Part 36

Things in our body, whether muscle or bone, develop by usage, and if we use the wishbone all the time it will develop into huge proportions. On the other hand if we develop our backbone and use it frequently, we may not have cause to use the wishbone so much.

Brace up. Stand erect. Strengthen your backbone and, with it, your jaw bone.

Say "I will" instead of "I wish." The world bestows her prizes on men with backbone and the blanks on those who use their wishbone.

Do Good

Doing good is planting seed, the harvest may not show at present but in the future you are going to reap it.

A man is paid back precisely in the same coin he pays out. If he plants weeds or mean impulses the harvest will be weeds and mean impulses. If he plants seed of good deeds he will harvest good deeds.

Centuries ago it was said "Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you many-fold."

The man who is doing good as he goes along, who is lending help, kindly counsel and encouragement will find the world is a pretty good place to live in after all. As he journeys along through life he will find the good he has done in the past has flourished and returned to him in greatly increased proportions, like the bread cast upon the waters.

It is not only the good one actually gets for the good, he has done, but it is the profit that comes in the way of happiness he gets for his actions. The true way to obtain happiness is to do something for somebody. You get back out of the general exchequer of good in the world full payment for the good you have done, plus a profit of happiness which comes from the very doing of good.

The Get-Away

After you have driven the nail home make your get-away.

Many a solicitor has lost his prestige because, after having accomplished his point, he hung on.

It is quite an art to know when to make the get-away. Study your customer carefully, and when you have made your point clear and your proposition is presented to him in the best possible manner, then get away.

The bore is a bore because he does not know how to get away. The solicitor is always welcome if it is known he is not a hanger-on, and that he gets in and gets out quickly.

Double Equipment

For the employe there is nothing better to possess than double equipment, by which we mean the ability to do two things well.

From the employer's standpoint nothing will stand his business in such good stead as to have his employes doubly equipped.

In the printing business, for instance, the old time printer knew how to set type, lock up forms and to run a press.

Nowadays we seldom find a printer in the broad sense of the word.

In the big printing establishment we find the various branches of the printing trade have employes who are specialists at one thing. In the printing trade the craftsman is either a compositor a proof-reader, a make-up man, a pressman or a binder.

The employe who can set type and also run a press is a decided advantage to the employer. The writer knows a certain publishing house whose every employe is doubly equipped. The rule of the proprietor is that every job or branch of the business must have more than one person competent to run it, and that every person must know how to do two things.

Double equipment on the part of the employe gives the employer great resources.

When sickness, accident or other causes prevent the employe from filling his accustomed place, then the proprietor can call on others who have the double equipment, to fill in the gap.

The employe who is following a particular line in the establishment should acquaint himself with some other branch of the business or some other trade, if he is a craftsman.

The employe who is doubly equipped is decidedly at an advantage over the employe who knows but one thing.

Initiative

Initiative is simply the willingness and ability on the part of an employe to do things that are not simply routine, to do things he is not told to do, to look for opportunities to help the boss or to improve the business wherever possible.

The employe who has no initiative in his make up is going around a circle and when you go around a circle you don't go forward. There is no one thing outside of honesty, ability and hard work that will help the employe to go forward like initiative.