Lesson Nine - The Habit of Doing More Than What You are Paid

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​Remember, these lessons were written more than one hundred years ago, but the foundation upon which they were written remains steadfast in today's modern world. All very successful men in today's world, such as, Bill Gates, Jeff Bazos, Elon Musk, Donald Trump apply this lesson to their daily life.

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It may seem to be a departure from the subject of this lesson to start the lesson with a discussion of love, but, if you will reserve your opinion until you have completed the lesson, you may be ready to agree that the subject of love could not have been omitted without impairing the value of the lesson.

 

The word "love" is here used in an all-embracing sense! There are many objects, motives and people which arouse one's love-nature. There is some work which we do not like, some that we do like moderately, and, under certain conditions, there may be work that we actually LOVE!

 

Great artists, for example, generally love their work.

 

The day laborer, on the other hand, usually not only dislikes his work, but may actually hate it. Work which one does merely for the sake of earning a living is seldom liked. More often it is disliked, or even hated.

 

When engaged in work which he loves, a man may labor for an unbelievably long period of hours without becoming fatigued.

 

Work that a man dislikes or hates brings on fatigue very quickly.

 

A man's endurance, therefore, depends very largely on the extent to which he likes, dislikes or loves that which he is doing.

 

We are here laying the foundation, as you will of course observe, for the statement of one of the most important laws of this philosophy. 

 

A man is most efficient and will more quickly and easily succeed when engaged in work that he loves, or work that he performs in behalf of some person whom he loves.

 

Whenever the element of love enters into any task that one performs, the quality of the work becomes immediately improved and the quantity increased, without a corresponding increase in the fatigue caused by the work.

 

Some years ago a group of socialists, or perhaps they called themselves "co-operators," organized a colony in Louisiana, purchased several hundred acres of farm land, and started to work out an ideal which they believed would give them greater happiness in life and fewer of the worries through a system that provided each person with work at the sort of labor he liked best. Their idea was to pay no wages to anyone.

 

Each person did the work he liked best, or that for which he might be best equipped, and the products of their combined labors became the property of all.

 

• They had their own dairy,

• their own brick-making plant,

• their own cattle, poultry, etc.

• they had their own schools and a printing plant through which they published a paper

 

A gentleman from Minnesota named Sven joined the colony, and at his own request he was placed at work in the printing plant.

 

Very soon he complained that he did not like the work, so he was changed and put to work on the farm, operating a tractor. Two days of this was all he could stand, so he again applied for a transfer, and was assigned to the dairy. He could not get along with the cows, so he was once more changed, to the laundry, where he lasted but one day.

 

One by one he tried every job on the works, but liked none of them. It had begun to look as if he did not fit in with the "co-operative" idea of living, and he was about to withdraw when someone happened to think of one job he had not yet tried - in the brick plant, so he was given a wheelbarrow and put to work wheeling bricks from the kilns and stacking them in piles, in the brick yard.

 

A week's time went by and no complaint was registered by him. When asked if he liked his job he replied, "This be just the job I like." Imagine anyone preferring a job wheeling bricks!

 

However, that job suited the Swede's nature, he worked alone, at a task which called for no thought, and placed upon him no responsibility, which was just what he wanted. He remained at the job until all the bricks had been wheeled out and stacked, then withdrew from the colony because there was no more brick work to be done. "The nice quiet job be finished, so I think I can go back to Minney-so-tie," and back to "Minney-sotie" he went!

 

When a man is engaged in work that he loves it is no hardship for him to do more work and better work than that for which he is paid, and for this very reason every man owes it to himself to do his best to find the sort of work he likes best.

 

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I have a perfect right to offer this advice to the students of this philosophy for the reason that I have followed it, myself, without reason to regret having done so.

 

This seems to be an appropriate place to inject a little personal history concerning both the author and the Law of Success philosophy, the purpose of which is to show that labor performed in a spirit of love for the sake of the labor, itself, never has been and never will be lost.

 

This entire lesson is devoted to the offering of evidence that it really pays to render more service and better service than one is paid to render. What an empty and useless effort this would be if the author had not, himself, practiced this rule long enough to be able to say just how it works out.

 

For over a quarter of a century I have been engaged in the labor of love out of which this philosophy has been developed, and I am perfectly sincere when I repeat that which I have stated elsewhere in this course, that I have been amply paid for my labors, by the pleasure I have had as I went along, even if I received nothing more.

 

My labors on this philosophy made it necessary, many years ago, for me to choose between immediate monetary returns, which I might have enjoyed by directing my efforts along purely commercial lines, and remuneration that comes in later years, and which is represented by both the usual financial standards and other forms of pay which can be measured only in terms of accumulated knowledge that enables one to enjoy the world about him more keenly.

 

The man who engages in work that he loves best does not always have the support, in his choice, of his closest friends and relatives. Combating negative suggestions from friends and relatives has required an alarming proportion of my energies, during the years that I have been engaged in research work for the purpose of gathering, organizing, classifying and testing the material which has gone into this course.

 

These personal references are made solely for the purpose of showing the students of this philosophy that seldom, if ever, can one hope to engage in the work one loves best without meeting with obstacles of some nature.

 

Generally, the chief obstacles in the way of one engaging in the sort of work one loves best is that it may not be the work which brings the greatest remuneration at the start. To offset this disadvantage, however, the one who engages in the sort of work he loves is generally rewarded with two very decided benefits, namely; first, he usually finds in such work the greatest of all rewards, HAPPINESS, which is priceless, and secondly, his actual reward in money, when averaged over a life-time of effort, is generally much greater, for the reason that labor which is performed in a spirit of love is usually greater in quantity and finer in quality than that which is performed solely for money.

 

The most embarrassing and, I might without any intention of disrespect say, the most disastrous opposition to my choice of a life-work came from my wife.

 

This, perhaps, will explain why I have made frequent references, in many of the lessons of this course, to the fact that a man's wife may either "make" or "break" him, according to the extent to which she gives or withholds co-operation and encouragement in connection with his chosen work.

 

My wife's idea was that I should accept a salaried position that would insure a regular monthly income, because I had shown, by the few salaried positions I had held, that I had marketable ability which should command an income of from $6,000.00 to $10,000.00 a year without any very great effort on my part.

 

In a way I saw my wife's viewpoint and was in sympathy with it, because we had young growing children coming on who needed clothes and education, and a regular salary, even though it were not large, seemed to be a necessity. Despite this logical argument, however, I chose to override my wife's counsel.

 

Came, then, to her rescue, the combined forces of her family and mine, and collectively they charged me, head-on, with what amounted to a command to right-about-face and settle down on a salary basis.

 

Studying other people might be all right for a man who had the time to spend in this "unprofitable" manner, they reasoned, but for a young married man with a growing family this seemed hardly the thing to do.

 

But I remained adamant! I had made my choice and I was determined to stand by it.

 

The opposition did not yield to my viewpoint, but gradually, of course, it melted away. Meanwhile, the knowledge that my choice had worked at least a temporary hardship on my family, combined with the thought that my dearest friends and relatives were not in harmony with me, greatly increased my labors.

 

Fortunately, not all of my friends believed my choice unwise! There were a few friends who not only believed I was following a course that would ultimately bring me out somewhere near the top of the mountain of useful achievement, but, in addition to believing in my plans, they actually went out of their way to encourage me not to be whipped by either adversity or the opposition of relatives.

 

Of this small group of faithful ones who gave me encouragement at a time when it was badly needed, perhaps one man should have the fullest credit, and this man is Edwin C. Barnes, a business associate of Thomas A. Edison.

 

Mr. Barnes became interested in my chosen work nearly twenty years ago, and I owe it to him to state here that had it not been for his unwavering faith in the soundness of the Law of Success philosophy I would have yielded to the persuasion of my friends and sought the way of least resistance via the salary route.

 

This would have saved me much grief and an almost endless amount of criticism, but it would have wrecked the hopes of a life-time, and in the end I would in all probability have lost, also, the finest and most desirable of all things, HAPPINESS! for I have been extremely happy in my work, even during the periods when the remuneration it brought me could be measured by nothing but a mountain of debts which I could not for the moment pay. Perhaps this may explain, to some extent, why the subject of slavery through debt was so extensively emphasized in Lesson Four, on the Habit of Saving.

 

We want that lesson to "sink in." Edwin Barnes not only believed in the soundness of the Law of Success philosophy, but his own financial success had demonstrated, as had also his close business relationship with the greatest inventor on earth, that he had the right to speak with authority on the subject of the laws through which success may be achieved.

 

I began my work of research with the belief that success could be attained, by anyone with reasonable intelligence and a real desire to succeed, by following certain (then by me unknown) rules of procedure. I wanted to know what these rules were and how they could be applied. Mr. Barnes believed as I did. Moreover, he was in a position to know that the astounding achievements of his business associate, Mr. Edison, came about entirely through the application of some of the principles which later were tested and included as a part of this philosophy.

 

From his way of thinking it seemed that the accumulation of money, enjoying peace of mind and finding happiness could be brought about by the application of never-varying laws which anyone might master and apply.

 

That was my belief, also.

 

That belief has now been transformed into not merely a provable, but a PROVED reality, as I hope every student of this course will have reason to understand when the course shall have been mastered.

 

Please keep in mind that during all these years of research I was not only applying the law covered by this lesson, by DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR, but, I was going much further than this by doing work for which I did not, at the time I was doing it, hope ever to receive pay.

 

Thus, out of years of chaos, adversity and opposition this philosophy was finally completed and reduced to manuscripts, ready for publication.

 

For a time nothing happened!

 

I was resting on my oars, so to speak, before taking the next step toward placing the philosophy in the hands of people who I had reason to believe would welcome it.

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"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform!"

During the earlier years of my experience I thought these words to be empty and meaningless,

but I have since modified my belief considerably.

 

I was invited to deliver an address in Canton, Ohio. My coming had been well advertised and there was reason to expect that I would have a large audience. To the contrary, conflicting meetings being held by two large groups of business men reduced my audience to the lucky number of "thirteen."

 

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

 

I went at my subject as though the hall were filled.

 

Somehow there arose in me a sort of feeling of resentment on account of the way the

"wheel of fate" had turned against me, and if I ever made a convincing speech -

I made it that night. Down deep in my heart, however, I thought I had failed!

 

I did not know until the next day that I was making history the night before that was destined to give the Law of Success philosophy its first real impetus.

 

One of the men who sat in my audience, as one of the "thirteen," was the late Don R. Mellett, who was then the publisher of the Canton Daily News, brief reference to whom I made in the Introductory Lesson of this course.

 

After I had finished speaking, I slipped out at the back door and returned to my hotel, not wanting to face any of my "thirteen" victims on the way out.

 

The next day, I was invited to Mr. Mellett's office. Inasmuch as it was he who had taken the initiative by inviting me in to see him, I left it to him to do most of the talking.

 

He began in something like this fashion: "Would you mind telling me your entire lifestory, from the days of your early childhood on up to the present?"

 

I told him I would do so if he could stand the burden of listening to so long a narrative.

 

He said he could, but before I began he cautioned me not to omit the unfavorable side.

 

"What I wish you to do," said he, "is to mix the fat with the lean and let me take a look at your very soul, not from its most favorable side, but from all sides."

 

For three hours I talked while Mellett listened! I omitted nothing. I told him of my struggles, of my mistakes, of my impulses to be dishonest when the tides of fortune swept against me too swiftly, and of my better judgment which prevailed in the end, but only after my conscience and I had engaged in prolonged combat.

 

I told him how I conceived the idea of organizing the Law of Success philosophy, how I had gone about gathering the data that had gone into the philosophy, of the tests I had made which resulted in the elimination of some of the data and the retention of other parts of it.

 

After I had finished Mellett said: "I wish to ask you a very personal question, and I hope you will answer it as frankly as you have told the remainder of your story. Have you accumulated any money from your efforts, and, if not, do you know why you have not?"

 

"No!" I replied. "I have accumulated nothing but experience and knowledge and a few debts, and the reason, while it may not be sound, is easily explained. The truth is that I have been so busy all these years in trying to eliminate some of my own ignorance so I could intelligently gather and organize the data that have gone into the Law of Success philosophy, that I have had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to turn my efforts to making money."

 

The serious look on Don Mellett's face, much to my surprise, softened into a smile as he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "I knew the answer before you stated it, but I wondered if you knew it. You probably know that you are not the only man who has had to sacrifice immediate monetary remuneration for the sake of gathering knowledge, for in truth your experience has been that of every philosopher from the time of Socrates down to the present."

 

Those words fell as the sound of music upon my ears!

 

I had made one of the most embarrassing admissions of my life; I had laid my soul bare, admitting temporary defeat at almost every cross-road which I had passed in my struggles, and I had capped all this off by admitting that an exponent of the Law of Success was, himself, a temporary failure!

 

How incongruous it seemed! I felt stupid, humiliated and embarrassed as I sat in front of the most searching pair of eyes and the most inquisitive man I had ever met. The absurdity of it all came over me like a flash - THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUCCESS, CREATED AND BROADCASTED BY A MAN WHO WAS OBVIOUSLY A FAILURE! This thought struck me so forcibly that I expressed it into words.

 

"What?" Mellett exclaimed, "a failure? Surely you know the difference between failure and temporary defeat," he continued. "No man is a failure who creates a single idea, much less an entire philosophy, that serves to soften the disappointments and minimize the hardships of generations yet unborn."

 

I wondered what was the object of this interview. My first conjecture was that Mellett wanted some facts on which to base an attack, in his newspaper, on the Law of Success philosophy.

 

Perhaps this thought grew out of some of my previous experiences with newspaper men, a few of whom had been antagonistic toward me.

 

At any rate, I decided at the outset of the interview to give him the facts, without embellishment, come from it what would.

 

Before I left Mellett's office we had become business partners, with the understanding that he would resign as publisher of the Canton Daily News and take over the management of all my affairs, as soon as this could be arranged.

 

Meanwhile, I began writing a series of Sunday feature-page editorials which were published in the Canton Daily News, based upon the Law of Success philosophy.

 

One of these editorials (the one entitled "Failure," which appears in the back of one of the lessons of this course) came to the attention of judge Elbert H. Gary, who was at that time the Chairman of the Board of the United States Steel Corporation.

 

This resulted in the opening of communication between Mellett and Judge Gary, which, in turn, led to judge Gary's offer to purchase the Law of Success course for the use of the employees of the Steel Corporation, in the manner described in the Introductory Lesson.

 

The tides of fortune had begun to turn in my favor!

 

The seeds of service which I had been sowing over a long period of toilsome years, by

DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR, were beginning to germinate at last!

 

Despite the fact that my partner was assassinated before our plans had much more than started, and Judge Gary died before the Law of Success philosophy could be re-written so it conformed to his requirements, the "love's labor lost" on that fateful night, when I spoke to an audience of thirteen in Canton, Ohio, started a chain of events which now move rapidly without thought or effort on my part.

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Lesson Nine - The Habit of Doing More Than What You are Paid

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