the most adaptable, is capable of the greatest development, and responsive in the highest degree to desires from within and to influences from outside himself. Only a stupidly ignorant man would hold to the belief that the elements of his character cannot be radically changed and developed. At present you may be handicapped with what you have considered "natural disqualifications" for success. Then study yourself thoroughly, one detail at a time. Follow this self-analysis by intelligent practice in the active use of your best qualities, and determine to change your "disqualifications" into salable characteristics that will help you to succeed.

Certainly a slouch can straighten up, wash his dirty hands and face, dress neatly, and suggest proper regard for his appearance. The physical weakling is able to build considerable strength into himself. Dullards, unless their brains are stunted, may develop surprising intellectual keenness. Careless men can train themselves to painstaking accuracy. Individuals who are habitually late may become models of punctuality. The man of flighty thoughts can concentrate. It is possible to control a quick, bad temper. Tact, diplomacy, and good judgment can be learned and used efficiently by the countless thousands of people who now are tactless, undiplomatic, and characterized by poor judgment.

So it is with the principal emotional, ethical, and spiritual qualities of the master salesman. You have them all, elementally. Certainly you can develop any selected element to higher activity and use it to help you sell true ideas of your best capabilities.

Maybe you have fought long and vainly for self-confidence, for courage, for will power. Perhaps you have realized for years that you are slow in perception, and have struggled to make yourself take mental snap-shots of details and conditions. You have wished and willed and worked to be agreeable and courteous; yet perhaps you lose friends by your characteristic disagreeableness and lack of courtesy. If, in spite of all you so far have done to improve yourself, you have been unable to get rid of your faults and defects, you are apt to question the statement that you certainly can develop such qualities as you most desire.

No doubt you have decided, probably you have willed, very likely you have made a persistent struggle to change your characteristics. You honestly have tried hard to grow, and to increase your man capacity. Consequently your failure may have left you rather hopeless about ever succeeding as you once expected to succeed. Perhaps you have given up your case as "too tough a job." We will assume that you are not so young as you wish you were, and that you have committed to memory the fatalistic, hoary lie, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." But recall the fixed habit of bitterness the walnut had for centuries, the color and size of the natural calla, the sour taste of the little wild prune, which the plant wizard changed most radically without using any "wizardry" at all. He just applied scientific knowledge in his training of walnut trees and callas and prunes and other forms of vegetable life. Have you tried his method of development? Do you know exactly what he did?

If Luther Burbank had merely desired and willed that the walnut should give up its old bad habit, he never could have accomplished the job of development. He might have insisted persistently for a life-time that the little, sour, dry prune should become more luscious and larger than the plum; but it would have remained the same in size and other characteristics as it always had been, despite his continued determination. Desire, will, and persistence were but preliminary steps toward the complete accomplishment of his purpose with the prune.

Burbank worked out in his mind and by actual experiments distinctive methods of development--development and changes along particular, definite lines. He selected for the prune he wanted to produce, (an imagined, ideal prune) certain desirable qualities of the plum--the best plum characteristics. He studied what produced these particular qualities in plums. Then with his exact, scientific knowledge of the similarity in nature of the plum and the prune, and his equally definite knowledge of the differences in their characteristics, supplemented by his knowledge of exactly what produced the difference in the two fruits, he started his experiments with natural prune trees.

He led specimens through a pre-determined scientific process of training. He succeeded in getting his experimental prune trees to develop discriminatively, almost as if they had the power of choice, particular plum qualities in preference to others. But the result was not a transformation of the prune trees into plum trees. The fruit of the tree he evolved was just a perfected prune. He simply developed all the capability the prune had originally to be like a plum in deliciousness.

Note just here one very important feature of the Burbank method of plant development and change. It did not involve any struggle or hard work on the part of his trees. He merely provided natural, but scientifically selected conditions and food; knowing that his prunes then would grow naturally in the particular ways he wanted them to develop, and in no other ways at variance with his plan.

Perhaps the primary fault in your ineffective effort to develop yourself into the man you want to be, is that it has been a struggle. Natural growth always is easy. Growth involves a struggle only when one or more of the means of natural growth are lacking. Luther Burbank wished his prune trees to develop certain selected qualities of the plum. Therefore he provided his wild prunes with the same means he had used effectively with plums to increase their lusciousness. He knew these means should have a similar effect on prunes. When he had provided the natural means of discriminative development, he left the rest to the natural growth of his prune trees. They began to develop the selected plum qualities easily, and generation after generation became more and more like plums.

Now let us consider briefly: first, the bases of natural, easy growth of selected man qualities; second, the processes that take place in the development of desired man qualities, some of which may not have seemed to exist previous to the evolutionary training; third, the training methods that should be employed to make these processes most effective and to produce the particular results wanted and no others.

There are two bases of development in every one--the inner and the outer man. The real himself is the inner man, which psychologists call the "Ego." But there is something else in the make-up of every man, his body. Each of us recognizes his body--not as himself, not as his ego--but as belonging to the real, or inner himself. A man thinks and says, "my body" just as he considers and refers to anything else that is his.

The discrimination between the two parts of "You" must be understood at the very start of your self-development. All your plans for the growth of the characteristics you need to assure your success should be based on comprehension of your duality. The two "You's" in yourself not only are distinctly different, but they are also very intimately related in all their functions. Neither your "ego" nor your body is independent of the other part of your duality. So, of course, both must co-operate fully in every process of your self-development; and your training methods should be planned for the bettered growth of your inner and outer man as a team.

You understand now that your growth should be on a dual basis; that you have two different men to develop, not just one; and that they must be handled discriminatively, but together.

Next it is necessary that you know in exactly what ways the activities of the mind man, or ego, are related to the activities of his body, or the physical man. Otherwise you cannot comprehend the team-work processes by which any desired qualities of manhood can be developed from their rudiments. Perhaps the reason you have not yet succeeded fully is that you have been a "one-horse" man and have not trained your dual self to be an effective mind-and-body team pulling together. It takes both mind and body to bring to market successfully all the "best capability" of a man.

Evidently, as a pre-requisite to self-development, one should have knowledge of the particular processes that result surely in natural, easy, rapid growth. Otherwise he would be more than likely to employ a wrong or only partly right method of training. So as a student of yourself you need to start with comprehension of your two bases of development, mind and body. It is necessary next that you acquire scientific knowledge of the distinct but related processes of developing your two selves severally to work together as a team. Then you must learn the particular methods of coöperative mental and physical training that are most effective in accomplishing the man growth you desire.

Not only have you two selves, but neither "You" is a single unit. Your mind, as well as your body, is made up of distinctly different but very intimately related and associated parts. Your "mind" cannot be developed as a whole. Its parts must be severally bettered and strengthened in coordination, just as the physical man is developed by training his various muscles.

You know you have distinct sets of muscles which all together make up your composite body. Perhaps, however, you have not realized before that your mind is not a unit, but is made up of innumerable distinct "mind centers," each of which functions as independently of the others as your set of eye muscles operates independently of the set of muscles governing the movements of one of your fingers. And possibly you do not know that each mind center has a distinct brain center, which functions for that particular part alone of your whole mind. Each associated mind-and-brain center also has direct, distinct nerve connections with only one set of muscles.

In fact, you are "a many-minded, many-bodied" man--a collection of mental and physical parts, a composite man rather than a man unit. These several parts are in large measure practically independent of one another. One set of body parts "belongs to" only its particular associated set of mind parts, or mind center.

If you were constituted otherwise, your life would be very precarious; for the injury or destruction of even a minor part of your body would be fatal to the whole unit. As it is, you can lose a finger without affecting your eye-sight in the least. So you might suffer a localized brain injury that would completely paralyze a finger, without impairing your sight at all. Either the mind center that governs a finger, or the set of muscles in that finger can be affected without necessarily reacting upon any other mind center or any other set of muscles.

But if the mind center that governs a certain set of muscles is affected, that set of muscles also is directly affected and at once. Likewise if anything happens to a particular set of muscles, the reaction is instantly transmitted to its associated mind center through the "direct wire" nerves and brain center which particularly serve that part of the mind.

Great scientists have studied mental and physical phenomena in inter-relation and have learned certain facts. For example, it is known that "the mind" not only affects the general functions of "the body," but also the rate of bodily activity and the chemistry of body tissues. Long-continued hard thinking actually does "wear a man out." It consumes blood and brain tissue. It "slows him up." It may impair his digestion and appetite. We all know these things, but the scientists know just why we feel physically tired after using only our minds.

They have learned also that every activity of the mind has a direct effect on the brain substance. That is, each mind operation through the brain changes its physical structure in some degree. Mental effort or relaxation increases or decreases the amount of blood in the brain. When you have been using your mind very hard, your head "feels heavy," and it is unusually heavy then on account of the extra amount of blood weight. Even the temperature of the brain, particularly of that portion of the brain which is especially functioning at a given moment, is changed with every mental effort.

There is abundant scientific proof that the quality and quantity of muscle, brain, and nerve (physical) activity in a particular individual are accompanied by corresponding qualities and quantities of mental activity. That is, when a person's muscle action, nerve response, and brain action are sluggish, his mind also develops a characteristic of slow action. And vice versa.

We say of a certain acquaintance that he has an alert mind. But his "ego," or mental self, could not act quickly and alertly if his brain, the physical instrument of his mind, did not receive and transmit impressions swiftly to his mentality. The brain does not think. It is as purely physical as any other part of the body. It just handles, or transmits in and out, to and from the mind, the various impressions sent in by different sense muscles, and the mental reflexes or impulses sent out by the innumerable mind centers. Your mind works through your brain. Of course, therefore, the quality and quantity of mental work you are capable of doing are limited by the degree of handling-or-transmitting efficiency characteristic of your particular brain structure.

Any interference with the brain quality or quantity of an individual naturally interferes with his normal mental functioning. If a particular part of a man's brain is injured, the associated mind center is harmed likewise and his mental quality is affected in proportion. Should a certain portion of his brain be cut out, the total quantity of his mental powers would be correspondingly reduced. We all know these things about the brain and the mind. But only a few scientists are familiar with many details of the inter-relation of mind and brain and muscles, which should be known to all people who want to make the most of themselves. The salesman of himself needs to understand his "goods" thoroughly; so as we study the selling process that completes the secret of certain success, we dig into practical psychology a little way now in order to stimulate in you a desire for further exploration of that gold mine of opportunities.

The mind depends on the brain, in coordination with the nerves and muscles, to express thoughts. That is how your inner or "ego" sales-man gets his ideas out of your physical salesman, and shows them to the minds of prospective buyers. You can make another person conscious of your thoughts only by some perceptible physical manifestation of the idea you wish to convey to him. Evidently, then, in order to succeed in developing your big sales manhood and in making effective impressions of it on others, you must learn both how to think the ideas of big manhood into your own mind most effectively and how to show them outwardly with masterly skill. The first process is man development; the second is sales-man-ship, or manhood self-expression for the purpose of controlling the ideas of other men.

There is but one way to indicate or express what is going on in your mind. Your thoughts can be physically shown only by muscular action of some kind. Brain and nerve action are hidden, but muscle action can be perceived. If your muscular action expresses exactly the idea you desire and will and use it to manifest, your mind is able to get its thought across to another mind--to sell the idea.

Conversely, if your muscle action--your outer, perceptible self--expresses something different from your thought intention, your mind has failed to make the true impression of your idea. It may be that an impression directly contradictory to your thought has been made by your muscles working at cross purposes. So the truth in your mind won't get across to the other man's mind--not because your idea was untrue, but because it has not been physically interpreted by your muscles as you intended. For example, you might stand so much in awe of a man you greatly admire that you would avoid speaking to him, and in consequence would appear to him indifferent or cold. Your physical appearance would belie your intentions.

Perhaps, if you have failed in life or have only partially succeeded, despite the qualifications you possess for complete success, your muscles may be principally to blame. The parts of your idea-selling equipment that can be perceived in action probably have not "delivered the goods" of sale correctly.

Not only is your mind absolutely dependent on the muscular system of your body for any true expression of the real you inside; it likewise must depend on the activity of your various sets of muscles to get all the incoming sense impressions that make up whatever knowledge you have.

Have you realized how your present fund of information was accumulated? Everything you know came into your conscious mind originally through impressions first made on your various "sense" muscles, and then transmitted by nerve telegraph to directly connected brain centers, which in turn passed on to their associated mind centers these original impressions of new ideas. Many repetitions of similar sense impressions were needed to register permanently in your mind your first conceptions of different colors, scents, etc. Thus you learned to think. The process was started--not by your mind--but by your various "sense" muscles. These received from your environment impressions of heat, cold, softness, hardness, etc., and passed them in to associated brain-mind centers, which thus commenced to collect knowledge about the world which you entered with a mind absolutely empty of ideas.

If a child might be born with a good brain, but with his general muscular system completely paralyzed, he could learn nothing at all regarding the world. He would have no conscious mind. No sense impression of smell, light, taste, sound, or feeling could be received by the brain of such a child; for no original perceptions of any kind could be taken in. He would be like a complete telegraph system with every branch office closed. No intelligence would be transmitted; since no message could be even filed for sending. Because of the paralysis of the sensory muscles, the child's conscious mind would remain blank.

Recall now that you have a multiplex, not a single brain. That is, your so-called "brain" is made up of innumerable, distinct "brain centers" which function quite independently of one another. No particular unit requires help from any of the others in order to do its especial work with full efficiency. Each center attends only to its specific business in your life. It rests, or relaxes from activity, when it has nothing to do; or when the particular muscles it governs are not in use. And, of course, when a certain brain center rests or is inactive, its associated mind center also rests or is inactive.

As already has been stated, the mind of a man is built up, through the brain instrument, by the sense impressions transmitted to his consciousness. In other words, all he knows with his mind first came into his mental capacity from outside impressions of things and ideas. The fewer the impressions that come into the mind through the brain, the less does a man know. And only the impressions that come into a particular mind center develop that center. (For example, the development of keenest eyesight by many optical impressions would not affect at all a man's ability to discriminate among the tones of music, would not give him "a good ear.")

It is evident, therefore, that if a particular brain center temporarily or permanently is deprived of right and sufficient exercise in transmitting sense impressions, its coordinated mind center will be stunted in its growth or starved for lack of mental food. This is why a man is awkward in using his native tongue when he returns to the country of his birth after a long residence among people of a different nation where that language was not spoken. But a little exercise of his brain in transmitting again the sound of his native tongue will quickly stimulate his mind with the renewed supply of this particular mental food to which it formerly was accustomed. In a few weeks he will use the old language naturally; whereas another man, who never had spoken it, would require years to build up such full knowledge from a start of complete ignorance of the language.

Evidently, too, a weak, undeveloped brain center would be incapable of receiving strong mental impulses from its coordinated mind center, and of transmitting them in full strength to the particular muscles governed by that mind center. This is why, if a man's brain center of courage is undeveloped, even the most courageous thoughts will not make his body act bravely. His legs may run away against his will to fight. The physical instrument of his mind (his brain), and also certain associated sets of muscles, must be sufficiently exercised in the action of courage to build up within him the physical structure of fearlessness that will be instantly responsive to a mental attitude of bravery.

If for any reason the brain instrument is weak or undeveloped, it can handle only weakly either in-coming messages to the ego from the senses, or out-going impulses from the mind to the muscles. So, because of this undeveloped brain instrument, the full capability of neither the inner nor the outer man can be built up and put to use. Obviously, therefore, if one is ambitious to succeed, he needs to know and to practice the coordinated mind-brain-muscle exercises that will increase the quantity and better the quality of his man capacity. Since he is a "many-minded, many-bodied" man, general physical and mental exercise will not develop the particular qualities required to assure his success. Each and every mind-brain-muscle set must be built up individually by specific exercises which strengthen that particular unit of the multiplex man. Then, of course, all his units should be taught to work together to make his success certain with his all-around capability fully developed and coordinated.

Luther Burbank worked out "discriminative-restrictive" methods of growth that may be applied as successfully to men as to plants. He could not have built up the ability of a prune tree to produce delicious fruit if he had not fed into the tree structure, or instrument of production, a sufficient quantity and high quality of the particular plant foods of deliciousness. He restricted his experimental prune trees to the development of specific delicious qualities, by giving them no food except that discriminatively selected for his purpose. That is, he made them develop in one way and in one way only, when he was making a particular test.

Similarly, as has been stated before, you can develop the specific man qualities you need to succeed. You must feed to a particular mind center, through the related brain center, selected sense impressions. These can come only from the coordinated set of muscles governed by that mind-brain center. Then you should exercise the specific brain center and set of muscles in the production of mental reflexes, or the mind fruit. Acts of courage, for example, are the fruit of brave thoughts.

A particular brain center, of course, will be strengthened both by the food of sense impressions it is given, and by the exercise of handling messages to and from the mind. The brain, or physical instrument of the mind, is like an intermediary or go-between of the ego and the body. It is of the utmost importance that it should do its work efficiently. Otherwise the full capability of neither the outer nor the inner man can be utilized.

If Brown passes something to Jones, who passes it along to Smith; then Smith passes it back to Jones to be re-passed to Brown--Jones, the middle agent of transmission or handling instrument, whom we are comparing to the brain, might be so awkward, slow, and inefficient as a go-between that the possible ability of Brown and Smith in passing would be nullified or greatly hampered. But if the inefficiency of Jones is blamable to his inexperience, it evidently can be changed to efficiency by sufficient right exercise in passing. The more of that sort of work he does, in either direction, the better passer will Jones become.

His exercise, however, must be in passing things, if passing capability is to be developed. He would not become a better and quicker passer by any amount of exercise in taking things apart, or in inspecting things--wholly dissimilar functions.

Moreover, Jones would not become an expert passer of glassware as a result of practice in passing bricks, for the two kinds of things are not handled alike. Indeed, the man accustomed to passing bricks might be more likely to break glassware than another man who previously had no particular skill in passing anything. The expert brick-passer would be apt to forget sometimes that he was passing glass. His muscles might treat the fragile ware with the rough habit acquired in passing bricks.

Plainly, discriminative-restrictive methods of training are required to perfect capability in any particular kind of physical passing; however much skill in general passing may have been developed. If Jones should become expert in passing pails of liquid, he would nevertheless need to train himself anew in order to pass frozen liquid efficiently in the form of cakes of ice. And, to particularize still more, it would be necessary for him to learn how to pass different liquids. Water and thick molasses in pails should not be handled alike.

Similarly the various brain centers, as passers of different sense impressions and mental reflexes in and out, require, each of them--like Jones--the specific exercises that will develop their several particular abilities. The individual brain unit (as of courage, memory, judgment, etc.) is strengthened only by handling the in and out business of its coordinated muscles and mind center. Also, while a particular set of muscles and coordinate mind center are strengthening their brain center by the exercise they give it, they are both being developed by the same exercise of passing along sense impressions and thoughts to each other through the brain--like Smith and Brown.

Returning to the comparison of Burbank's methods with man development, we perceive again how the principle of discriminative-selective training is applied to accomplish the growth of certain characteristics needed to assure a man's success. The plant wizard in his initial tests gave to his undeveloped prune trees particular food and conditions and treatment selected for the purpose of imparting specific qualities of deliciousness. A prune somewhat improved in deliciousness was the first result. Then from the product of that improved prune he started another cycle of development. He fed the selected food of deliciousness to the improved prune tree, and a fruit more delicious resulted. His work was simply plant breeding by the discriminative-restrictive method. Brain breeding is a similar process of particularized, cumulative development.

All the foregoing rather complicated explanation of "psychological processes" has seemed necessary to make a clear impression of the right training methods for building within you any quality you need to assure your success. You must begin by training your outer man.

You can develop a particular mind-brain center (such as the center of courage) only by the discriminative-restrictive training of those portions of your body which are directly related in activity and responsiveness to that mind-brain unit of the multiplex YOU. Training of any other set of muscles will not develop the particular mind-brain center you want to build up, and would be a wrong procedure.

You should begin with specific training of particular sets of sensory muscles because, as we have seen, that is the natural order of the process of growth. It is how you began to learn everything you know. You can increase and improve your present limited, conscious knowledge most effectively by taking into your mind from your trained particular senses more and better impressions than you ever have taken in before.

Suppose your success has been hindered by your lack of persistence. You need to develop that quality in particular. Let us see how the discriminative-restrictive principle should be applied specifically to assure you of building persistence within yourself.

First it is necessary that you discriminate between this one quality and all others; especially between it and the quality of determination. Very different training methods are required to develop persistence and determination respectively. When you are just "determined" to do a thing, your jaw muscles, your arm and back muscles, perhaps all your commonly known muscles, will be hardened as long as you remain determined, but no longer. They will relax when the occasion for determination has passed. The habit of instantly tensing your muscles temporarily whenever you need to be determined will very greatly strengthen and improve the efficiency of your brain-mind center of determination. But that temporary hardening of your muscles will only slightly affect the development in you of characteristic persistence.

Hence the training of your muscles for building the habit of determination within you should be concentrated on exercise in changing swiftly from comparative laxity to muscular tension. That is, in order to accustom your mind to hardening with determined thoughts whenever determination is needed, you should train your muscles to harden in coordination, and thus to support your mental determination by the complementary physical suggestion of the same quality.

You do not need to use determination all the time; so it will be sufficient if your muscles are taught to be quickly responsive to determination of mind on any occasion. (You know it helps you to carry out a resolution if you stiffen your body at the moment you make up your mind to do a thing, but continued stiffness of the body in determination would be a strain likely to weaken your power of action unless backed by a tremendous, stored-up reserve strength of muscles.) Begin your practice for the development of determination, then, by training your muscles to tauten the instant you think determinedly. Your brain-mind center of determination will also be strengthened by the exercise that builds up the supporting habit of muscle action in coordination. Millions of men have failed in life because their determined thoughts were not reenforced by stiffened backbones.

Now let us discriminate between muscle training to develop the characteristic of persistence and the training already described for the building of determination. In order to strengthen your persistence, you must transmit through the distinct brain center of persistence to the corresponding mind center, the impression of muscles permanently developed in firmness, not just capable of temporary hardening on occasion.

The characteristically persistent man has gradually developed his lax-muscled, sagging, baby chin into a jaw that is habitually firm, whether or not he happens to be determined to do anything at a given moment. His muscles do not sag utterly, even when he is asleep. He probably wakes up in the morning with his teeth clenched. So, whenever his coordinated brain-mind center perceives that the quality of persistence is required, and starts to apply it, the mental impulse to persist is backed by a permanent firm muscle structure that can stand up as long as the mind needs the physical support.

In contrast, the man who is only characteristically determined, but who lacks persistence in his determination, has developed just the habit of hardening his muscles for the time he is determined on doing a particular thing. That does not exercise his muscles sufficiently to make them firm all the time, whether under tension or not. Consequently his determination is likely to slump if his resolution is subjected to a long strain. He does not possess muscular structure sufficiently strong to support persistence in his determination.

Habitual lack of firmness in the jaw muscles, as you know, results in a sagging chin; which detrimentally affects the brain-mind center of persistence. A man whose jaw habitually hangs loose may be capable of great determination for a while, but he is not persistent in character. He might clench his teeth, stiffen his body, and plunge into the surf to rescue a drowning person; but his first resolution to effect the rescue would be weakened by the cold water and by fear. He lacks the quality of the bulldog that will die rather than loose its teeth from another dog's throat.

The coordinated muscles express the mental attitude, as we have perceived; and equally they impress the mind with their attitude. If you have a sagging chin, you are incapable of the mental bulldog grip of persistence. So tighten up your jaw muscles, and never let them hang utterly loose, if you are resolved to develop the characteristic of "stick-to-it-iveness." Begin with muscle training, for your muscles must be utilized to start the process of building up your brain-mind center of persistence.

When you train the particular sense muscles that transmit external impressions to a particular brain-mind unit (the same muscles that reflexively express the ideas of that one part of your multiplex ego) you may be absolutely sure of developing a particular related characteristic. For example, if you want to sharpen your perceptive faculties so that you will see with the eyes of your mind much more than the ordinary man perceives, exercise your physical eyes in taking snap-shots that you can see clearly in detail with your imagination when you look away from an object after a glance at it. Try glancing at the furnishings of your room, then shut your eyes and construct a mental picture. When this is definitely clear to you, open your eyes. The reality will be very different from your imagined picture. But sharpen your perceptive faculties, develop a "camera eye;" then the reality will be exactly impressed on your mind. Witnesses in court often contradict one another, in all honesty, simply because their ability to perceive actualities is not highly developed. In consequence, they get false mental impressions of happenings or things they severally have seen.

There are but three processes of mental development:

The first process comprises getting information from a sense to its associated brain center, which then makes the mind center conscious that particular information has been transmitted to it.

The second process is organizing the information in the mind center, with relation to other information previously brought to the mind.

In the third process the mind center directs its co-related brain center to send out certain impulses of action to the corresponding muscular structure.

Let us analyze an illustration of these three processes of mental development. Suppose first you hear something that concerns a particular prospect for your "goods of sale." Second, you comprehend the significance to you of what you have heard. Third, your mind directs your muscles to make a particular use of what you have comprehended. The original mental impression has been fully developed because you employed all three processes. If you had not completed the cycle of development, you would have given your mind only partial exercise with what you heard.

In order to become a master salesman, you must take in many impressions, perceive their significance to you and how you can make use of them, then act on your comprehension of what you have learned. There are countless failures in the world who might have been successes if they had not stopped their possible mental development at the first or second stages.

A man might know an encyclopedia of facts, but be a failure.

He might comprehend how to use his knowledge, and still be a failure.

Success comes only to the man who acts most effectively on what he knows.

In order to secure quick and effective results, the practice of the three necessary processes of development should be:

First, definitely conscious. You need to know just what quality you want to develop in yourself.

Second, discriminative. You must learn the differences between what you want, and what you don't want to develop in particular.

Third, restrictive. It is necessary that in your training to develop a certain quality, you concentrate your practice on the respects in which this particular quality differs from other qualities.

Most of us are pretty definitely conscious of what we want. We know just the qualities we would like to have. But very few people employ most effectively the discriminative-restrictive methods of training in their processes of development.

It is impossible to develop a particular quality fully if you only recognize its likenesses to other qualities. Real mental development is accomplished only as a result of the recognition of differences. After studying twins for a year, you still might be unable to tell them apart if you were impressed solely with their remarkable similarity to each other. Another man, with a mind discriminatively and restrictively trained to recognize differences, would learn in five minutes to distinguish the individualities of the twins.

Almost phenomenal development can be attained by use of the discriminative-restrictive training method. The minutest distinctions can be perceived if one concentrates his practice for mental growth on the recognition of differences only. Individuals who have lost one or more senses become extraordinarily adept in detecting contrasts with their other senses. A normal man, possessed of all his senses, is capable of even greater development of his powers of differentiation.

You know how remarkably a blind man learns to "see" with his fingers and ears. But need you lose the sense of sight before you can comprehend the lesson of his example to you? You realize that you appear to lack many essential qualities of success. Know now that these are all merely dormant in you. They can be awakened and developed to an extraordinary degree if you train yourself consciously in the discriminative-restrictive use of all your sense tools. You would do it if you were blind. It certainly should be much easier to accomplish the desired transformation with your eyes open to aid your other senses.

The significance of all this is that you need not be permanently handicapped in your sales-man-ship by any present lack of particular qualifications for success. It makes no difference what you happen to be short of now. By properly coordinating your brain-mind-muscle sets or centers, and by using all three in the processes of your development, you can make yourself over almost miraculously. Will power, courage, exact and wise judgment, persistence, patience, rapid thinking, constructive imagination--any and all qualities you want CAN be developed in you, even though they now seem not to exist.

Your development is limited only by the practically limitless number of unawakened cells in your brain. Most of your potential mind centers are asleep yet. You can wake up the slumberers with your various sense muscles, and vigorously exercise them into activity for your success. You have been handicapped because you have been carrying so many "dead-heads" that ought to be working or paying their way.

Remember that growth of any brain-mind center can be begun and continued only by the exercise of the coordinated set of sense muscles in transmitting impressions from outside yourself and in expressing your thoughts.

The number of cells in the human brain has been estimated at from six hundred millions to two billions. The greatest genius who ever lived doubtless had scores of millions of brain cells that remained more or less idle, if not sound asleep, all his life. Nature has furnished you with a plentiful surplus of grey matter in your head. Do not be afraid that you will exhaust or tire out your brains by your self-development. Put into your work all the brains you can waken with your various senses. And keep the alarm clocks wound up.

William James, the great psychologist, wrote, "Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped; our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. There are in every one potential forms of activity that actually are shunted from use. Part of the imperfect vitality under which we labor can thus be easily explained. One part of our mind dams up--even damns up--the other part."

Can you become a big sales MAN? Of course! You have all the necessary tools to make yourself over in any way you will--your muscles, nerves, brain, and mind. Use them cooperatively, as they were meant to be used, in their respective sets--not as if you were a mental-physical unit. To develop your sales manhood you need only to apply real thinking in the processes of your daily life. Study out the reasons and effects of all your acts and expressions. Your experimental psychological laboratory should be yourself, undergoing at your hands the transformation from what you are to what it is possible for you to become. Begin making your man-stuff over. Each successive step will be easier to take. Your growth, when you employ the right processes and methods, is certain. Therefore your success in making yourself a big sales man can be assured.