So, that Sunday afternoon, I went directly to my room at the Shanghai Y.M.C.A. and got out my typewriter. I wrote: “I. What am I worrying about?
I am afraid I will be thrown into the Bridge house tomorrow morning.
“Then I typed out the second question:
“2. What can I do about it?
“I spent hours thinking out and writing down the four courses of action I could take-and what the probable consequence of each action would be.
1. I can try to explain to the Japanese admiral. But he “no speak English”. If I try to explain to him through an interpreter, I may stir him up again. That might mean death, for he is cruel, would rather dump me in the Bridge house than bother talking about it.
2. I can try to escape. Impossible. They keep track of me all the time. I have to check in and out of my room at the Y.M.C.A. If I try to escape, I’ll probably be captured and shot.
3. I can stay here in my room and not go near the office again. If I do, the Japanese admiral will be suspicion, will probably send soldiers to get me and throw me into the Bridge-house without giving me a chance to say a word.
4. I can go down to the office as usual on Monday morning. If I do, there is a chance that the Japanese admiral may be so busy that he will not think of what I did. Even if he does think of it, he may have cooled off and may not bother me. If this happens, I am all right. Even if he does bother me, I’ll still have a chance to try to explain to him. So, going down to the office as usual on Monday morning, and acting as if nothing had gone wrong gives me two chances to escape the Bridge-house.
“As soon as I thought it all out and decided to accept the fourth plan-to go down to the office as usual on Monday morning-I felt immensely relieved.
“When I entered the office the next morning, the Japanese admiral sat there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He glared at me as he always did; and said nothing. Six weeks later-thank God-he went back to Tokyo and my worries were ended.
“As I have already said, I probably saved my life by sitting down that Sunday afternoon and writing out all the various steps I could take and then writing down the probable consequences of each step and calmly coming to a decision. If I hadn’t done that, I might have floundered and hesitated and done the wrong thing on the spur of the moment. If I hadn’t thought out my problem and come to a decision, I would have been frantic with worry all Sunday afternoon. I wouldn’t have slept that night. I would have gone down to the office Monday morning with a harassed and worried look; and that alone might have aroused the suspicion of the Japanese admiral and spurred him to act.
“Experience has proved to me, time after time, the enormous value of arriving at a decision. It is the failure to arrive at a fixed purpose, the inability to stop going round and round in maddening circles, that drives men to nervous breakdowns and living hells. I find that fifty per cent of my worries vanishes once I arrive at a clear, definite decision; and another forty per cent usually vanishes once I start to carry out that decision.
“So I banish about ninety per cent of my worries by taking these four steps:
“1. Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.
“2. Writing down what I can do about it.
“3. Deciding what to do.
“4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision.”
Galen Litchfield is now the Far Eastern Director for Starr, Park and Freeman, Inc., III John Street, New York, representing large insurance and financial interests.
In fact, as I said before, Galen Litchfield today is one of the most important American business men in Asia; and he confesses to me that he owes a large part of his success to this method of analysing worry and meeting it head-on.
Why is his method so superb? Because it is efficient, concrete, and goes directly to the heart of the problem. On top of all that, it is climaxed by the third and indispensable rule: Do something about it. Unless we carry out our action, all our fact-finding and analysis is whistling upwind-it’s a sheer waste of energy.
William James said this: “When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.” In this case, William James undoubtedly used the word “care” as a synonym for “anxiety”.) He meant-once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’t begin to hesitate worry and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourself in self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep looking back over your shoulder.
I once asked Waite Phillips, one of Oklahoma’s most prominent oil men, how he carried out decisions. He replied: “I find that to keep thinking about our problems beyond a certain point is bound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes a time when we must decide and act and never look back.”
Why don’t you employ Galen Litchfield’s technique to one of your worries right now?
Here is question No. 1 -What am I worrying about? (Please pencil the answer to that question in the space below.)
Question No. 2 -What can I do about it? (Please write your answer to that question in the space below.)
Question No. 3 -Here is what I am going to do about it.
Question No. 4 -When am I going to start doing it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 5 – How to Eliminate Fifty Per Cent of Tour Business Worries
IF you are a business man, you are probably saying to yourself right now: “The title of this chapter is ridiculous. I have been running my business for nineteen years; and I certainly know the answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tell me how I can eliminate fifty per cent of my business worries-it’s absurd I”
Fair enough-I would have felt exactly the same way myself a few years ago if I had seen this title on a chapter. It promises a lot-and promises are cheap.
Let’s be very frank about it: maybe I won’t be able to help you eliminate fifty per cent of your business worries. In the last analysis, no one can do that, except yourself. But what I can do is to show you how other people have done it-and leave the rest to you!
You may recall that on page 25 of this book I quoted the world-famous Dr. Alexis Carrel as saying: “Business men who do not know how to fight worry die young.”
Since worry is that serious, wouldn’t you be satisfied if I could help you eliminate even ten per cent of your worries? … Yes? … Good! Well, I am going to show you how one business executive eliminated not fifty per cent of his worries, but seventy-five per cent of all the time he formerly spent in conferences, trying to solve business problems.
Furthermore, I am not going to tell you this story about a “Mr. Jones” or a “Mr. X” or “or a man I know in Ohio”- vague stories that you can’t check up on. It concerns a very real person-Leon Shimkin, a partner and general manager of one of the foremost publishing houses in the United States: Simon and Schuster, Rockefeller Centre, New York 20, New York.
Here is Leon Shimkin’s experience in his own words:
“For fifteen years I spent almost half of every business day holding conferences, discussing problems. Should we do this or that-do nothing at all? We would get tense; twist in our chairs; walk the floor; argue and go around in circles. When night came, I would be utterly exhausted. I fully expected to go on doing this sort of thing for the rest of my life. I had been doing it for fifteen years, and it never occurred to me that there was a better way of doing it. If anyone had told me that I could eliminate three-fourths of all the time I spent in those worried conferences, and three-fourths of my nervous strain-I would have thought he was a wild-eyed, slap-happy, armchair optimist. Yet I devised a plan that did just that. I have been using this plan for eight years. It has performed wonders for my efficiency, my health, and my happiness.
“It sounds like magic-but like all magic tricks, it is extremely simple when you see how it is done.
“Here is the secret: First, I immediately stopped the procedure I had been using in my conferences for fifteen years-a procedure that began with my troubled associates reciting all the details of what had gone wrong, and ending up by asking: ‘What shall we do?’ Second, I made a new rule-a rule that everyone who wishes to present a problem to me must first prepare and submit a memorandum answering these four questions:
“Question 1: What is the problem?
(“In the old days we used to spend an hour or two in a worried conference without anyone’s knowing specifically and concretely what the real problem was. We used to work ourselves into a lather discussing our troubles without ever troubling to write out specifically what our problem was.)
“Question 2: What is the cause of the problem?
(“As I look back over my career, I am appalled at the wasted hours I have spent in worried conferences without ever trying to find out clearly the conditions which lay at the root of the problem.)
“Question 3: What are all possible solutions of the problem?
(“In the old days, one man in the conference would suggest one solution. Someone else would argue with him. Tempers would flare. We would often get clear off the subject, and at the end of the conference no one would have written down all the various things we could do to attack the problem.)
“Question 4: What solution do you suggest?
(“I used to go into a conference with a man who had spent hours worrying about a situation and going around in circles without ever once thinking through all possible solutions and then writing down: ‘This is the solution I recommend.’)
“My associates rarely come to me now with their problems. Why? Because they have discovered that in order to answer these four questions they have to get all the facts and think their problems through. And after they have done that they find, in three-fourths of the cases, they don’t have to consult me at all, because the proper solution has popped out like a piece of bread popping out from an electric toaster. Even in those cases where consultation is necessary, the discussion takes about one-third the time formerly required, because it proceeds along an orderly, logical path to a reasoned conclusion.
“Much less time is now consumed in the house of Simon and Schuster in worrying and talking about what is wrong; and a lot more action is obtained toward making those things right.”
My friend, Frank Bettger, one of the top insurance men in America, tells me he not only reduced his business worries, but nearly doubled his income, by a similar method.
“Years ago,” says Frank Bettger, “when I first started to sell insurance, I was filled with a boundless enthusiasm and love for my work. Then something happened. I became so discouraged that I despised my work and thought of giving it up. I think I would have quit-if I hadn’t got the idea, one Saturday morning, of sitting down and trying to get at the root of my worries.
“1. I asked myself first: ‘Just what is the problem?.’ The problem was: that I was not getting high enough returns for the staggering amount of calls I was making. I seemed to do pretty well at selling a prospect, until the moment came for closing a sale. Then the customer would say: ‘Well, I’ll think it over, Mr. Bettger. Come and see me again.’ It was the time I wasted on these follow-up calls that was causing my depression.
“2. I asked myself: ‘What are the possible solutions?’ But to get the answer to that one, I had to study the facts. I got out my record book for the last twelve months and studied the figures.
“I made an astounding discovery! Right there in black and white, I discovered that seventy per cent of my sales had been closed on the very first interview! Twenty-three per cent of my sales had been closed on the second interview! And only seven per cent of my sales had been closed on those third, fourth, fifth, etc., interviews, which were running me ragged and taking up my time. In other words, I was wasting fully one half of my working day on a part of my business which was responsible for only seven per cent of my sales!
“3. ‘What is the answer?’ The answer was obvious. I immediately cut out all visits beyond the second interview, and spent the extra time building up new prospects. The results were unbelievable. In a very short time, I had almost doubled the cash value of every visit I made from a call!”
As I said, Frank Bettger is now one of the best-known life-insurance salesmen in America. He is with Fidelity Mutual of Philadelphia, and writes a million dollars’ worth of policies a year. But he was on the point of giving up. He was on the point of admitting failure-until analysing the problem gave him a boost on the road to success.
Can you apply these questions to your business problems? To repeat my challenge-they can reduce your worries by fifty per cent. Here they are again:
1. What is the problem?
2. What is the CAUSE of the problem?
3. What are all possible solutions to the problem?
4. What solution do you suggest?