When we are truly successful, the world applauds us. It applauds because
we demonstrate  something that is universal and that they share within
themselves. The world always applauds nobility because we are
demonstrating and owning what others wish they could find the strength
and courage to own within themselves. By this we don’t mean fairy-tale
idealism. If we want to provide the best quality for the lowest possible price
with the fastest and most efficient service, and improve the quality of life,
no one will oppose us. There’ s always room for quality in this world in
every area of life. We all need another good accountant, lawyer, doctor ,
dentist, mechanic, and TV repairman. The world makes room for the best. Step 2: Determ ine if what we want to do is what we enjoy doing. We
watch people forcing themselves to go to work in the morning because they
have convinced themselves to go into some kind of business, but their heart
is not in it. The way to be a success is to do what we like to do, to enjoy
what we do, and, therefore, do it to the best of our abilities. That way we
won’ t have to push ourselves. I had a patient  who was mise rable in his business, although it was
successful. He had plenty of money , yet he complained that he’d lost his
interest in life. He hated to go to work in the morning. He was irritable withhis kids. He was depressed. He was not receiving any sympathy or support
from his friends or family , though, as they all looked at him with envy . He
had everything the world could offer—Cadillacs, a fancy house in the
suburbs, titles. He was presiden t of the corporation. His income  was in the
millions. He had a great wife and kids. Still, he was asking himself, “What’ s
all this for?”
To find out what he really liked to do, I asked him what his hobby was. He had a little workshop in his house, and he said, “Doc, this will sound
crazy to you, but I love to make dollhouses.” He made dollhouses for his
own children and for his nieces , nephews, and cousins. I asked  him, “Did
you ever sell any dollhouses?” He said, “Oh, I never thought of that. I put
so much  time and effort in them that I could never make money selling
them.” I said, “Well, for fun, why don’t you take the one you’re working on
now, figure out a price that would be profitable, put a price tag on it, put it
on consignment in any store that will allow it, but not in a toy store where it
will get lost and not be seen among the overwhelming assortm ent of other
merchandise.” He did. He knew someone who owned a hardware store,
who displayed the dollhouse and used it to help sell stair treads (there was a
little staircase in the dollhouse). The dollhouse sold in short order . The next one he made he put as display
only and took orders. Pretty soon he had to farm out some of the work. He
had other people and other workshops making the various parts, cutting
them out on their skill saws. He had to hire someone else to collect all of
these individual items and assemble them. Next thing you know he was in
the dollhouse business, selling them as fast as he could make them. This man turned out the best-lo oking dollhouses ever seen. They were
adorable, irresistible, quaint, and charming, and children absolutely loved
them. That’ s where he was coming from when he said, “I want to bring joy
to the hearts of children.” That’ s a universal principle with which hardly
anybody can argue: to bring joy to the hearts of children. One of the tests of
the universal principle is whether it appeals to the heart. If our product or
service appeals only to the head, it will have a limited success. This isn’t to
say that it won’ t make money— it may be quite profitable—but the great
successes in the world are those things that change people’ s lives. Step 3: Find out if what we want to do is actually needed by anyone. Is it truly a service to the world? The reason this step is important isbecause we want to make sure that what we’re going to throw ourselves
into is not just a pet project or personal preference. Raspberry  vinaigrette
salad dressing may be someone’ s idea of “haute cuisine,” but that opinion is
not likely going to be shared by many in the populace who may come in to
the restaurant once or twice out of curiosity . We will notice that, as a
consequence, such a business may become primarily tourist oriented and
not appeal to locals because the demand is limited. It doesn’ t serve any
particular need, other than the idea of being cutesy , unique, or dif ferent. Step 4: Check out all the sensory modes and cover  the ones that are
foreign to our own personality by consulting with people who are
experts in that area. What do I mean by this? The research of neuro-
linguistic programming (NLP) has demonstrated that people process their
experiences of life primarily through one sensory mode or another: Some
people are primarily auditory . Some are visual. Some are feeling  people. Of
course smell and tactile senses are also important. I knew of a restaurant in town that was very, very pretty . The woman who
ran it was obviously a visual person and had done a stunning  job. When
people looked at it, they saw that it was gorgeous. She also did a great job
on the food and the price. But the acoustics were abominable. People could
hardly hear themselves think. The music was horrible. It was too loud,
inappropriate in style, and without a single break. Evidently , it’s what she
liked; however , it turned every one else off from the place. People went
there for the good part and put up with the downside. But who needs the
downside? If we’re the opposite, if we are people who don’t care so much about how
the thing looks as long as it feels right, we better call in some people who
are primarily visual and ask how it looks to them. We can tell how people
process informa tion by their language. People who say, “I see what you
mean. Do you see what I’m saying? How does this look to you? Let’s run it
up the flagpole and salute it,” are probably visual processors. People who
say, “That doesn’ t feel too good to me. That doesn’ t feel right,” are
obviously feeling people. Audi tory people will say, “That doesn’ t sound
right to me.” We get cues; being aware of them will make the processing
style apparent to us. We need to make sure that the areas that are not our forte are covered. It
doesn’ t take long—half an hour or an hour at the most with someone who isan expert in the field is enough to convey the idea. I watched one restaurant
grow from failure to success primarily by changing the music in the
background from  loud funky country to soft baroque. The soft baroque
brought in high-paying custome rs and a classy crowd. The other music had
kept customers away , even though the place had mesquite-broiled steaks. People want to relax at dinne r. They want to have tablecloths, cloth
napkins, approp riate music, and the right lighting. Bright fluore scent lights
and primary colors may be great for a breakfast diner , but they will kill
dinner business. I wonder why that’s not obvious to people. What lady’ s
makeup looks good in glaring fluorescent light? Although the fast-food
chains would seem to belie it, people really want dignity in their lives. They
will reward us and appreciate us for supplying it or providing the means of
achieving it. Presentation is very important to a lot of people. It may not be to us;
however , for many people it makes all the difference. Again, going back to
the restaurant business as an example, the most successful restaurant in
town for dinner used a large plate. They put on lots and lots of vegetables,
lots of potatoes, and lots of garnish. For the same price as a similar
restaurant in town, it looked like you were getting a huge amount of food
and likely more than you could eat. The other restaurant used the same size
plates as they did at lunch. There was a tiny sprig of parsley , a slice of
radish, and a begrudging little slice of tomato. When you’d look at what
was practically the same dinner , you’d doubt that there was going to be
enough there to satisfy your appetite. As a consequence, one restaurant
seemed overpric ed and the other  seemed underpriced. I’m sure that the cost
to the successful restaurant was only a few cents. Whatever we present, we must make sure that it’s presented in the best
possible style with regard to all the sensory modalities, and that it pleases as
many of them as we possibly can. It’s worth the extra trouble. Aside from
the aforementioned sensory modalities, a high percentage of the populace
rank comfort very high on their lists. When we go to the neare st Walmart,
one of the most successful enterprises in America, we’ll notice not only that
it is a success because it pushes good quality at a low price, availability , and
convenience, but the restrooms are available near the entrance. There is a
greeter by the door who smiles at customers and asks if she can be of any
help. There is a place to sit down, order a snack at a table, and rest one’s
weary feet.I have walked out of countless stores for the simple reason that they did
not have a chair  where I could sit down. Many people think things over and
make up their minds only when they’re sitting down. In a men’ s store, for instance, the man will shop around, look at various
suits, and compare prices in his mind. If you were to watch him in the store,
you might wond er, What is he looking for here? He’s looking for a place to
sit down and think it over. He has to decide. If there isn’t a place for him to
sit down , the sales clerk cannot close the sale. The customer ’s unable to
reach a conclusi on under the surroundings in that store. Add to that some
hard rock music in the backgro und to throw his brain out of balance, and
the result is that he stammers out to the clerk, “I’ll think about it. I’ll be
back later .” And he leaves the store. In depar tment stores where we see endless couples, it’s obviou s that the
price of the purchase is going to come from the main breadwinner of the
family . Despite today’ s world of higher female employment, this may still
be the man’ s earnings. While the woman of the house is shopping for
housewares or clothes for the kids, what is there left for the man to do other
than checking out the tool coun ter? There’ s no place to just plain sit down
in a corner , read a magazine, or go to the restroom. He starts  jerking at her arm, “Come on, Lorraine, let’s go.” She tells her
friends, “Oh, Geor ge is so impatient.” Geor ge is not impatient. His varicose
veins are bothering him. His feet hurt. He’s got a problem with his knees. He’s got to go to the bathroom. He needs a cup of coffee. He wants a
chance to think about it. He wants a place to get away from all the music
and confusion. He’s told there’ s no place to sit. There’ s no place to have a
cup of coffee, and the men’ s room is always on the sixth floor in the rear
next to tapestries. The men who control big bucks are typically middle-aged
men. Taking the elevator or five escalators up to the sixth floor when they
already have prostate trouble is sure to chase them out of the store in a
hurry . The fact that some businesses survive despite the fact that they violate all
the rules doesn’ t prove anything at all—people go there becaus e they have
to go there. Customers hate being forced into boredom and discomfort, and
they resent the lack of convenience. How important is the restroom? Plenty . There was a small health-food store on Long Island that became a great
success, to everyone’ s amazeme nt. The secret of the owner ’s success was
one simple thing : She enlar ged the ladies’  room. In it she provided a semi-enclosed comfortable area with carpet and a shelf with a rail around it so
that mothers could change their babies’  diapers. Soon all the mothers
around heard about this place and went shopping there because the place
“cares about mothers.” They paid $3 for a box of organic oatmeal that they
could have gotten for roughly a third of the price at the super market, and
they were happy to do it. The only thing that the store did differently was exhibit genuine
thoughtfulness and care. There was a small play area for the older kids with
various toys in it. If kids are bored, they’ll pull at their mothers’  clothes and
whine, “Let’s go, Mom, I’m bored.” She’ll then skip a couple of purchases
she otherwise would have made . Provision for comfort is, there fore, a part
of being heart-hearted. Step 5: To check out if we are coming from ABC rather  than A→ B→
C, we need to ask ourselves how much of our success is going to come
from attraction and how much is going to come from promotion. Keep
in mind  that promotion with aggressive, forceful, outgoing marketing and
sales pitches is all very outer directed and costs money , takes time and
energy, and is expensive. It is not that those strategies don’t bring results,
but the cost of them has to be taken into account. Attraction, on the other
hand, takes no time, energy, effort, or money . It is not in the world of A→
B→ C; rather , it is in the world of ABC. What in the promotion of our
product, business, idea, or profession is going to have pulling  power and
win for us ef fortlessly by the sheer power of attraction? Promotion is coming from force. The rule of the universe is that force
meets with counterforce. Persuasion meets with sales resistance. Repetition
leads to boredom . The more money we spend on promotion, the more we’re
going to have to raise our price. Hence, we eventually create a price-
resistance ceilin g and narrow the gap between our product and that of our
competitor . What attracts, promotes, and builds our success without any time, energy,
or effort? Our reputation. Not a fake image that we hire some marketing
company to fabricate, but the genuineness of our endeavor , which shines
forth and is evident to everyone in everything we do. The ABC that we hold
in mind is the magnet that has the pulling power . It doesn’ t cost us anything. If we have a good reputation in the industry , headhunters will come looking
for us to pave our way for better of fers.Did it ever dawn on us that the top-notch experts in the world never
advertise? As a matter of fact, their telephone numbers are not even listed in
any directory . They’re already loaded to the gills with clients, prospects,
customers, patie nts, board members, honors, and titles. They need more
business like a hole in the head. I know what I’m talking about here. Not only among people I’ve
counseled and patients I’ve treated in the business for which I’ve been a
consultant, but in my own personal life, I’ve made many milli ons without
ever spending one nickel on advertising or promotion or self-a dvancement
in any way whatsoever . If we’re  doing a good job, people will search us out. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’ t let them know that we’re there and what
service we have available, what our specials are this week, and what our
hours are—but to depend on promotion is imbalanced. It’s an old axiom in
business that a satisfied customer is our best advertisement. Everyone says,
“Yes, I know that,” and then proceeds to ignore it. A good rule of thumb is to ask ourselves whether the temptation to take a
certain shortcut is worth the risk of ruining our business. Let’s take a little
seemingly unimportant cutting-the-corner example of yesterday’ s
doughnuts. At the close of the day we still have a dozen and a half
doughnuts; the next day we put them in the glass case along with today’ s
doughnuts. If instead we had said, “yesterday’ s doughnuts,” with a sign that
cut the price, we would sell them all and not take any risk to our business if
the doug hnuts weren’ t complete ly up to snuff. The customer wouldn’ t have
any complaints because they were plainly marked “yesterday’ s doughnuts.”
If we put them in the showcase  and sell them as today’ s doughnuts, we
may make an extra dollar . But when the customer complains to the family ,
“Hmm . . . there’ s someth ing about these doughnuts. They’re a
disappointment. They’re not the same as usual,” we’ll have ruined our
reputation with one family . And that family has friends and relatives. We must never take a shortcut that is going to impair our reputa tion. One
way to ensure this is to always give our customers greater credit than we’re
willing to allow them ordinaril y. If we assume that our customers know
what’ s going on, then we’ll be right. People “just know ,” even though they
can’t say what it is. For example, I use to sell eggs. Not a lot; it was a small number . Even so,
if I missed collecting an egg in the chicken coop and didn’ t discover it until
the next day, I never put it in the box with the other eggs. I set it aside in therefrigerator for myself. I knew that I could leave an egg in the chicken coop
for a couple of days and it won’t make any difference to its freshness. But
the fact that it missed one day of refrigeration made a dif ference. When we cut corners, everyone knows. They don’t know how they know ,
but they know . Very often they’re dead right. Now , I’m sure I could have
gotten away for a short time putting older eggs in with the fresher ones. And
then one day at breakfast some  mother would be saying to her family , “I
don’t know; these Happy Chicken Eggery eggs somehow don’t taste the
same as they used to taste.” Making an extra nickel is not worth losing a
good customer . Rationalizing and departing from quality originates from force in such
quotes as, “What they don’t know won’ t hurt them.” That’ s true. What they
don’t know won’t hurt them—but it sure will hurt us. They won’ t know it
consciously; however , as I mentioned before, they do know it
unconsciously . There are lots of businesses that we won’ t deal with anymore. If asked
why, we really wouldn’ t know the answer , other than it doesn’ t appeal to us
anymore. “I don’t know ,” we’d  say, “I just never think of going there.”
Research is part of what we must use to uncover or discover exactly what
about the business was of such a nature that our minds refused to even
consider . Step 6: Keep in mind that one of the greatest ingredients of success is
people knowin g that they can count on us in various ways. Such a
simple thing as changing hours can lose all kinds of customers. I had a
favorite little restaurant in town  that I used to eat breakfast at several times
a week. I also went every Thursday night for dinner because they had
chicken and dumplings—it was all-you-can-eat for a reasonable price. The
first crime they committed was when they stopped having chicken and
dumplings. I resented it, so I quit going there on Thursday nights. The next
crime they comm itted was when I went there on another evening for dinner ,
and there was a sign on the door that said: CLOSED AT 3 P.M. DURING  JULY FOR
SUMMER HOURS. “Well, the heck with it,” I said. I didn’ t go back to that
restaurant again  until fall. I remember specifically , I went on a Tuesday
night (notice how customers remember all the seemingly “trivial” details)
only to find out that they were now closed on Tuesdays. I never went back
again.It’s important to avoid all those little turnof fs—the answering machine
that doesn’ t work, the impolite receptionist, the dirty carpet in the restaurant
—and ask how available we are to provide what is needed in the world. I’ve
seen so many businesses fold that are open weekdays only and close at 5
P.M. As everyone who has jobs and money works from nine until five, to
whom do they expect to sell? Vacationers? Pensioners? That hoped-for
customer of a bygone era? The unemployed? I used to counsel a lot of
young doctors going into practice who came for advice on how to get
established. I always told them, “Start by charging fees that people can
afford and be available evenings and Saturdays.”
How much is convenience worth to people? The answer is: plenty . The
success of the whole convenience-store phenomenon is proof of that. People flock in and pay 25, 50, or even 100 percent more for the same item
—they are willing to pay for convenience. Long lines at the checkout
counter are the fastest way in today’ s world to ruin a business. How much
do these clerks make an hour anyway? The cash registers are sitting there
with a sign that says: THIS COUNTER  CLOSED , and the irate and annoyed
customers are leaving by the droves. Who cares if it’s cheaper if we have to
wait 25 minutes in the checkout line? It takes time to cash a check in the store by the time we show a driver ’s
license, an ID card, a bank card, give a phone number , and fish out a
discount card. In the meantime ten cash customers are standing  in line. The
simple expedient of providing a separate line for people with check-cashing
problems would be useful. If the airlines would do that with problem
passengers too, it would be helpful to everyone. If one wants to change a ticket, there should be a counter that says:
TICKET  CHANGES . How often have we stood  in line with 20 other
passengers, while one person who has a big problem blocks the whole line
as the clock ticks closer and closer to departure time? Ignoring  customers’
comfort and convenience is very costly . The fact that these places are still in
business or already making a million doesn’ t mean anything. It isn’t the
money they’re making that’s impressive. It’s the money they’re not making
that matters. A well-established career or business of integrity automatically expands
and increases by the sheer quality of its own excellence and nothing else. If
that’s not happening in our lives, then it’s time to examine the ABC instead
of the A→ B→ C.How many times do we become irate at the product and say to ourselves,
“Whoever manufactured this should be forced to open it, wear it, or use it”? We get that little package home and then attempt to open it—we tear at it or
rip at it, to no avail. Doesn’ t that manufacturer think that anybo dy opens or
uses this product? We go to hang a coat on the hanger and it falls off onto
the ground because the wire is so thin and soft. Or we use a flyswatter and
the handle bends on the first swat. Step 7: Remember  that we only have one customer . We can’t make a
mistake if we keep in mind the basic rule that we have only one customer to
serve and please , and that one customer ’s name is human nature. No matter
who they may be on the outside , it’s the same customer inside of everyone. It’s easy to understand our customer—all we have to do is ask what
qualities we ourselves look for in a product. Notice that the word is
qualities. It is that for which we always look. No price will sell it to us if it
doesn’ t have the qualities that we’re looking for . In this area we have to watch  our minds’  tendency to pander to the
weakness in people’ s character . If we cater to it, we may make a profit and
even survive quite well; however , we will never be a success. To not
collude with that which is distasteful or corrupt is not being a Goody Two-
shoes; it’s being realistic. Can we fool the universe? The answer that we get
from the science of kinesiology is no. Even if people have no conscious
knowledge of the facts, when we test complete strangers with no knowledge
at all on the subject, we find that if they focus on something where integrity
is absent, they will grow weak when a muscle is tested. The muscle testing response is a simple “yes” or “not yes” (no) in
response to a specific stimulus. It is usually done by the subject holding out
an extended arm and the tester pressing down on the wrist of the extended
arm, using two fingers and light pressure. The tester holds in mind an image
unknown to the test subject and states, “The image I am holding in mind is
positive [or true].” Upon direction, the test subject then resists the
downward press ure on the wrist. If the tester holds a positive image (such
as of Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, and the like), the test
subject’ s arm muscle will go strong. If the tester holds a false statement or a
negative image in mind (such as of Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler , and so
on), the arm will go weak. Inasm uch as the test subject does not know what
the tester has in mind, the results are not influenced by perso nal beliefs. (For a thorough explanation of this process, please see any of my books,
such as Letting Go  or Power vs. For ce.) Again, everything in the universe is connected with everything else. When we first get that, we will be a little paranoid for a while, but it will be
a therapeutic paranoia. I’m sure if someone manufactured a
“disembowelment doll,” there would be plenty of strange people out there
who would buy it, complete with hari-kari knife, lifelike guts, electronic
scream, and plastic blood ooze. Someone would also profit from it. This
world has no end of terrible markets—I’m sure one could sell suicide kits
complete with potassium cyanide, arsenic, sleeping pills, a pre-knotted
rope, and a shotgun that fires only once. The costs to the pand erer to such
tastes, however , are enormous. They would be invisible to them selves, but
quite visible to everyone else. What I’ve been describing is not human nature, but inhuman  nature. We
become contaminated by that which we touch. We fool ourselves if we
think that we can cater to that which is weak without becoming weakened
ourselves. Seeing what a thing really is requires examination not from a
cross-sectional perspective but longitudinally . What is the cost over a period
of time? In cross section, those who are violating human decency and seem to be
profiting from it may look good  for the moment. Yet when we study their
lives in detail longitudinally , the devastation is staggering to comprehend. Do we conquer a thing by opposing it? No. The way we conquer it is to
grow and move away from it. When it becomes clear that something in our
lives is antilife, immature, or superficial, it’s really disguised vanity . When
we disco ver that there’ s no love or goodwill in it, should we feel guilty
about it, punish ourselves, or become reformers? No. The resolution is
maturity and wisdom. As we become more conscious and aware, killing
ducks won’ t appeal to us anymore; we’ll switch to skeet. We’ll remember
that birds that fly in the air in a V formation and quack are trying to make it
south so that they can survive and raise a new flock for next year . I thought I’d mention “squirrel season” in passing here as well. One time
I was up in a small town not far from where I live. I said to a local
shopkeeper , “Where is everyone?”
“Well,” he said, “squirrel season  opens today .” I’d never heard of squirrel
season and about dropped my teeth. Apparently , the story here is that all
those he-men had run out of stuff to kill. I guess they shot up all the bears,mountain lions, elk, moose, buffalo, deer, sheep, javelina, porcupines,
beavers, foxes, mustangs, swan s, ducks, pigeons, doves, and anything else
that moved. Now they were down to the squirrels. When I thought of what a
high-powered rifle or shotgun could do to a squirrel, it blew me away . The
sheer grotesqueness of it all grabbed me like gallows humor . Picture this little squirrel sitting up on a limb of a tree, chewing away on
an acorn in its little paws, and here comes Mr. Macho Hunter . He’s
probably suffering from some neurotic problem that would drive him to
blast away at this little bit of fur up there, all aquiver with fear and
excitement. Having killed all the eagles, hawks, osprey , whistling swans,
and raccoons, these people are down to slaughtering itty-bitty squirrels? Can anyone believe it? Once the squirrels are all blasted away and have
gone the way of the other game , I guess it will be chipmunk season. After
those tiny pieces of fur get hit by those high-powered rifles, what is there
left but a splatte r? There isn’t even a trophy to take home and mount on the
den wall. Can you imagine a mounted squirrel’ s head on the wall? “Yep,
blew that one away in Montana. It gave me quite a run there for a while.”
If people like to hunt I guess there’ s nothing wrong with that, as long as
they know what to hunt. Ther e are countless coral and rattlesnakes out
there; India is full of cobras that kill many people every year. There are all
kinds of scorpio ns that will kill people. There are black mamba s and black
widow spiders. Cities are full of rats, which carry fleas that carry the
plague. I said to one of these hunters one day, something along the lines of,
“Why don’t you go out there and turn over that old lumber and those rocks
and kill the scorpions out there?” He was scared to death—killing scorpions
would take courage. I don’t know how much courage it takes to kill a
squirrel, but it can’ t really be much. What is the cost to the person who takes life willfully for a momentary
thrill? In the long-term cases  I’ve studied, the cost to the person is
enormous. The price is really devastating to them. None of these people
have any real personal power or magnetism. They don’t have the power to
transform the situation simply by being  who they are. People who are
coming from power have the capacity to transform the situation merely by
their presence. It’s just the fact that they are there, that they are part of it
that makes all the dif ference. When we’ve owned power , it’s not what we have and it’s not what we do
that counts. It’s who we are. It’s what we become. Power is greatness.Greatness is stature. Stature is presence. Presence comes from the ABC that
we own within ourselves. It can’t be purchased. It can’t even be earned. The
world acknowledges its presence just because it “is.”
Step 8: Decide on what qualit y we intend to serve in others, and be
careful. What we serve in others is exactly what we will bring out in
ourselves. I’ve already given quite a few examples of this, but let’s go into
it in greater detail. We pull to us that which we serve, and it is impossible to serve two
masters. We cannot become strong by catering to human weakness. We
become strong by supporting strength. We become dynami c when we
support the aliveness of others. We become great when we support the
greatness of others. We become beautiful when we support the beauty of
life. If we are truly coming from the heart, we don’t have to worry about
success. The world will love us, be loyal to us, support us, and forgive us all
kinds of mistakes. If we treat all of our customers like royalty , surprisingly
we will find ourselves living a rather royal life. As we support all of the human qualities that were mentioned: greatness,
valor , courage, beauty , truth, honesty , integrity , good health, education, and
the like, we will bring forth the same qualities in ourselves. The converse is
also true. Few people realize it, but who we are inspires others. For exam ple, I don’t remember now a single present that anybody in the
family gave me as a child. I remember opening presents every Christmas
and birthday , but strangely I don’t remember any “thing” that they gave me. I remember that I adored my grandparents for who they were to me, not
what they did for me. In other words, it wasn’ t my grandfather taking me
fishing that was important—it was his lovingness in taking me fishing and
probably taking me around to show me off to his friends. What I remember
was his pride in me. It is now quoted  widely and said sadly that the problem with our current
world is that it lacks heroes. Yet heroes are not missing. Rather , what is
absent is the capacity to see the heroes that are all over the place. The
inability to see them is because people have confused hero with heroics or
that which is impressive. There are heroes everywhere. There is greatness to
be seen. We just need to know where to find it. To demo nstrate this, let’s look at one of the personages of greatness of
our own time. Mother Teresa was one of the all-time success stories: Herewas a little 90-pound lady who spent no money on advertisement, market
strategies, or promotion; had no sales crew , no Madison Avenue image
makers, and no speechwriters; yet she had more power in one finger than
anyone can even imagine. All she had to do was wiggle her little finger and
she raised millions. Throngs followed her. People would travel thousands of
miles to stand in the sun or rain for hours, on tired and aching feet, to catch
a glimpse of her . What was this lady’ s magic? Was it because she was a celebrity? Well,
that’s the A→ B→ C of it all. No. People hoped for a glimpse of her so that
they could experience her ABC . What they wanted to experience was her
“presence.” Not a bit of advertising, marketing, or image making, and yet
endless books have been writte n about her. She had millions of followers. She was a winner of the Nobel Prize. She was internationally acclaimed as
one of the greats of our time. From where did the greatness and power arise in Mother Teresa? They
arose because she addressed the loftiness and the most noble and great
qualities within human nature: unconditional love and nonjudgmental
compassion. She exhibited the heart of all hearts, although small, wizened,
and hunched over, with no money or position of her own. There  was a long
waiting list to join her. As a matter of fact, people had to go through an
eight-year period  of trial, tests, and hard work in service to see if they even
qualified to join her or ganization. The lady really had to have something, didn’ t she? Obviously , she was on
the level of a master . She had outclassed everyone. So by what virtue did
that happen? By charity? There are a lot of people in the world who are
charitable, and there are plenty of charities. By dogooderism? No. There are
lots of professi onal do-gooder s. They don’t win Nobel Prizes. By her
kindness? No. There are many kind people in the world. Why did she stand
head and shoulders above them all? It was because her alignment,
commitment, dedication, and personal sacrifices reached a level that can
only be described as devotion. When one dedicates one’s life to the carrying out of the principle of
universal truth, that person becomes magnetic. They develop the power of
attraction. What they have and what they do are secondary to what they are. There are kings of the world and there are king-makers. We know it’s a
truism that the most successful people don’t even strive for success. Theystrive for some other quality altogether . It is that quality , which the world
acknowledges and brings them, that we term success. What was it that Mother Teresa acknowledged in others, and by so doing
magnificently brought forth for all of us to see in her? When she ministered
to the poor and the sick and the dying in the streets of Calcutta, was she
trying to save them from death? Was she trying to raise funds for the poor? No. What she ministered to and acknowledged was the intrin sic truth of
human dignity , worth, value, nobility , and greatness. Those qualities are
intrinsic in every human being,  no matter how abysmal their external life
situation may seem to be. Mother Teresa acknowledged for them that which they had not
acknowledged in themselves. Consequently , she acted like a mirror to them. By looking at her, they saw back the reflection of that which they had
denied—the grandeur of the existence of their own beingness. Even the
lowliest of the low deserve the respect of the recognition of the intrinsic
dignity of just being human. Sharing the human experienc e is trans-
formative. Having seen this within themselves, having witnessed it, and
having known the truth of it by seeing its reflection in her eyes, they died
with a smile on their faces in a state of beatitude. That’ s power. That’ s
impressive. That’ s awesome. If we look back we’ll see that many times we went to a party or an event
because a certain person was going to be there. Notice that the reason we
went is because that person was going to just “be” there—not to give
anything away , not to do anything, just be there. We want to meet such
people because they have some quality that we hope to acquire. As we
become a true success, people will want us to be at their parties; it will
make a difference to the event because we will be there. After a while
people want us to be on their board of directors. They want us to be on their
letterhead. They  want us to be on their committees. They want us to be a
member of their organizations. They want us to write a forewo rd for their
books. They want a blurb for the jacket. They want our autographs. They
want people to take their picture standing next to us. Success may or may not bring celebrity status. It depends on the arena of
the venture and our choices about the matter . Regardless of what the world
reflects back, our success will always remain an inner matte r, which is
experienced solely within us. The best the world can do, really , is to
celebrate it.Step 9: Never  forget that the way to be a success is by sharing it with
others. By not sharing our success with others, we deprive them of their
motivation to support our success. If by acknowledgment we give
recognition to the importance of the part they’ve played in our success, they
will all join us in supporting and celebrating it. The way to make a lifelong
enemy is to have someone contribute to our lives and refuse to
acknowledge it. So many people do this with their spouses and fail to
acknowledge the part that their inspiration played in the achie ving of that
success. Businesses are often problematic because the owners refuse to share their
success with the employees, much less with the customers in any way. The
employees are on an hourly wage, mostly hired locally by an impersonal
distant corporation. It sure feels like that when we go there. They couldn’ t
care less. They’ re going to make the same amount of money whether they
knock their brains out or not, and they know it. The motivatio n has been
zeroed out. The basis for huma n endeavor has been removed. They have
been denied dignity and worth as individuals. Such businesses have gotten
what they paid for, which is nothing. They got mechanical, emotionless,
going-through-the-motions employees. Mechanical food is served by
mechanical peop le in mechanical surroundings in a lackluster manner for a
price. Although it is supposedly cheap, it is really very expensive when we
compare what we get for our dollars. The efficiency experts and computers have really had their day,
successfully dehumanizing the whole experience. The level of economy in
such establishme nts reaches the chintzy , to the point that we have to ask for
a plastic spoon from behind the counter . The employee turnover  rate is very
high—every time we go there, new faces are behind the counter . What is
the cost of all this chintzy economy? It is staggering to calculate. By contrast, when I went into Bashas’  supermarket I saw the same
smiling employ ees, year after year. And up over the manage r’s counter ,
there was an award plaque. Surprisingly , what did the award plaque say? It
was the annual award to the “friendliest employee.” The award did not go to
the employee with the biggest sales, but to the friendliest . Isn’t that
amazing? I looked  at the store manager as I asked for a refund to return some
merchandise. He was as friendly  as could be. He gave me my money on the
spot, no questions asked. I offered to put the merchandise back on the shelf,and he said, “No, no, I’ll do it.” I looked at the cashiers and they all looked
friendly . They were friendly year after year. Then I began to look at the
customers at the checkout count ers, and there I saw the most amazing thing. They seemed to be the friendliest customers in the world. The manager was
friendly; the employees were friendly; the cashiers were friendly; and
presto, friendly customers. Customers were smiling and laughing with the
cashiers. Sitting in the front of the market at little tables chatting  away were
older people, having their afternoon club meeting there, and they were
obviously friendly too. Some people will go to a city like New York and complain about how
terrible it was, how rude every one was, how unfriendly and cold people
were, and how they couldn’ t wait to get out of there. Other people will say
that it’s the friendliest town they ever visited. Which is true? I always
thought that New York City was like a big small town, in that every
neighborhood is like a dif ferent little community . People love it when we’re friendly with them, instantly sensing our
intentions. How  could a person possibly be lonely if they’re friendly? If we
talk to every cab driver , waitress, and person we encounter on the street, no
matter where we go, as though  they were old friends, how could we be
lonely? In the big city they don’t delay their responses. They have too much
street savvy . In the press of the multitudes they have no time to waste with
pretense. Conse quently , there’ s no time delay and people are instantly
friendly . People are sick and tired of being manipulated, pressured, sold, used in a
thousand ways, and having others try to impress them. When they sense our
motives—a non-needy friendliness that doesn’ t want anything from them—
they’re so reliev ed that they drop their guard and instantly start to jabber . The problem isn’t loneliness; the problem is getting people to be quiet. People are just dying for someo ne to be truly friendly with them. When I
was a kid, one of my grandmothers always used to say, “Beauty is as beauty
does.” What she meant by that mystified me for years, and then I
understood exactly what she meant. How long does it take to become a success? The answer is: the blink of
an eye. It takes exactly one second. The second we decide to “be” a certain
way, we’ve got it already . It’s not “out there.” It’s not what we have. It’s not
even what we do. Doing only contributes and having only embellishes. It’s
what we are that creates success. To decide to be a certain way is all that’srequired. No master ’s degree, diplomas, correspondence courses, boring
lectures, or workshops are necessary . Once we’ve decided to be a certain way, we take on a new importance
and significance to people. Whether we’re in their lives or not makes a
difference to them. Whether we’re going to be at their parties or not makes
a difference to them. People are proud to work for us. They start to act like
it’s an honor to know us. Positive human qualities are contagi ous. People
are like tuning forks in a way—the natural human tendency is like a tuning
fork to sympathetically pick up the hum of whatever note to which we
vibrate. OceanofPDF .comWHEN YOU GOTTA GO, YOU GOTTA GO . . . If we get the primary concept of this chapter , our basic success in this
world is guarant eed, let me assure you. As I keep repeating over and over,
there is no competition. Com petition doesn’ t even exist  in the world of the
very successful. On the level of incompetence, ineptitude, mediocrity , and
total sloppiness, however , there is enormous competition. What most people
are talking about when they talk about competition is the whole realm of the
absurd. There are two basic characteristics of human nature, which we can turn
into assets instead of liabilities: impatience and low frustration threshold. We can count on these to work for us once we include them in our
understanding of how to effectively operate in this world. Yet for most
businesses, these  are big obstacles—they are some of their biggest excuses
to blame the customers or clients instead of their own inadequacy . We’ll
look at a few examples, prima rily to bring similar experiences up in our
minds so that we can understand the importance of this issue. On any given day the following scenario can take place a dozen  times or
more in our lives either at home  or in business: We call a company and are
put on hold (why don’t they have a spillover line?). The incompetent
operator , who is probably earning minimum wage, manages to disconnect
us. We have to call back until we finally get properly connected. By now
we’re aggravated as we sit and wait. The person with whom  we finally
connect knows practically nothing about the business. Many companies feel
that an operator  is just an operator . They don’t realize that the operator isthe key to their success—that person’ s whole attitude spells  success or
failure. After ordering the merchandise  with our credit card hotly in hand, they
inform us they don’t take that particular credit card. Whatever  we want is
out of stock or has been back-ordered. Next, they give us a hard time about
paying for it. If it’s a small item and we would like it shipped UPS with the
bill enclosed, they inform us that we have to apply for credit. Now
inasmuch as this is a little fly-by-night company and we’ve been worth
quite a bit in the business world for something like 40 or 50 years, it seems
like they should  have their own access to credit bureaus, and without saying
anything—simply bring up on the computer whether we’re good for it or
not. Apparently  they want to save the cost of this credit service. By
offending customers they lose more money than if they were paying a
monthly service for automatic computerized credit checks. After we get over these hurdles, we now wait for the merchandise or the
service, as there’ s no confirmati on provided. When the merchandise doesn’ t
arrive, no explan ation is given. Instead, there are days or weeks of silence. If it involves a workman, it is apparently a rule of their trade to tell us that
they will be there on Tuesday , finish up on Wednesday , and then not show
up until the next week, if at all. Or they mysteriously leave in the middle of
the job without telling us when they will be back. This standard must be the
rule of many workmen: to leave  the job when it is 95 percent complete so
that we go crazy  trying to handle  the last 5 percent ourselves. A missing nut,
bolt, screw , key, a touchup of just the right color , or whatever it takes to
“finish” the job is left undone. The failure in completion manages to
aggravate the customers and causes them to either consciously or
unconsciously delay paying the final bill. If it’s a restaura nt, the menu is old and somewhat stained; it’s the same
menu they’ve had for years. It’s as though they’ve never learned to cook
anything else in the meantim e. Everyone is interested in their own
convenience instead of ours. To make this understanding of the principle work for us, hold in mind a
customer who has to go to the bathroom. Picture what it would be like to
call our company , business, or office, or to apply for our services or
product. Picture that the custome r on the other end of the line has to go bad:
They do not want to be put on hold and wait. They do not want to be
disconnected. They do not want to talk to someone who doesn’ t knowanything about the company or the product. They do not want to walk into a
store and ask about merchandise and have the clerk act as though they’ve
never heard of it. They do not want to be interrupted when they are right in
the middle of arranging a purchase. They do not want the empl oyee to take
a phone call or disappear on some other errand. People do not want to enter these impersonal, giant stores, supermarkets,
and discount warehouses and walk around trying to hunt for the
merchandise themselves. Why should it take ten minutes to locate the
merchandise when they could, like Walmart does, have a greeter at the door
who immediately answers their questions and tells them where what they
want is located, or if they’re out of it, or if they have a special or sale? Why
not have someone greet them as though they’re glad to see them? It would also be nice if the greeter inquired if it’s their first visit to the
store. If so, tell them wher e the restrooms are located . How hard is it to
understand that everyone wants to know this? Also, everyone would like to
know where they can find a cozy corner to have a cup of coffee, make a
phone call, look up something, or rest their feet while they’re shopping. Besides these considerations, every customer ’s feet hurt. I’m thinking
about a very busy printer where the interruptions were constant for
whomever they were dealing with in the shop. By the time some one ordered
a new letterhead or flyer, very often an hour and a half had passed. Many
people got aggravated and walked out, after standing on their feet for an
hour and a half waiting for the employees to stop their endless interruptions,
phone calls, messages, personal conversations, and mysterious distractions
by things that should have been handled yesterday . Customers may have other ailments that are aggravating them. We must
be responsive to the fact that people need to use the restroom , their feet
hurt, and they may have other health issues bothering them. For instant success, all we have to do is treat all of our customers as
though those three things were true and we’ll be absolutely amazed by the
response. Everyone’ s in a hurry . We need to understand that fact. Nobody
cares that our business is very busy today , or that our emplo yees are on
vacation, or that a prime employee is sick. These are all things that
should’ve been handled in advance. Every employee has to be covered by a backup person. We can keep
retired people on call, for instance. They can only make so much a month
and still collect their Social Security . They’re sitting home watchingtelevision anyw ay and can certainly jump into the breach. Many of them
have had many years of business experience. There is no excuse for incompete nce. It’s very simple to picture ourselves
as the customer , imagining every snag that could occur and figuring out
how to cover it. One big office I had in Manhasset, New York, became
increasingly busy due to some worldwide publicity . Instead  of putting
people on hold— many of whom were calling from out of town, out of state,
and even out of the country—we kept adding telephone lines. Finally we
ended up with ten incoming lines, all with spillover circuits. If there weren’ t
enough secretar ies, we hired more. When my office got really  busy, I had
up to 12 secretaries. If we need more assistance, we should hire some. If we need better
employee motivation, we can give them a percentage of the profit, quotas,
or incentives. If they don’t become excited about our business,  we need to
fire them . The most expensive luxury in the world is a lousy employee. We
can’t afford them. I hear people  crowing about how little they paid to get
someone. It makes me cry inside because they’re going to get exactly what
they paid for . Ineptitude comes cheap. Just think how amazing it would be if we call the big company ,
especially if we’re a potentially good customer , and are infor med on our
initial contact that we have been assigned a representative with this
company . They are going to see to it that we get connected with the right
people, that we get the correct information, that we get the best prices, that
everything is followed appropr iately , and that we are satisfied . They will
ensure that the billing, shipping, and instructions are accurate, and they’re
going to call us back and follow up if there should be any change of
circumstances we should know  about. Someone tells us, “You are my
personal custom er and I’m responsible for you. You are now one of my
clients.” By using this technique, people are moved up from clerks to
salespeople. Salespeople then get moved to sales representatives, and then
account executives. By doing this the company will quickly find out who their most valuable
employees are. They will develo p a loyal following and people will start to
ask for them. We know ourselves if we have a favorite waiter at a
restaurant, we really want to sit at his table. He knows what we want. He
remembers our names. He’s attentive. He’s courteous. He brings the billpromptly so that we’re not late to the movie. Everyone wants to feel
connected and familiar . Everyone is sick of impersonality . Most businesses  don’t realize it, but the only reason people shop with
them is because of price, or availability , or they’re the only one there. I’m
thinking of a local pizza place, which stayed in business simply because it
was the only pizza shop for miles. The food was lousy . The service was
terrible. If we called and asked for a pizza to be ready at six o’clock, when
we got there at six, he hadn’ t made it yet. He gave the excuse that he had
too many orders. Who cares about his orders? Get an assistant. Get a faster
oven. That’ s his problem, not the customers’. So much  time is spent on comp etitive pricing, as though that is the only
element that counts with people . What I’ve found from experi ence is that
people will pay almost any price for service, for status, and for getting the
feeling that they are someone special. How many times have we dealt with
a company for years and years and spent many thousands of dollars, and the
next time we call them it’s like they’ve never heard of us? The total
impersonality is problematic. We practically helped keep them in business
all these years, and they don’t know us from Adam. Isn’t that rude? Isn’t
that stupid? Isn’ t that infuriating? Isn’ t that insulting? In my view , the only function of advertising is to make people aware of a
new product or a change in the circumstances of an established business. Once this is accomplished, the need to continue to advertise  indicates a
failure to follow the simplest rules of success. If our business does not
double spontaneously by sheer  word of mouth and good reputation, we
have to make up for the lack by spending big bucks on advertising
strategies. What a waste of time and money all that is! The basic rules are:
there is never any reason or excuse for losing a customer , nor is there a
reason or excuse for every single customer not to bring in another new one. How many times have we skipped going into certain stores because we
know that there’ s going to be a long line at the checkout counter? Can we
think of any reason to justify this business killer? For as much as the clerks
are getting paid a pittance per hour, and one clerk in one hour can process
thousands of dollars’  worth of products, can we think of one single thing
that is more idiotic? That is the whole basis for the proliferation of
convenience stores: the idea that people want half a dozen items and don’t
want to stand in line forever .There needs to be special lines for people who have to exchange
merchandise or cash personal checks—and, therefore, come up with all
kinds of ID, which they tend to hunt through their billfold or purse to find—
get credit-card approvals, and all the other nuisances of everyda y life. How
would this grab us if we really have somewhere else to go? We walk into the restaurant and the hostess seats us at a table, which we
could have done ourselves. She hands us a menu that we could have picked
up ourselves, and seats us at a table we would not have picked  in the first
place. She then smiles sweetly , departs, and totally ignores us, honestly
taking no interest in us whatsoever . She never checks back to see whether
or not someone is taking care of us. Instead we get to sit there  wondering
whether anybod y knows that we’re there. Finally , the busboy arrives and
brings us water . Unless we’re dying of thirst, who cares about  that? Then
everyone disapp ears for a period of time. We signal frantically to try to get
attention, as we notice that there is no one in char ge. That is the big principle. There is no one in an overall, supervisory ,
caring position to determine whether our needs are taken care of. Although
the waitstaf f is supposed to take care of this, their attitude is usually
perfunctory , isn’t it? They have a duty to perform, and they perform it. As
far as we, as people, are concerned, they haven’ t the slightest interest. This
then, is the last rule, which we will add to the previous ones. Let’s review them all:
Rules for Success:
1. Everyone has to go to the bathroom. 2. Everyone’ s feet hurt. 3. Everyone has other things bothering them. 4. Everyone’ s lost and wants someone to connect with them, to
guide them, and to be there in person in this experience. 5. Everyone’ s hungry .People leave businesses in droves for the above reasons. How many
times are we shopping at a depa rtment store and need to use the restroom,
even though we’d like to buy something else? They tell us that it’s on the
sixth floor and we have to go up on the escalator or wait for the elevator ,
and we say, “Oh, the heck with it.” We turn around and go out to McGinty’ s
Bar and Grill and order a soda, or a beer, or whatever , just so we can use
theirs. How many times are we in the middle of what could be a very major
shopping expedi tion and want a cup of coffee or a doughnut or something
to hold us over until the next meal? We start to get faint with hunger . As we
look around, the prospects of anything to eat are dim. Our basic instincts
drive us out of the store. When I think back, I can think of untol d thousands
of dollars that I did not  spend at a multitude of businesses. Not having a single chair for customers to sit on is enough to drive many
people out of a store. The entry greeting into almost any business should
handle all the aforementioned basic human requirements. Even when we go
into a new restau rant, they should ask, “Have you been here before?” If not,
they should inform us that the restrooms are to the rear, the bar is to the left,
and the fast-service tables are over in that section. Isn’t that the most amazing idea, and isn’t it worth money right there? Did anyone ever think of having a fast-service area in their restaurant,
business, or enterprise, whatever it might be? Does it never dawn on them
that people’s appointments are very pressing and importa nt, just as
important as the owners’  time is to them? Some businesse s treat customers and patients as though a need for haste
is the character defect of the customer . Little do they realize the many
physical issues (some of which  we have gone over in this chapter) that
could be bothering a person, who may also feel lost and confused and have
a dental appointment in exactl y 42 minutes. Or they have to see their
psychiatrist, who is going to charge them whether they show up or not. Or
they have to pick up the car before the garage closes. They have to handle
other important engagements or meet people at 2 P.M. The public’s attitude is not arbitrarily being testy. Rather , it is reflecting
busyness, an intensity of life, and a multitude of demands that are on
everyone. So think about what a simple yet great idea this is. People who want to
make the start of the movie or who have engagements later can sit in thefast-service section. The menu there doesn’ t have to be as elaborate. It’s
obvious that they can’ t wait for a fancy dish if they’re in a hurry . Lacking a fast section, the menu could be marked with asterisks to
indicate fast-service items. After all, they didn’ t just start cookin g the turkey
when we put in our order . Isn’t that turkey already cooked and kept warm,
ready to be sliced up on an instant’ s notice? How long shoul d it take to
serve up a plate of sliced turkey , dressing, mashed potatoes, and peas? People can do it at home in 30 seconds. Why should it take 20 minutes in a
restaurant? This is true of any business. By trimming off the frills, it’s possible to
provide fast service no matter what the area of enterprise. Also, realize that
people are willing to pay a premium for fast service. I’m thinking of the
local printing shop, which has a 50 percent greater price for the same-day
service, 40 percent for two-day  service, 30 percent for three- day service,
and 20 percent for four-day service. That way, customers who are not in a
rush don’t have to pay for those who are, and those who are in a rush have a
means of achieving their ends without getting frustrated. Part of the impa tience that goes on in business is due to the huge profits
that depend on time sensitivity . Thousands or millions of dollars can be
waiting for the delivery of a certain item or a certain service. There is probably nothing more outrageous in America than dealing with
the United States Trademarks and Patent Office. It is possibl e to contact
these people literally hundreds of times and have months go by without
being able to get them on the telephone or get a response to electronic
inquiries. We can’t market our product without a registered trademark. In
today’ s competitive business world, it certainly would be unwise to do that
if we have a unique item—think  of the millions of dollars corporations lose
due to one such simple delay . Many years ago I had the same problem on a personal business level with
a corporation that had a red-hot idea and a market that was panting for it. I
called the United States Tradem ark Office over 200 times without being
able to get through to anyone. I wrote them 12 letters and sent telegrams,
and finally calle d my U.S. Senator . After three months I still had not gotten
either a patent or a trademark application form when this is all that had been
requested. Just a form, please. It seemed a task any computer should have
been set up to handle automatically . I am going to add another rule of
success.6. The customer has a lot riding on the outcome of our transaction. This is a very important principl e. We may not think it’s important, but it
is in the life of the customer . If we think back on our own transactions,
we’ll realize how important these things are. When we go to purchase
something, it is not just for the fun of it. For instance, we’re purchasing it
because it’s someone’ s birthday , and it’s critical to have it by a certain day. We’re purchasing it because our lives can’t work without it. We’re
purchasing it because everything is leaking until we get that part. We’re
purchasing it because we canno t go ahead with the next major project until
we have this essential service. Incompetence is so rampant that we’ve become unconscious  about it,
because we’re so used to it. Let’s take the ordinary , simplest, most mundane
experience: We call the local movie theater to find out what’ s playing there. The first thing that happens is we get a recorded message of someone who
garbles English. The next thing the message does is tell us where the theater
is located, which is not why we called. Plus, that should be the last piece of
information, not the first. Then it tells us rapidly what is playing that day. Inasmuch as we never heard of the movie, we totally missed the name. It
also uselessly tells us that it’s playing in theater one, two, or three, all of
which is of no interest either . Having now delayed us, 90 seconds have gone by and we still don’t
really know what’ s playing or when. Finally , as it gets toward the end of the
recording, after covering the kiddie matinees, which are of no interest, it
finally gives us the evening adult production times. This was the first thing
we wanted to know . It is very careful not to repeat the name of the movie,
so in case we missed it, well, that’s too bad. Nor would it go as far as
spelling it. Often it will tell us what it’s rated, but it will not tell us about the
content or genre, such as, “This is a romantic comedy ,” or “This is a murder
mystery .” The owner somehow presumes that we are movie fans and know
all abou t this business, including  all of the current titles and stars. The tape
then ends. None of this is the information  we want in the first place. There is no
other number to call—even if there were, there’ s no person to answer that
line anyway . On the tape, it never gives the exit time, so if we want to drop
our family off at the movie, go to a meeting, and pick them up later, wedon’t know what time it ends. We just sort of wildly guess that it must be
somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. As the afternoo n progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to get the
telephone line of any theater; routinely , one gets a busy signal. Apparently
they cannot afford a spillover line with another recorded message. After
trying to get the theater two or three times, we say the heck with it and go to
a different theater . I’ve often felt like donating another answering machine,
which costs all of $40 or something, to a theater so that when I call I don’t
get put off by a busy signal and I can find what in the world is playing,
seeing as I have to travel a few miles to get there. In addit ion, where I lived, most of the first shows of the even ing were
over at about 9:20 to 9:30 P.M. All of the local restaurants closed at 9:00 P.M. When the movie  crowd left the theater there was no place to go for dessert,
coffee, or supper , or a place to go to sit and entertain their friends. When I was a kid I used to go to camp in a little town in Wisconsin. They
had one single movie run per week, every Saturday night at 7:00. The show
went on once, and that was it for the week. There was a quick little ad that
came on before the main feature  that said, “After the movie, enjoy a soda at
Johnson’ s Drugstore.” Johnson’ s Drugstore did a huge business—as a
matter of fact, if I remember correctly , practically the entire movie audience
went over to Johnson’ s Drugstore.
_OceanofPDF.com_Success_Is_for_You_-_David_R_Hawkins.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        When we are truly successful, the world applauds us. It applauds because
we demonstrate  something that is universal and that they share within
themselves. The world always applauds nobility because we are
demonstrating and owning what others wish they could find the strength
and courage to own within themselves. By this we don’t mean fairy-tale
idealism. If we want to provide the best quality for the lowest possible price
with the fastest and most efficient service, and improve the quality of life,
no one will oppose us. There’ s always room for quality in this world in
every area of life. We all need another good accountant, lawyer, doctor,
dentist, mechanic, and TV repairman. The world makes room for the best. Step 2: Determ ine if what we want to do is what we enjoy doing. We
watch people forcing themselves to go to work in the morning because they
have convinced themselves to go into some kind of business, but their heart
is not in it. The way to be a success is to do what we like to do, to enjoy
what we do, and, therefore, do it to the best of our abilities. That way we
won’ t have to push ourselves. I had a patient  who was mise rable in his business, although it was
successful. He had plenty of money, yet he complained that he’d lost his
interest in life. He hated to go to work in the morning. He was irritable withhis kids. He was depressed. He was not receiving any sympathy or support
from his friends or family, though, as they all looked at him with envy. He
had everything the world could offer—Cadillacs, a fancy house in the
suburbs, titles. He was presiden t of the corporation. His income  was in the
millions. He had a great wife and kids. Still, he was asking himself, “What’ s
all this for. ”
To find out what he really liked to do, I asked him what his hobby was. He had a little workshop in his house, and he said, “Doc, this will sound
crazy to you, but I love to make dollhouses. ” He made dollhouses for his
own children and for his nieces, nephews, and cousins. I asked  him, “Did
you ever sell any dollhouses. ” He said, “Oh, I never thought of that. I put
so much  time and effort in them that I could never make money selling
them. ” I said, “Well, for fun, why don’t you take the one you’re working on
now, figure out a price that would be profitable, put a price tag on it, put it
on consignment in any store that will allow it, but not in a toy store where it
will get lost and not be seen among the overwhelming assortm ent of other
merchandise. ” He did. He knew someone who owned a hardware store,
who displayed the dollhouse and used it to help sell stair treads (there was a
little staircase in the dollhouse). The dollhouse sold in short order. The next one he made he put as display
only and took orders. Pretty soon he had to farm out some of the work. He
had other people and other workshops making the various parts, cutting
them out on their skill saws. He had to hire someone else to collect all of
these individual items and assemble them. Next thing you know he was in
the dollhouse business, selling them as fast as he could make them. This man turned out the best-lo oking dollhouses ever seen. They were
adorable, irresistible, quaint, and charming, and children absolutely loved
them. That’ s where he was coming from when he said, “I want to bring joy
to the hearts of children. ” That’ s a universal principle with which hardly
anybody can argue: to bring joy to the hearts of children. One of the tests of
the universal principle is whether it appeals to the heart. If our product or
service appeals only to the head, it will have a limited success. This isn’t to
say that it won’ t make money— it may be quite profitable—but the great
successes in the world are those things that change people’ s lives. Step 3: Find out if what we want to do is actually needed by anyone. Is it truly a service to the world. The reason this step is important isbecause we want to make sure that what we’re going to throw ourselves
into is not just a pet project or personal preference. Raspberry  vinaigrette
salad dressing may be someone’ s idea of “haute cuisine,” but that opinion is
not likely going to be shared by many in the populace who may come in to
the restaurant once or twice out of curiosity. We will notice that, as a
consequence, such a business may become primarily tourist oriented and
not appeal to locals because the demand is limited. It doesn’ t serve any
particular need, other than the idea of being cutesy, unique, or dif ferent. Step 4: Check out all the sensory modes and cover  the ones that are
foreign to our own personality by consulting with people who are
experts in that area. What do I mean by this. The research of neuro-
linguistic programming (NLP) has demonstrated that people process their
experiences of life primarily through one sensory mode or another: Some
people are primarily auditory. Some are visual. Some are feeling  people. Of
course smell and tactile senses are also important. I knew of a restaurant in town that was very, very pretty. The woman who
ran it was obviously a visual person and had done a stunning  job. When
people looked at it, they saw that it was gorgeous. She also did a great job
on the food and the price. But the acoustics were abominable. People could
hardly hear themselves think. The music was horrible. It was too loud,
inappropriate in style, and without a single break. Evidently, it’s what she
liked; however, it turned every one else off from the place. People went
there for the good part and put up with the downside. But who needs the
downside. If we’re the opposite, if we are people who don’t care so much about how
the thing looks as long as it feels right, we better call in some people who
are primarily visual and ask how it looks to them. We can tell how people
process informa tion by their language. People who say, “I see what you
mean. Do you see what I’m saying. How does this look to you. Let’s run it
up the flagpole and salute it,” are probably visual processors. People who
say, “That doesn’ t feel too good to me. That doesn’ t feel right,” are
obviously feeling people. Audi tory people will say, “That doesn’ t sound
right to me. ” We get cues; being aware of them will make the processing
style apparent to us. We need to make sure that the areas that are not our forte are covered. It
doesn’ t take long—half an hour or an hour at the most with someone who isan expert in the field is enough to convey the idea. I watched one restaurant
grow from failure to success primarily by changing the music in the
background from  loud funky country to soft baroque. The soft baroque
brought in high-paying custome rs and a classy crowd. The other music had
kept customers away, even though the place had mesquite-broiled steaks. People want to relax at dinne r. They want to have tablecloths, cloth
napkins, approp riate music, and the right lighting. Bright fluore scent lights
and primary colors may be great for a breakfast diner, but they will kill
dinner business. I wonder why that’s not obvious to people. What lady’ s
makeup looks good in glaring fluorescent light. Although the fast-food
chains would seem to belie it, people really want dignity in their lives. They
will reward us and appreciate us for supplying it or providing the means of
achieving it. Presentation is very important to a lot of people. It may not be to us;
however, for many people it makes all the difference. Again, going back to
the restaurant business as an example, the most successful restaurant in
town for dinner used a large plate. They put on lots and lots of vegetables,
lots of potatoes, and lots of garnish. For the same price as a similar
restaurant in town, it looked like you were getting a huge amount of food
and likely more than you could eat. The other restaurant used the same size
plates as they did at lunch. There was a tiny sprig of parsley, a slice of
radish, and a begrudging little slice of tomato. When you’d look at what
was practically the same dinner, you’d doubt that there was going to be
enough there to satisfy your appetite. As a consequence, one restaurant
seemed overpric ed and the other  seemed underpriced. I’m sure that the cost
to the successful restaurant was only a few cents. Whatever we present, we must make sure that it’s presented in the best
possible style with regard to all the sensory modalities, and that it pleases as
many of them as we possibly can. It’s worth the extra trouble. Aside from
the aforementioned sensory modalities, a high percentage of the populace
rank comfort very high on their lists. When we go to the neare st Walmart,
one of the most successful enterprises in America, we’ll notice not only that
it is a success because it pushes good quality at a low price, availability, and
convenience, but the restrooms are available near the entrance. There is a
greeter by the door who smiles at customers and asks if she can be of any
help. There is a place to sit down, order a snack at a table, and rest one’s
weary feet. I have walked out of countless stores for the simple reason that they did
not have a chair  where I could sit down. Many people think things over and
make up their minds only when they’re sitting down. In a men’ s store, for instance, the man will shop around, look at various
suits, and compare prices in his mind. If you were to watch him in the store,
you might wond er, What is he looking for here. He’s looking for a place to
sit down and think it over. He has to decide. If there isn’t a place for him to
sit down, the sales clerk cannot close the sale. The customer ’s unable to
reach a conclusi on under the surroundings in that store. Add to that some
hard rock music in the backgro und to throw his brain out of balance, and
the result is that he stammers out to the clerk, “I’ll think about it. I’ll be
back later. ” And he leaves the store. In depar tment stores where we see endless couples, it’s obviou s that the
price of the purchase is going to come from the main breadwinner of the
family. Despite today’ s world of higher female employment, this may still
be the man’ s earnings. While the woman of the house is shopping for
housewares or clothes for the kids, what is there left for the man to do other
than checking out the tool coun ter. There’ s no place to just plain sit down
in a corner, read a magazine, or go to the restroom. He starts  jerking at her arm, “Come on, Lorraine, let’s go. ” She tells her
friends, “Oh, Geor ge is so impatient. ” Geor ge is not impatient. His varicose
veins are bothering him. His feet hurt. He’s got a problem with his knees. He’s got to go to the bathroom. He needs a cup of coffee. He wants a
chance to think about it. He wants a place to get away from all the music
and confusion. He’s told there’ s no place to sit. There’ s no place to have a
cup of coffee, and the men’ s room is always on the sixth floor in the rear
next to tapestries. The men who control big bucks are typically middle-aged
men. Taking the elevator or five escalators up to the sixth floor when they
already have prostate trouble is sure to chase them out of the store in a
hurry. The fact that some businesses survive despite the fact that they violate all
the rules doesn’ t prove anything at all—people go there becaus e they have
to go there. Customers hate being forced into boredom and discomfort, and
they resent the lack of convenience. How important is the restroom. Plenty. There was a small health-food store on Long Island that became a great
success, to everyone’ s amazeme nt. The secret of the owner ’s success was
one simple thing : She enlar ged the ladies’  room. In it she provided a semi-enclosed comfortable area with carpet and a shelf with a rail around it so
that mothers could change their babies’  diapers. Soon all the mothers
around heard about this place and went shopping there because the place
“cares about mothers. ” They paid $3 for a box of organic oatmeal that they
could have gotten for roughly a third of the price at the super market, and
they were happy to do it. The only thing that the store did differently was exhibit genuine
thoughtfulness and care. There was a small play area for the older kids with
various toys in it. If kids are bored, they’ll pull at their mothers’  clothes and
whine, “Let’s go, Mom, I’m bored. ” She’ll then skip a couple of purchases
she otherwise would have made. Provision for comfort is, there fore, a part
of being heart-hearted. Step 5: To check out if we are coming from ABC rather  than A→ B→
C, we need to ask ourselves how much of our success is going to come
from attraction and how much is going to come from promotion. Keep
in mind  that promotion with aggressive, forceful, outgoing marketing and
sales pitches is all very outer directed and costs money, takes time and
energy, and is expensive. It is not that those strategies don’t bring results,
but the cost of them has to be taken into account. Attraction, on the other
hand, takes no time, energy, effort, or money. It is not in the world of A→
B→ C; rather, it is in the world of ABC. What in the promotion of our
product, business, idea, or profession is going to have pulling  power and
win for us ef fortlessly by the sheer power of attraction. Promotion is coming from force. The rule of the universe is that force
meets with counterforce. Persuasion meets with sales resistance. Repetition
leads to boredom. The more money we spend on promotion, the more we’re
going to have to raise our price. Hence, we eventually create a price-
resistance ceilin g and narrow the gap between our product and that of our
competitor. What attracts, promotes, and builds our success without any time, energy,
or effort. Our reputation. Not a fake image that we hire some marketing
company to fabricate, but the genuineness of our endeavor, which shines
forth and is evident to everyone in everything we do. The ABC that we hold
in mind is the magnet that has the pulling power. It doesn’ t cost us anything. If we have a good reputation in the industry, headhunters will come looking
for us to pave our way for better of fers. Did it ever dawn on us that the top-notch experts in the world never
advertise. As a matter of fact, their telephone numbers are not even listed in
any directory. They’re already loaded to the gills with clients, prospects,
customers, patie nts, board members, honors, and titles. They need more
business like a hole in the head. I know what I’m talking about here. Not only among people I’ve
counseled and patients I’ve treated in the business for which I’ve been a
consultant, but in my own personal life, I’ve made many milli ons without
ever spending one nickel on advertising or promotion or self-a dvancement
in any way whatsoever. If we’re  doing a good job, people will search us out. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’ t let them know that we’re there and what
service we have available, what our specials are this week, and what our
hours are—but to depend on promotion is imbalanced. It’s an old axiom in
business that a satisfied customer is our best advertisement. Everyone says,
“Yes, I know that,” and then proceeds to ignore it. A good rule of thumb is to ask ourselves whether the temptation to take a
certain shortcut is worth the risk of ruining our business. Let’s take a little
seemingly unimportant cutting-the-corner example of yesterday’ s
doughnuts. At the close of the day we still have a dozen and a half
doughnuts; the next day we put them in the glass case along with today’ s
doughnuts. If instead we had said, “yesterday’ s doughnuts,” with a sign that
cut the price, we would sell them all and not take any risk to our business if
the doug hnuts weren’ t complete ly up to snuff. The customer wouldn’ t have
any complaints because they were plainly marked “yesterday’ s doughnuts. ”
If we put them in the showcase  and sell them as today’ s doughnuts, we
may make an extra dollar. But when the customer complains to the family,
“Hmm. there’ s someth ing about these doughnuts. They’re a
disappointment. They’re not the same as usual,” we’ll have ruined our
reputation with one family. And that family has friends and relatives. We must never take a shortcut that is going to impair our reputa tion. One
way to ensure this is to always give our customers greater credit than we’re
willing to allow them ordinaril y. If we assume that our customers know
what’ s going on, then we’ll be right. People “just know,” even though they
can’t say what it is. For example, I use to sell eggs. Not a lot; it was a small number. Even so,
if I missed collecting an egg in the chicken coop and didn’ t discover it until
the next day, I never put it in the box with the other eggs. I set it aside in therefrigerator for myself. I knew that I could leave an egg in the chicken coop
for a couple of days and it won’t make any difference to its freshness. But
the fact that it missed one day of refrigeration made a dif ference. When we cut corners, everyone knows. They don’t know how they know,
but they know. Very often they’re dead right. Now, I’m sure I could have
gotten away for a short time putting older eggs in with the fresher ones. And
then one day at breakfast some  mother would be saying to her family, “I
don’t know; these Happy Chicken Eggery eggs somehow don’t taste the
same as they used to taste. ” Making an extra nickel is not worth losing a
good customer. Rationalizing and departing from quality originates from force in such
quotes as, “What they don’t know won’ t hurt them. ” That’ s true. What they
don’t know won’t hurt them—but it sure will hurt us. They won’ t know it
consciously; however, as I mentioned before, they do know it
unconsciously. There are lots of businesses that we won’ t deal with anymore. If asked
why, we really wouldn’ t know the answer, other than it doesn’ t appeal to us
anymore. “I don’t know,” we’d  say, “I just never think of going there. ”
Research is part of what we must use to uncover or discover exactly what
about the business was of such a nature that our minds refused to even
consider. Step 6: Keep in mind that one of the greatest ingredients of success is
people knowin g that they can count on us in various ways. Such a
simple thing as changing hours can lose all kinds of customers. I had a
favorite little restaurant in town  that I used to eat breakfast at several times
a week. I also went every Thursday night for dinner because they had
chicken and dumplings—it was all-you-can-eat for a reasonable price. The
first crime they committed was when they stopped having chicken and
dumplings. I resented it, so I quit going there on Thursday nights. The next
crime they comm itted was when I went there on another evening for dinner,
and there was a sign on the door that said: CLOSED AT 3 P. M. DURING  JULY FOR
SUMMER HOURS. “Well, the heck with it,” I said. I didn’ t go back to that
restaurant again  until fall. I remember specifically, I went on a Tuesday
night (notice how customers remember all the seemingly “trivial” details)
only to find out that they were now closed on Tuesdays. I never went back
again. It’s important to avoid all those little turnof fs—the answering machine
that doesn’ t work, the impolite receptionist, the dirty carpet in the restaurant
—and ask how available we are to provide what is needed in the world. I’ve
seen so many businesses fold that are open weekdays only and close at 5
P.
Because we are demonstrating and owning what others wish they could find the strength and courage to own within themselves.
What is the reason why the world applauds when we demonstrate something that is universal and shared within themselves?
The key to success is to do what we like to do, enjoy what we do, and do it to the best of our abilities, and we achieve it by enjoying what we do.
What is the key to success, according to the text, and how do we achieve it?
The author advises to find out if what we want to do is truly a service to the world, as opposed to a pet project or personal preference.
What is the author's advice on how to determine if what we want to do is truly a service to the world?
The author emphasizes the importance of considering the comfort and convenience of the customer, as well as the need to serve them in a way that is respectful and dignified.
According to the text, what is the most important thing to consider when designing a business or product?
The author's final advice is to share our success with others, and to acknowledge the importance of customer satisfaction, as this is the key to long-term success and customer loyalty.
What is the author's final piece of advice for achieving success?