Part One In A Nutshell 1 страница

How To Stop Worrying And Start Living

Dale Carnegie

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First Printing - 1948

Library of Congress Catalog Number - Unknown

ISBN - Unknown

Scan Version: v 1. 0

Format: Text with cover picture.

Date Scanned: Jan/15/2002

Posted to (Newsgroup): alt. binaries. e-book

-Salmun

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Contents

Sixteen Ways in Which This Book Will Help You

Preface - How This Book Was Written-and Why

Part One - Fundamental Facts You Should Know About Worry

1 - Live in " Day-tight Compartments"

2 - A Magic Formula for Solving Worry Situations

3 - What Worry May Do to You

Part Two - Basic Techniques In Analysing Worry

4 - How to Analyse and Solve Worry Problems

5 - How to Eliminate Fifty Per Cent of Your Business Worries

Nine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This Book

Part Three - How To Break The Worry Habit Before It Breaks You

6 - How to Crowd Worry out of Your Mind

7 - Don't Let the Beetles Get You Down

8 - A Law That Will Outlaw Many of Your Worries

9 - Co-operate with the Inevitable

10 - Put a " Stop-Loss" Order on Your Worries

11 - Don't Try to Saw Sawdust

Part Four - Seven Ways To Cultivate A Mental Attitude That Will Bring You Peace And

Happiness

12 - Eight Words that Can Transform Your Life

13 - The High, Cost of Getting Even

14 - If You Do This, You Will Never Worry About Ingratitude

15 - Would You Take a Million Dollars for What You Have?

16 - Find Yourself and Be Yourself: Remember There Is No One Else on Earth Like You

17 - If You Have a Lemon, Make a Lemonade

18 - How to Cure Melancholy in Fourteen Days

Part Five - The Golden Rule For Conquering Worry

19 - How My Mother and Father Conquered Worry

Part Six - How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism

20 - Remember That No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog

21 - Do This-and Criticism Can't Hurt You

22 - Fool Things I Have Done

Part Seven - Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue And Worry And Keep Your Energy And Spirits

High

23 - How to Add One Hour a Day to Your Waking Life

24 - What Makes You Tired-and What You Can Do About It

25 - How the Housewife Can Avoid Fatigue-and Keep Looking Young

26 - Four Good Working Habits That Will Help Prevent Fatigue and Worry

27 - How to Banish the Boredom That Produces Fatigue, Worry, and Resentment

28 - How to Keep from Worrying About Insomnia

Part Eight - How To Find The Kind Of Work In Which You May Be Happy And Successful

29 - The Major Decision of Your Life

Part Nine - How To Lessen Your Financial Worries

30 - " Seventy Per Cent of All Our Worries... "

Part Ten - " How I Conquered Worry" (32 True Stories)

• " Six Major Troubles Hit Me All At Once" By C. I. Blackwood

• " I Can Turn Myself into a Shouting Optimist Within an Hour" By Roger W. Babson

• " How I Got Rid of an Inferiority Complex" By Elmer Thomas

• " I Lived in the Garden of Allah" BY R. V. C. Bodley

• " Five Methods I Use to Banish Worry" By Professor William Lyon Phelps

• " I Stood Yesterday. I Can Stand Today" By Dorothy Dix

• " I Did Not Expect to Live to See the Dawn" BY J. C. Penney

• " I Go to the Gym to Punch the Bag or Take a Hike Outdoors" By Colonel Eddie Eagan

• " I Was 'The Worrying Wreck from Virginia Tech'" By Jim Birdsall

• " I Have Lived by This Sentence" By Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo

• " I Hit Bottom and Survived" By Ted Ericksen

• " I Used to Be One of the World's Biggest Jackasses" By Percy H. Whiting

• " I Have Always Tried to Keep My Line of Supplies Open" By Gene Autry

• " I Heard a Voice in India" BY E. Stanley Jones

• " When the Sheriff Came in My Front Door" By Homer Croy

• " The Toughest Opponent I Ever Fought Was Worry" By Jack Dempsey

• " I Prayed to God to Keep Me Out of an Orphan's Home" By Kathleen Halter

• " I Was Acting Like an Hysterical Woman" By Cameron Shipp

• " I Learned to Stop Worrying by Watching My Wife Wash Dishes" By Rev. William Wood

• " I Found the Answer-Keep Busy! " By Del Hughes

• " Time Solves a Lot of Things" By Louis T. Montant, Jr.

• " I Was Warned Not to Try to Speak or to Move Even a Finger" By Joseph L. Ryan

• " I Am a Great Dismisser" By Ordway Tead

• " If I Had Not Stopped Worrying, I Would Have Been in My Grave Long Ago" By Connie

Mack

• " One at a Time, Gentlemen, One at a Time" By John Homer Miller

• " I Now Look for the Green Light" By Joseph M. Cotter

• How John D. Rockefeller Lived on Borrowed Time for Forty-five Years

• " Reading a Book on Sex Prevented My Marriage from Going on the Rocks" BY B. R. W.

• " I Was Committing Slow Suicide Because I Didn't Know How to Relax" By Paul Sampson

• " A Real Miracle Happened to Me" By Mrs. John Burger

• " Setbacks" BY Ferenc Molnar

• " I Was So Worried I Didn't Eat a Bite of Solid Food for Eighteen Days" By Kathryne

Holcombe Farmer

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Sixteen Ways in Which This Book Will Help You

1. Gives you a number of practical, tested formulas for solving worry situations.

2. Shows you how to eliminate fifty per cent of your business worries immediately.

3. Brings you seven ways to cultivate a mental attitude that will bring you peace and

happiness.

4. Shows you how to lessen financial worries.

5. Explains a law that will outlaw many of your worries.

6. Tells you how to turn criticism to your advantage.

7. Shows how the housewife can avoid fatigue-and keep looking young.

8. Gives four working habits that will help prevent fatigue and worry.

9. Tells you how to add one hour a day to your working life.

10. Shows you how to avoid emotional upsets.

11. Gives you the stories of scores of everyday men and women, who tell you in their

own words how they stopped worrying and started living.

12. Gives you Alfred Adler's prescription for curing melancholia in fourteen days.

13. Gives you the 21 words that enabled the world-famous physician, Sir William Osier,

to banish worry.

14. Explains the three magic steps that Willis H. Carrier, founder of the air-conditioning

industry, uses to conquer worry.

15. Shows you how to use what William James called " the sovereign cure for worry".

16. Gives you details of how many famous men conquered worry-men like Arthur Hays

Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times; Herbert E. Hawkes, former Dean of

Columbia University; Ordway Tead, Chairman of the Board of Higher Education, New

York City; Jack Dempsey; Connie Mack; Roger W. Babson; Admiral Byrd; Henry Ford;

Gene Autry; J. C. Penney; and John D. Rockefeller.

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Preface

How This Book Was Written-and Why

Thirty-Five years ago, I was one of the unhappiest lads in New York. I was selling motor-

trucks for a living. I didn't know what made a motor-truck run. That wasn't all: I didn't

want to know. I despised my job. I despised living in a cheap furnished room on West

Fifty-sixth Street-a room infested with cockroaches. I still remember that I had a bunch

of neckties hanging on the walls; and when I reached out of a morning to get a fresh

necktie, the cockroaches scattered in all directions. I despised having to eat in cheap,

dirty restaurants that were also probably infested with cockroaches.

I came home to my lonely room each night with a sick headache-a headache bred and

fed by disappointment, worry, bitterness, and rebellion. I was rebelling because the

dreams I had nourished back in my college days had turned into nightmares. Was this

life? Was this the vital adventure to which I had looked forward so eagerly? Was this all

life would ever mean to me-working at a job I despised, living with cockroaches, eating

vile food-and with no hope for the future? ... I longed for leisure to read, and to write

the books I had dreamed of writing back in my college days.

I knew I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by giving up the job I despised. I

wasn't interested in making a lot of money, but I was interested in making a lot of

living. In short, I had come to the Rubicon-to that moment of decision which faces most

young people when they start out in life. So I made my decision-and that decision

completely altered my future. It has made the last thirty-five years happy and

rewarding beyond my most Utopian aspirations.

My decision was this: I would give up the work I loathed; and, since I had spent four

years studying in the State Teachers' College at Warrensburg, Missouri, preparing to

teach, I would make my living teaching adult classes in night schools. Then I would have

my days free to read books, prepare lectures, write novels and short stories. I wanted

" to live to write and write to live".

What subject should I teach to adults at night? As I looked back and evaluated my own

college training, I saw that the training and experience I had had in public speaking had

been of more practical value to me in business-and in life-than everything else I had

studied in college all put together. Why? Because it had wiped out my timidity and lack

of confidence and given me the courage and assurance to deal with people. It had also

made clear that leadership usually gravitates to the man who can get up and say what

he thinks

I applied for a position teaching public speaking in the night extension courses both at

Columbia University and New York University, but these universities decided they could

struggle along somehow without my help.

I was disappointed then-but I now thank God that they did turn me down, because I

started teaching in Y. M. C. A. night schools, where I had to show concrete results and

show them quickly. What a challenge that was! These adults didn't come to my classes

because they wanted college credits or social prestige. They came for one reason only:

they wanted to solve their problems. They wanted to be able to stand up on their own

feet and say a few words at a business meeting without fainting from fright. Salesmen

wanted to be able to call on a tough customer without having to walk around the block

three times to get up courage. They wanted to develop poise and self-confidence. They

wanted to get ahead in business. They wanted to have more money for their families.

And since they were paying their tuition on an installment basis-and they stopped paying

if they didn't get results-and since I was being paid, not a salary, but a percentage of

the profits, I had to be practical if I wanted to eat.

I felt at the time that I was teaching under a handicap, but I realise now that I was

getting priceless training. I had to motivate my students. I had to help them solve their

problems.

I had to make each session so inspiring that they wanted to continue coming.

It was exciting work. I loved it. I was astounded at how quickly these business men

developed self-confidence and how quickly many of them secured promotions and

increased pay. The classes were succeeding far beyond my most optimistic hopes.

Within three seasons, the Y. M. C. A. s, which had refused to pay me five dollars a night in

salary, were paying me thirty dollars a night on a percentage basis. At first, I taught

only public speaking, but, as the years went by, I saw that these adults also needed the

ability to win friends and influence people. Since I couldn't find an adequate textbook

on human relations, I wrote one myself. It was written-no, it wasn't written in the usual

way. It grew and evolved out of the experiences of the adults in these classes. I called it

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Since it was written solely as a textbook for my own adult classes, and since I had

written four other books that no one had ever heard of, I never dreamed that it would

have a large sale: I am probably one of the most astonished authors now living.

As the years went by, I realised that another one of the biggest problems of these adults

was worry. A large majority of my students were business men-executives, salesmen,

engineers, accountants: a cross section of all the trades and professions-and most of

them had problems! There were women in the classes-business women and housewives.

They, too, had problems! Clearly, what I needed was a textbook on how to conquer

worry-so again I tried to find one. I went to New York's great public library at Fifth

Avenue and Forty-second Street and discovered to my astonishment that this library had

only twenty-two books listed under the title WORRY. I also noticed, to my amusement,

that it had one hundred and eighty-nine books listed under WORMS. Almost nine times

as many books about worms as about worry! Astounding, isn't it? Since worry is one of

the biggest problems facing mankind, you would think, wouldn't you, that every high

school and college in the land would give a course on " How to Stop Worrying"?

Yet, if there is even one course on that subject in any college in the land, I have never

heard of it. No wonder David Seabury said in his book How to Worry Successfully: " We

come to maturity with as little preparation for the pressures of experience as a

bookworm asked to do a ballet. "

The result? More than half of our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous and

emotional troubles.

I looked over those twenty-two books on worry reposing on the shelves of the New York

Public Library. In addition, I purchased all the books on worry I could find; yet I couldn't

discover even one that I could use as a text in my course for adults. So I resolved to

write one myself.

I began preparing myself to write this book seven years ago. How? By reading what the

philosophers of all ages have said about worry. I also read hundreds of biographies, all

the way from Confucius to Churchill. I also interviewed scores of prominent people in

many walks of life, such as Jack Dempsey, General Omar Bradley, General Mark Clark,

Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dorothy Dix. But that was only a beginning.

I also did something else that was far more important than the interviews and the

reading. I worked for five years in a laboratory for conquering worry-a laboratory

conducted in our own adult classes. As far as I know, it is the first and only laboratory of

its kind in the world. This is what we did. We gave students a set of rules on how to stop

worrying and asked them to apply these rules in their own lives and then talk to the

class on the results they had obtained. Others reported on techniques they had used in

the past.

As a result of this experience, I presume I have listened to more talks on " How I

Conquered Worry" than has any other individual who ever walked this earth. In addition,

I read hundreds of other talks on " How I Conquered Worry" talks that were sent to me by

mail-talks that had won prizes in our classes that are held in more than a hundred and

seventy cities throughout the United States and Canada. So this book didn't come out of

an ivory tower. Neither is it an academic preachment on how worry might be

conquered. Instead, I have tried to write a fast-moving, concise, documented report on

how worry has been conquered by thousands of adults. One thing is certain: this book is

practical. You can set your teeth in it.

I am happy to say that you won't find in this book stories about an imaginary " Mr. B--" or

a vague " Mary and John|' whom no one can identify. Except in a few rare cases, this

book names names and gives street addresses. It is authentic. It is documented. It is

vouched for-and certified.

" Science, " said the French philosopher Valery, " is a collection of successful recipes. "

That is what this book is, a collection of successful and time-tested recipes to rid our

lives of worry. However, let me warn you: you won't find anything new in it, but you will

find much that is not generally applied. And when it comes to that, you and I don't need

to be told anything new. We already know enough to lead perfect lives. We have all

read the golden rule and the Sermon on the Mount. Our trouble is not ignorance, but

inaction. The purpose of this book is to restate, illustrate, streamline, air-condition, and

glorify a lot of ancient and basic truths-and kick you in the shins and make you do

something about applying them.

You didn't pick up this book to read about how it was written. You are looking for

action. All right, let's go. Please read the first forty-four pages of this book-and if by

that time you don't feel that you have acquired a new power and a new inspiration to

stop worry and enjoy life-then toss this book into the dust-bin. It is no good for you.

DALE CARNEGIE

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Part One - Fundamental Facts You Should Know About Worry

Chapter 1 - Live in " Day-tight Compartments"

In the spring of 1871, a young man picked up a book and read twenty-one words that

had a profound effect on his future. A medical student at the Montreal General

Hospital, he was worried about passing the final examination, worried about what to do,

where to go, how to build up a practice, how to make a living.

The twenty-one words that this young medical student read in 1871 helped him to

become the most famous physician of his generation. He organised the world-famous

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford-

the highest honour that can be bestowed upon any medical man in the British Empire.

He was knighted by the King of England. When he died, two huge volumes containing

1, 466 pages were required to tell the story of his life.

His name was Sir William Osier. Here are the twenty-one words that he read in the

spring of 1871-twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free

from worry: " Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do

what lies clearly at hand. "

Forty-two years later, on a soft spring night when the tulips were blooming on the

campus, this man, Sir William Osier, addressed the students of Yale University. He told

those Yale students that a man like himself who had been a professor in four universities

and had written a popular book was supposed to have " brains of a special quality". He

declared that that was untrue. He said that his intimate friends knew that his brains

were " of the most mediocre character".

What, then, was the secret of his success? He stated that it was owing to what he called

living in " day-tight compartments. " What did he mean by that? A few months before he

spoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where

the captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and-presto! -there was a

clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one

another-shut off into watertight compartments. " Now each one of you, " Dr. Osier said to

those Yale students, " is a much more marvelous organisation than the great liner, and

bound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as

to live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on the

voyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working

order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting out

the Past-the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the

Future -the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe-safe for today! ... Shut off the past!

Let the dead past bury its dead. ... Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the

way to dusty death. ... The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried

today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. ... The

future is today. ... There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste of

energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about

the future. ... Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to

cultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments'. "

Did Dr. Osier mean to say that we should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow?

No. Not at all. But he did go on in that address to say that the best possible way to

prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm,

on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for

the future.

Sir William Osier urged the students at Yale to begin the day with Christ's prayer: " Give

us this day our daily bread. "

Remember that that prayer asks only for today's bread. It doesn't complain about the

stale bread we had to eat yesterday; and it doesn't say: " Oh, God, it has been pretty dry

out in the wheat belt lately and we may have another drought-and then how will I get

bread to eat next autumn-or suppose I lose my job-oh, God, how could I get bread

then? "

No, this prayer teaches us to ask for today's bread only. Today's bread is the only kind of

bread you can possibly eat.

Years ago, a penniless philosopher was wandering through a stony country where the

people had a hard time making a living. One day a crowd gathered about him on a hill,

and he gave what is probably the most-quoted speech ever delivered anywhere at any

time. This speech contains twenty-six words that have gone ringing down across the

centuries: " Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take

thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. "

Many men have rejected those words of Jesus: " Take no thought for the morrow. " They

have rejected those words as a counsel of perfection, as a bit of Oriental mysticism. " I

must take thought for the morrow, " they say. " I must take out insurance to protect my

family. I must lay aside money for my old age. I must plan and prepare to get ahead. "

Right! Of course you must. The truth is that those words of Jesus, translated over three

hundred years ago, don't mean today what they meant during the reign of King James.

Three hundred years ago the word thought frequently meant anxiety. Modern versions of

the Bible quote Jesus more accurately as saying: " Have no anxiety for the tomorrow. "

By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and

preparation. But have no anxiety.

During the war, our military leaders planned for the morrow, but they could not afford

to have any anxiety. " I have supplied the best men with the best equipment we have, "

said Admiral Ernest J. King, who directed the United States Navy, " and have given them

what seems to be the wisest mission. That is all I can do. "

" If a ship has been sunk, " Admiral King went on, " I can't bring it up. If it is going to be

sunk, I can't stop it. I can use my time much better working on tomorrow's problem than

by fretting about yesterday's. Besides, if I let those things get me, I wouldn't last long. "

Whether in war or peace, the chief difference between good thinking and bad thinking

is this: good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructive

planning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of one of

the most famous newspapers in the world, The New York Times. Mr. Sulzberger told me

that when the Second World War flamed across Europe, he was so stunned, so worried

about the future, that he found it almost impossible to sleep. He would frequently get

out of bed in the middle of the night, take some canvas and tubes of paint, look in the

mirror, and try to paint a portrait of himself. He didn't know anything about painting,