Part Two In A Nutshell 16 страница

extremely important. Where a man had no interest, where he felt he was misplaced,

where he thought he was not appreciated, where he believed his talents were being

misused, invariably we found a potential if not an actual psychiatric casualty. "

Yes-and for the same reasons, a man may " crack up" in industry. If he despises his

business, he can crack it up, too.

Take, for example, the case of Phil Johnson. Phil Johnson's father owned a laundry, so

he gave his son a job, hoping the boy would work into the business. But Phil hated the

laundry, so he dawdled, loafed, did what he had to do and not a lick more. Some days

he was " absent". His father was so hurt to think he had a shiftless, ambitionless son that

he was actually ashamed before his employees.

One day Phil Johnson told his father he wanted to be a mechanic-work in a machine

shop. What? Go back to overalls? The old man was shocked. But Phil had his way. He

worked in greasy dungarees. He did much harder work than was required at the laundry.

He worked longer hours, and he whistled at his job! He took up engineering, learned

about engines, puttered with machines-and when Philip Johnson died, in 1944, he was

president of the Boeing Aircraft Company, and was making the Flying Fortresses that

helped to win the war! If he had stuck with the laundry, what would have happened to

him and the laundry-especially after his father's death? My guess is he would have ruined

the business- cracked it up and run it into the ground.

Even at the risk of starting family rows, I would like to say to young people: Don't feel

compelled to enter a business or trade just because your family wants you to do it!

Don't enter a career unless you want to do it! However, consider carefully the advice of

your parents. They have probably lived twice as long as you have. They have gained the

kind of wisdom that comes only from much experience and the passing of many years.

But, in the last analysis, you are the one who has to make the final decision. You are

the one who is going to be either happy or miserable at your work.

Now, having said this, let me give you the following suggestions-some of them warnings-

about choosing your work:

1. Read and study the following five suggestions about selecting a vocational-guidance

counselor. These suggestions are right from the horse's mouth. They were made by one

of America's leading vocational-guidance experts, Professor Harry Dexter Kitson of

Columbia University.

a. " Don't go to anyone who tells you that he has a magic system that will indicate your

'vocational aptitude'. In this group are phrenologists, astrologers, 'character analysts',

handwriting experts. Their 'systems' do not work. "

b. " Don't go to anyone who tells you that he can give you a test that will indicate what

occupation you should choose. Such a person violates the principle that a vocational

counselor must take into account the physical, social, and economic conditions

surrounding the counselee; and he should render his service in the light of the

occupational opportunities open to the counselee. "

c. " Seek a vocational counselor who has an adequate library of information about

occupations and uses it in the counseling process. "

d. " A thorough vocational-guidance service generally requires more than one interview. "

e. " Never accept vocational guidance by mail. "

2. Keep out of business and professions that are already jam-packed and overflowing!

There are many thousands of different ways of making a living. But do young people

know this? Not unless they hire a swami to gaze into a crystal ball. The result? In one

school, two-thirds of the boys confined their choices to five occupations-five out of

twenty thousand-and four-fifths of the girls did the same. Small wonder that a few

business and professions are overcrowded-small wonder that insecurity, worry, and

" anxiety neuroses" are rampant at times among the white-collar fraternity I Beware of

trying to elbow your way into such overcrowded fields as law, journalism, radio, motion

pictures, and the " glamour occupations".

3. Stay out of activities where the chances are only one out of ten of your being able to

make a living. As an example, take selling life insurance. Each year countless thousands

of men-frequently unemployed men-start out trying to sell life insurance without

bothering to find out in advance what is likely to happen to them! Here is approximately

what does happen, according to Franklin L. Bettger, Real Estate Trust Building,

Philadelphia. For twenty years Mr. Bettger was one of the outstandingly successful

insurance salesmen in America. He declares that ninety per cent of the men who start

selling life insurance get so heartsick and discouraged that they give it up within a year.

Out of the ten who remain, one man will sell ninety per cent of the insurance sold by

the group of ten; and the other nine will sell only ten per cent. To put it another way: if

you start selling life insurance, the chances are nine to one that you will fail and quit

within twelve months, and the chances are only one in a hundred that you will make ten

thousand a year out of it. Even if you remain at it, the chances are only one out of ten

that you will be able to do anything more than barely scratch out a living.

4. Spend weeks-even months, if necessary-finding out all you can about an occupation

before deciding to devote your life to it! How? By interviewing men and women who

have already spent ten, twenty, or forty years in that occupation.

These interviews may have a profound effect on your future. I know that from my own

experience. When I was in my early twenties, I sought the vocational advice of two

older men. As I look back now, I can see that those two interviews were turning points

in my career. In fact, it would be difficult for me even to imagine what my life would

have been like had I not had those two interviews.

How can you get these vocational-guidance interviews? To illustrate, let's suppose that

you are thinking about studying to be an architect. Before you make your decision, you

ought to spend weeks interviewing the architects in your city and in adjoining cities.

You can get their names and addresses out of a classified telephone directory. You can

call at their offices either with or without an appointment. If you wish to make an

appointment, write them something like this:

Won't you please do me a little favour? I want your advice. I am eighteen years old, and

I am thinking about studying to be an architect. Before I make up my mind, I would like

to ask your advice.

If you are too busy to see me at your office, I would be most grateful if you would grant

me the privilege of seeing you for half an hour at your home.

Here is a list of questions I would like to ask you:

a. If you had your life to live over, would you become an architect again?

b. After you have sized me up, I want to ask you whether you think I have what it takes

to succeed as an architect.

c. Is the profession of architecture overcrowded?

d. If I studied architecture for four years, would it be difficult for me to get a job? What

kind of job would I have to take at first?

e. If I had average ability, how much could I hope to earn during the first five years?

f. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an architect?

g. If I were your son, would you advise me to become an architect?

If you are timid, and hesitate to face a " big shot" alone, here are two suggestions that

will help.

First, get a lad of your own age to go with you. The two of you will bolster up one

another's confidence. If you haven't someone of your own age to go with you, ask your

father to go with you.

Second, remember that by asking his advice you are paying this man a compliment. He

may feel flattered by your request. Remember that adults like to give advice to young

men and women. The architect will probably enjoy the interview.

If you hesitate to write letters asking for an appointment, then go to a man's office

without an appointment and tell him you would be most grateful if he would give you a

bit of advice.

Suppose you call on five architects and they are all too busy to see you (which isn't

likely), call on five more. Some of them will see you and give you priceless advice-

advice that may save you years of lost time and heartbreak.

Remember that you are making one of the two most vital and far-reaching decisions of

your life. So, take time to get the facts before you act. If you don't, you may spend half

a lifetime regretting it.

If you can afford to do so, offer to pay a man for a half-hour of his time and advice.

5. Get over the mistaken belief that you are fitted for only a single occupation! Every

normal person can succeed at a number of occupations, and every normal person would

probably fail in many occupations. Take myself, for example: if I had studied and

prepared myself for the following occupations, I believe I would have had a good chance

of achieving some small measure of success-and also of enjoying my work. I refer to

such occupations as farming, fruit growing, scientific agriculture, medicine, selling,

advertising, editing a country newspaper, teaching, and forestry. On the other hand, I

am sure I would have been unhappy, and a failure, at bookkeeping, accounting,

engineering, operating a hotel or a factory, architecture, all mechanical trades, and

hundreds of other activities.

--------------------------------

Chapter 30: " Seventy Per Cent Of All Our Worries... "

If I knew how to solve everybody's financial worries, I wouldn't be writing this book, I

would be sitting in the White House-right beside the President. But here is one thing I

can do: I can quote some authorities on this subject and make some highly practical

suggestions and point out where you can obtain books and pamphlets that will give you

additional guidance.

Seventy per cent of all our worries, according to a survey made by the Ladies' Home

Journal, are about money. George Gallup, of the Gallup Poll, says that his research

indicates that most people believe that they would have no more financial worries if

they could increase their income by only ten per cent. That is true in many cases, but in

a surprisingly large number of cases it is not true. For example, while writing this

chapter, I interviewed an expert on budgets: Mrs. Elsie Stapleton-a woman who spent

years as financial adviser to the customers and employees of Wanamaker's Department

Store in New York and of Gimbel's. She has spent additional years as an individual

consultant, trying to help people who were frantic with worry about money. She has

helped people in all kinds of income brackets, all the way from a porter who earned less

than a thousand dollars a year to an executive earning one hundred thousand dollars a

year. And this is what she told me: " More money is not the answer to most people's

financial worries. In fact, I have often seen it happen that an increase in income

accomplished nothing but an increase in spending-and an increase in headaches. What

causes most people to worry, " she said, " is not that they haven't enough money, but that

they don't know how to spend the money they have! " ... [You snorted at that last

sentence, didn't you? Well, before you snort again, please remember that Mrs. Stapleton

did not say that was true of all people. She said: " most people". She didn't mean you.

She meant your sisters and your cousins, whom you reckon by the dozens. ]

A lot of readers are going to say: " I wish this guy Carnegie had my bills to meet, my

obligations to keep up-on my weekly salary. If he did, I'll bet he would change his tune. "

Well, I have had my financial troubles: I have worked ten hours a day at hard physical

labour in the cornfields and hay barns of Missouri-worked until my one supreme wish

was to be free from the aching pains of utter physical exhaustion. I was paid for that

grueling work not a dollar an hour, nor fifty cents, nor even ten cents. I was paid five

cents an hour for a ten-hour day.

I know what it means to live for twenty years in houses without a bathroom or running

water. I know what it means to sleep in bedrooms where the temperature is fifteen

degrees below zero. I know what it means to walk miles to save a nickel car-fare and

have holes in the bottom of my shoes and patches on the seat of my pants. I know what

it means to order the cheapest dish on a restaurant menu, and to sleep with my trousers

under the mattress because I couldn't afford to have them pressed by a tailor.

Yet, even during those times, I usually managed to save a few dimes and quarters out of

my income because I was afraid not to. As a result of this experience, I realised that if

you and I long to avoid debt and financial worries, then we have to do what a business

firm does: we have to have a plan for spending our money and spend according to that

plan. But most of us don't do that. For example, my good friend, Leon Shimkin, general

manager of the firm that publishes this book, pointed out to me a curious blindness that

many people have in regard to their money. He told me about a book-keeper he knows,

a man who is a wizard at figures when working for his firm-yet when it comes to

handling his personal finances! ... Well, if this man gets paid on Friday noon, let us say,

he will walk down the street, see an overcoat in a store window that strikes his fancy,

and buy it-never giving a thought to the fact that rent, electric lights, and all kinds of

" fixed" charges have to come out of that pay envelope sooner or later. No-he has the

cash in his pocket, and that's all that counts. Yet this man knows that if the company he

works for conducted its business in such a slap-happy manner, it would end up in

bankruptcy.

Here's something to consider-where your money is concerned, you're in business for

yourself! And it is literally " your business" what you do with your money.

But what are the principles of managing our money? How do we begin to make a budget

and a plan? Here are eleven rules.

Rule No. 1: Get the facts down on paper.

When Arnold Bennett started out in London fifty years ago to be a novelist, he was poor

and hard-pressed. So he kept a record of what he did with every sixpence. Did he

wonder where his money was going? No. He knew. He liked the idea so much that he

continued to keep such a record even after he became rich, world-famous, and had a

private yacht.

John D. Rockefeller, Sr., also kept a ledger. He knew to the penny just where he stood

before he said his prayers at night and climbed into bed.

You and I, too, will have to get notebooks and start keeping records. For the rest of our

lives? No, not necessarily. Experts on budgets recommend that we keep an accurate

account of every nickel we spend for at least the first month-and, if possible, for three

months. This is to give us an accurate record of where our money goes, so we can draw

up a budget.

Oh, you know where your money goes? Well, maybe so; but if you do, you are one in a

thousand! Mrs. Stapleton tells me it is a common occurrence for men and women to

spend hours giving her facts and figures, so she can get them down on paper-then, when

they see the result on paper, they exclaim: " Is that the way my money goes? " They can

hardly believe it. Are you like that? Could be.

Rule No. 2: Get a tailor-made budget that really fits your needs.

Mrs. Stapleton tells me that two families may live side by side in identical houses, in the

very same suburb, have the same number of children in the family, and receive the

same income-yet their budgeting needs will be radically different. Why? Because people

are different. She says a budget has to be a personal, custom-made job.

The idea of a budget is not to wring all the joy out of life. The idea is to give us a sense

of material security-which in many cases means emotional security and freedom from

worry. " People who live on budgets, " Mrs. Stapleton told me, " are happier people. "

But how do you go about it? First, as I said, you must list all expenses. Then get advice.

In many cities of twenty thousand and up, you will find family-welfare societies that will

gladly give you free advice on financial problems and help you draw up a budget to fit

your income.

Rule No. 3: Learn how to spend wisely.

By this I mean: learn how to get the best value for your money. All large corporations

have professional buyers and purchasing agents who do nothing but get the very best

buys for their firms. As steward and manager of your personal estate, why shouldn't you

do likewise?

Rule No. 4: Don't increase your headaches with your income.

Mrs. Stapleton told me that the budgets she dreads most to be called into consultation

on are family incomes of five thousand dollars a year. I asked her why. " Because, " she

said, " five thousand a year seems to be a goal to most American families. They may go

along sensibly and sanely for years-then, when their income rises to five thousand a

year, they think they have 'arrived'. They start branching out. Buy a house in the

suburbs, 'that doesn't cost any more than renting an apartment'. Buy a car, a lot of new

furniture, and a lot of new clothes-and the first thing you know, they are running into

the red. They are actually less happy than they were before-because they have bitten

off too much with their increase in income. "

That is only natural. We all want to get more out of life. But in the long run, which is

going to bring us more happiness-forcing ourselves to live within a tight budget, or

having dunning letters in the mail and creditors pounding on the front door?

Rule No. 5: Try to build credit, in the event you must borrow.

If you are faced with an emergency and find you must borrow, life-insurance policies,

Defence Bonds and Savings Certificates are literally money in your pocket. However, be

sure your insurance policies have a savings aspect, if you want to borrow on them, for

this means a cash value. Certain types of insurance, called " term insurance", are merely

for your protection over a given period of time and do not build up reserves. These

policies are obviously of no use to you for borrowing purposes. Therefore, the rule is:

Ask questions! Before you sign for a policy, find out if it has a cash value in case you

have to raise money.

Now, suppose you haven't insurance you can borrow on, and you haven't any bonds, but

you do own a house, or a car, or some other kind of collateral. Where do you go to

borrow? By all means, to a bank! Banks all over this land are subject to strict regulation;

they have a reputation to maintain in the community; the rate of interest they can

charge is fixed firmly by law; and they will deal with you fairly. Frequently, if you are in

a financial jam, the bank will go so far as to discuss your problems with you, make a

plan, and help you work your way out of your worry and indebtedness. I repeat, I

repeat, if you have collateral, go to a bank!

However, suppose you are one of the thousands who don't have collateral, don't own any

property, and have nothing to offer as guarantee except your wages or salary? Then, as

you value your life, heed this word of warning! Do not-do not-apply to the first " loan

company" whose alluring advertisements you see in the paper. These people, to read

some of their ads, are as generous as Santa Claus. Don't you believe it! However, there

are some companies that are ethical, honest, and strictly on the level. They are doing a

service to those people who are faced with illness or emergency and have to raise

money. They charge a higher rate of interest than the banks, but they have to do this,

for they take greater risks and have greater expenses in collecting. But, before doing

business with any loan company, go to your bank, talk to one of its officers, and ask him

to recommend a loan company that he knows to be fair. Otherwise-otherwise-well, I

don't want to give you nightmares, but here is what can happen:

At one time a newspaper in Minneapolis conducted an investigation into loan companies

that were supposedly operating within the regulations laid down by the Russell Sage

Foundation. I know a man who worked on that investigation-his name is Douglas Lurton,

and he is now editor of Your Life magazine. Doug Lurton tells me that the abuses he saw

among the poorer class of debtors would make your hair stand on end. Loans that had

begun as a mere fifty dollars had soared and multiplied to three and four hundred

dollars before they were paid. Wages were garnished; and, frequently, the man whose

wages were attached was fired by his company. In numerous instances, when the man

was unable to pay, the loan sharks simply sent an appraiser into his home to " evaluate"

his furniture-and cleaned out the home! People were found who had been paying on

small loans for four and five years and still owed money! Unusual cases? To quote Doug

Lurton: " In our campaign, we so flooded the court with cases of this sort that the judges

cried uncle, and the newspaper itself had to set up an arbitration bureau to take care of

the hundreds of cases. "

How is such a thing possible? Well, the answer, of course, is in all sorts of hidden

charges and extra " legal fees". Here is a rule to remember in dealing with loan

companies: if you are absolutely certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you can

pay the money off quickly, then your interest will be low, or reasonably low, and you

will get off fairly. But if you have to renew, and keep on renewing, then your interest

can mount into figures that would make Einstein dizzy. Doug Lurton tells me that in

some cases these additional fees had swollen the original indebtedness to two thousand

per cent, or about five hundred times as much as a bank would charge!

Rule No. 6: Protect yourself against illness, fire, and emergency expenses.

Insurance is available, for relatively small sums, on all kinds of accidents, misfortunes,

and conceivable emergencies. I am not suggesting that you cover yourself for everything

from slipping in the bathtub to catching German measles-but I do suggest that you

protect yourself against the major misfortunes that you know could cost you money and

therefore do cost you worry. It's cheap at the price.

For example, I know a woman who had to spend ten days in a hospital last year and,

when she came out, was presented a bill-for exactly eight dollars! The answer? She had

hospital insurance.

Rule No. 7: Do not have your life-insurance proceeds paid to your widow in cash.

If you are carrying life insurance to provide for your family after you're gone, do not, I

beg of you, have your insurance paid in one lump sum.

What happens to " a new widow with new money"? I'll let Mrs. Marion S. Eberly answer

that question. She is head of the Women's Division of the Institute of Life Insurance, 60

East 42nd Street, New York City. She speaks before women's clubs all over America on

the wisdom of using life-insurance proceeds to purchase a life income for the widow

instead of giving her the proceeds in cash. She tells me one widow who received twenty

thousand dollars in cash and lent it to her son to start in the auto-accessory business.

The business failed, and she is destitute now. She tells of another widow who was

persuaded by a slick real-estate salesman to put most of her life-insurance money in

vacant lots that were " sure to double in value within a year". Three years later, she sold

the lots for one-tenth of what she paid for them. She tells of another widow who had to

apply to the Child Welfare Association for the support of her children-within twelve

months after she had been left fifteenth thousand dollars in life insurance. A hundred

thousand similar tragedies could be told.

" The average lifetime of twenty-five thousand dollars left in the hands of a woman is

less than seven years. " That statement was made by Sylvia S. Porter, financial editor of

the New York Post, in the Ladies' Home Journal.

Years ago, The Saturday Evening Post said in an editorial: " The ease with which the

average widow without business training, and with no banker to advise her, can be

wheedled into putting her husband's life-insurance money into wildcat stocks by the first

slick salesman who approaches her- is proverbial. Any lawyer or banker can cite a dozen

cases in which the entire savings of a thrifty man's lifetime, amassed by years of