ENTHUSIASM
Many people attain some degree of success in something, but only those who acquire the habit of turning the flame of enthusiasm into a white heat of desire ever attain truly great success in anything. The ninth principle of Your Right to Be Rich is Enthusiasm, one of our greatest assets, the force within us that perpetually spurs us onward to do our best. What is it really? One dictionary defines it as “an absorbing or controlling possession of the mind by any interest or pursuit, a lively interest.” Dr. Hill adds something more to his definition of enthusiasm. As he defines it, enthusiasm is nothing more and nothing less than faith in action.
Enthusiasm is based upon a burning desire. That’s the starting point of enthusiasm and when you learn how to work yourself up into a state of a burning desire, you won’t need the rest of the instructions on enthusiasm because, at that point, you’ll already have the last word on enthusiasm.
When you really want something and make up your mind to get it, you have that burning desire. Your desire steps up thinking processes so that your imagination goes to work on the ways and means to get the thing you desire. Enthusiasm gives you a brighter mind. It makes you more alert to opportunities. You see opportunities that you never saw before when your mind is stepped up to that state of enthusiasm—a burning desire for something definite.
There are two kinds of enthusiasm: active enthusiasm and passive enthusiasm. Of these two, active enthusiasm is more effective. What do I mean by active and passive? Let me give you an illustration of passive enthusiasm.
Henry Ford was the most lacking in active enthusiasm of any man that I have ever seen. I never heard him laugh but once in his life. When he shook hands with you it was like taking hold of a piece of cold ham. You did all the shaking. He did nothing but stick his hand out and take it back when you let loose of it. In his conversation there was no enthusiasm in his voice whatsoever; there was no evidence in any shape, form, or fashion of his demonstrating active enthusiasm. What kind of enthusiasm did he have—because he must have had some—in order to have such an outstanding major purpose and to achieve so much success? His enthusiasm was inward, and his inner enthusiasm was transmuted into his imagination, and into his power of faith, and into his personal initiative. He operated on his own initiative, believed that he could do whatever he wanted to do, and kept himself alert and keen with applied faith through his enthusiasm. His passive enthusiasm infused the thinking inside of his own mind what it was he was going to do and all the joy he’d get out of doing it.
Long after he had “arrived” and had his problems whipped, I asked him if he ever wanted anything or wanted to do anything he couldn’t do, and he said, “No. Not in recent years.” (In the early days, he added, until he learned how to get or to do whatever he wanted to do, he couldn’t answer me in the negative.) I said, “In other words, Mr. Ford, there isn’t anything that you need or want or that you can’t get.” He said, “That’s correct.” I asked, “How do you know that’s true and how do you go about making sure that whatever you want to do, you know you’re going to do before you stop?” He said, “Over the years, I formed a habit of putting my mind on the can-do part of every problem. If I have a problem, there’s always something I can do about it. There are many things I can’t do, but there’s something I can do and I start where I can do something. As I use up the can-do part of it, the no-can-do simply vanishes. It’s like I get to the river or where I expect to have a bridge, and there’s no bridge. I find that I didn’t need the bridge because the river was dry.”
It’s a marvelous thing for a man to make a statement like that. He started on his problem or his objective at a place where he could do something. And if he wanted to turn out a new model, or if he wanted to increase his production, he immediately put his mind to work on the plan in which he could do that. He never paid any attention to obstacles because he knew that his plan was sufficiently strong and definite and backed with the right kind of faith—that any opposition that he might meet would melt away when he came to it. The astounding thing was that if he took that attitude of putting his mind behind the can-do part of every problem, then the no-can-do part “takes to its heels and runs.” I endorse everything that he has said because that’s been my experience, too.
If you want to do something, work yourself into a state of wild enthusiasm and go to work where you stand, even if it’s nothing more than drawing a picture in your mind of the thing you want to do, and keep drawing that picture, making it more vivid all the time. Inasmuch as you make use of the tools that are available to you now, other and better tools will be put in your hands. That’s one of the strange things of life but that’s the way it works. Public speakers and teachers express enthusiasm by control of the voice. In fact, one of my students paid me a very high compliment when she asked if I had any voice training or voice culture or anything of that sort. I said, “No, nothing, not a thing. I had a course in public speaking a long time ago but I violate everything the teacher ever taught me. I have my own system.” She said, “Well, you have a most marvelous voice and I often wondered if you trained to impart the enthusiasm or the meaning that you want to impart with it.” I said, “No, the answer is this. When I say something, I believe what I’m saying. I’m sincere about it and that’s the grandest voice control that I know anything about.” You express enthusiasm when you know that the thing that you’re saying at the time is the thing that you ought to say and the thing that will do some good for the other fellow, and perhaps for you, too.
I have seen public speakers that march and prance all over the stage. They run their fingers through their hair and stick their hands down in their pockets and use all kinds of personal gestures. It distracts my attention when a speaker does that. I have trained myself to stand in one position. I never march all over the stage. I sometimes spread out my hands, but not very often. The effect that I want to give above all is the sincerity of what I’m talking about. And then, I put enthusiasm in the tone of my voice. If you learn to do that you’ll have a marvelous asset.
One must feel enthusiasm before being able to express it. I don’t see how anybody can express enthusiasm when his heart is breaking, when he’s in distress, or in any sort of trouble that he can’t throw off.
I once did a show in New York where the star of the show gave a marvelous performance, even though she learned about three minutes before she came on that her father had just dropped dead. You would never have known it. She gave the performance as perfectly as I imagine it could have been given, without the slightest indication that anything had happened. She trained herself to be an actress always, no matter the circumstances. If she hadn’t trained herself to do that, she wouldn’t have been an actress. An actor who can’t fall into the skeleton shape of his character he’s trying to portray, and can’t feel the way the character ought to feel, will not be an actor. He may express the lines that are written for him, but he’ll never make the right impression on the audience unless he lives the thing he’s trying to put across.
Not all great actors are all on the stage; some of them are in private life. But the greatest actors in life are people who can put themselves into the role that they’re trying to portray. They feel it, they believe in it, they have confidence in it, and they have no trouble in conveying to the other fellow a spirit of enthusiasm. This enthusiasm is a mighty tonic for all the negative influences that get into your mind. If you want to burn up a negative influence, just turn on the old enthusiasm, because the two can’t stay in the same room at the time. Just can’t do it. Start being enthusiastic over anything and I defy you to let doubting thoughts or thoughts of fear come into your mind while you’re keyed up in the state of enthusiasm.
One should practice enthusiasm in daily conversation. Learn to turn it on or off at will. Start immediately to step up the tone of your voice when you’re conversing with other people. Put a smile back of your words. Inject a pleasant tone into your voice; sometimes, by toning your voice down and not talking so loud and, at other times, by stepping it up so that they can’t fail to hear you and to recognize what you’re doing. In other words, learn to inject enthusiasm into your ordinary daily conversations and you’ll have somebody to practice on in every person you come into contact with. Watch what happens when you start doing this. Naturally, you start changing your tone of voice. You’ll deliberately intend to make the other fellow smile while you’re talking to him or her and make that person like you. It’s not good to put enthusiasm into telling the other fellow what you think about him if you don’t think something pleasant, because the more enthusiastic you are, the less he’ll like you. When you start telling another person what you think of him for his own good, you better not be smiling. Nobody wants anybody to reprimand him, overhaul him, or tell him something for his own good, because he knows very well there’s a selfish motive somewhere along the line—at least he thinks so.
Speaking in monotone is always monotonous and boresome. I don’t care who’s speaking, if you don’t get variety, color, rise, and fall in the inflection in your voice, you’re going to be monotonous no matter what you’re saying, and it doesn’t matter to whom you’re saying it. Suppose I talked in a monotone, never changing my tone of voice. If I said exactly the same thing but didn’t color my voice, do you think I would get such a rousing cheer? Of course not. I can keep you from going to sleep by rousing you with a question that you’re prepared for and then letting you answer it. But getting some enthusiasm into my tone, by raising my voice and letting it back down again, keeps you jumping and guessing as to what I’m going to say next. A good way to hold an audience is to keep them guessing as to what you’re going to say next. If you talk in monotones, with no enthusiasm in what you’re saying, they, the listener, will be way ahead of you. He knows what you’re going to say long before you say it, and he thinks that whatever it is, he doesn’t want to hear it in the first place. The beautiful part about enthusiasm is that you can turn it on and off yourself; you don’t need to ask anybody about it.
When you express enthusiasm in your daily conversations, observe how others pick up your enthusiasm and reflect it back to you. By working yourself into a state of enthusiasm, you can change the attitude of anybody—because enthusiasm is contagious. They’ll pick up on your enthusiasm and reflect it back to you as their own.
All master salesmen understand that art. If they don’t understand it, they’re not master salesmen. They’re not even ordinary salesmen if they don’t know how to key up the buyer with their enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what you’re selling, it works the same in selling yourself as it does in selling services or commodities or merchandise. Go into any store and pick out a salesman that knows his business. You’ll recognize him because he’s not only showing you merchandise, he’s also giving information in a tone of voice that impresses you.
Most salesmen in stores are not salesmen at all. They don’t have the first idea about salesmanship. They’re what an accountant would call “order takers.” Order takers are not salesmen at all. They don’t sell. I’ve often heard them say, “I sold so much today.” I heard a newspaperman talking to the man that delivers the news to him and he was telling how many papers he sold. Well, he hadn’t sold any papers at all. He’d been there, of course. He had them out and people came along and bought them and laid their money down. But he didn’t have anything to do with selling them just by putting the merchandise where the people could pick it up and buy it. He thought he was a salesman. In fact, he thought he was a pretty good one. You see a lot of people who’ll wrap up merchandise and take your money who think they made a sale. But they hadn’t made anything because you’re the one that did the buying. You can’t say that about a good salesman. You might go in to buy a shirt, but before you get out of there, he’ll sell you some underwear, some socks, a tie, and a pair of suspenders. (He wouldn’t sell me the suspenders because I don’t wear them.) Just a day or two ago, a salesman sold me a belt. I didn’t need a belt, but he showed me a nice one and it fitted my personality, but I bought mostly because of the personality of the man talking about it. Believe me, I’m not immune to this, either.
When you meet with any sort of unpleasant circumstance, learn to transmute it into a pleasant feeling by repeating your major purpose with great enthusiasm. No matter what unpleasant circumstance crosses your path, instead of brooding over it or allowing it to take up your time in regret, frustration, or fear, start thinking about this marvelous thing that you’re going to accomplish maybe one, two, three, four, or five years from now (or even six months or whatever it is). Start thinking about something that gets you enthusiastic. In other words, use your enthusiasm for the things you want and not for the things that you just lost through defeat.
There are a lot of people who allow the death of a loved one to drive them to distraction. I’ve known people to lose their minds over that. When my father passed away in 1939, of course I knew he was going to pass away. We knew what his condition was, and we knew it was only a question of time, and so I conditioned my mind so it could not possibly upset me or make the slightest impression on me emotionally.
I got a call from my brother one evening when I was at my estate in Florida. (I had some rather distinguished company there, talking about the publishing business.) The maid came in and said that my brother wanted to speak with me on the telephone, and so I went out of the room and talked to him for three or four minutes. He told me that our father had passed away and that the funeral would be that coming Friday. We chatted a little while about other things, I thanked him for calling me and went back to my company, and nobody knew that anything had happened. The members of my family didn’t even know what had happened until the next day. There was no expression of sorrow, nor anything of that kind. What was the use? I couldn’t save him; he was dead. Why grieve myself to death over something I can’t do anything about? You might say that’s hard-hearted, but that’s not hard-hearted at all. I knew it was going to happen. I adjusted myself to it so that it could not destroy my confidence or make me afraid.
In matters of that kind (well, maybe not as serious as that), you have to learn to give yourself immunity against being upset emotionally. When you’re upset emotionally, you’re not quite sane, you don’t digest your food, you’re not happy, and you’re not successful. Things go against you when you’re in that frame of mind and I don’t want things to go against me. I don’t want to be unhealthy. I want to be successful. I want to be healthy. I want things to come my way and the only way that I can ensure that is to not let anything upset my emotions.
I don’t think anybody can love more deeply nor more often than I have, but if I experienced unrequited love (and I have had that experience once in my life), I could let it upset me very badly. However, it didn’t—because I have self-control. I won’t let anything destroy my equilibrium. Nothing at all. I didn’t want my father to die but, as long as he was dead, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. There was no use in me dying just because he had. I’ve seen people do just that—go ahead and die because somebody else had died. That’s an extreme illustration, but it’s certainly one that’s needed by everybody. We need to learn to adjust ourselves to the unpleasantness of life without going down under it. The way to do that is to divert your attention away from the unpleasant to something that is pleasant, and to put all of the enthusiasm you’ve got back of that other something.
It’s your life and you’re entitled to have complete control of it. From this day forward, your duty to yourself requires that you do something each day to improve your technique for the expression of enthusiasm, no matter what it is. I’ve touched upon some of the things that you could do but not all of them. Depending on the circumstances in relation to other people, you know something that you can do to step up your enthusiasm so it can be more beneficial to you and the other person.
I have an appropriate point to add here. If you have a mate and you can change your relationship with that mate so they complement you everywhere you go, you’ve got a fortune beyond compare, a fortune that you can’t estimate, and an asset that’s beyond comparison with anything else in this world. A mastermind relationship between a man and his wife can surmount, go around, and master all difficulties they may encounter. Together they join their mental attitudes and multiply their enthusiasm, turning it toward each other in places where they need it.