Lesson Eight - Self Control / Mastering Ones Self

Page - 1.., 2.., 3..  4...

​

​

​

​

Before you can develop the habit of perfect selfcontrol you must understand the real need for this quality. Also, you must understand the advantages which self-control provides those who have learned how to exercise it.

 

By developing self-control you develop, also, other qualities that will add to your personal power.

 

Among other laws which are available to the person who exercises self-control is the Law of Retaliation. You know what "retaliate" means! In the sense that we are using here it means to "return like for like," and not merely to avenge or to seek revenge, as is commonly meant by the use of this word.

 

If I do you an injury you retaliate at first opportunity. If I say unjust things about you, you will retaliate in kind, even in greater measure! On the other hand, if I do you a favor you will reciprocate even in greater measure if possible. Through the proper use of this law I can get you to do whatever I wish you to do.

 

If I wish you to dislike me and to lend your influence toward damaging me, I can accomplish this result by inflicting upon you the sort of treatment that I want you to inflict upon me through retaliation. If I wish your respect, your friendship and your co-operation I can get these by extending to you my friendship and co-operation.

 

On these statements I know that we are together. You can compare these statements with your own experience and you will see how beautifully they harmonize.

 

How often have you heard the remark, "What a wonderful personality that person has." How often have you met people whose personalities you coveted? The man who attracts you to him through his pleasing personality is merely making use of the Law of Harmonious Attraction, or the Law of Retaliation, both of which, when analyzed, mean that "like attracts like." 

 

If you will study, understand and make intelligent use of the Law of Retaliation you will be an efficient and successful salesman. When you have mastered this simple law and learned how to use it you will have learned all that can be learned about salesmanship.

 

The first and probably the most important step to be taken in mastering this law is to cultivate complete self-control. You must learn to take all sorts of punishment and abuse without retaliating in kind. This self-control is a part of the price you must pay for mastery of the Law of Retaliation.

 

When an angry person starts in to vilify and abuse you, justly or unjustly, just remember that if you retaliate in a like manner you are being drawn down to that person's mental level, therefore that person is dominating you!

 

On the other hand, if you refuse to become angry, if you retain your self-composure and remain calm and serene you retain all your ordinary faculties through which to reason. You take the other fellow by surprise. You retaliate with a weapon with the use of which he is unfamiliar, consequently you easily dominate him. Like attracts like! There's no denying this!

 

Literally speaking, every person with whom you come in contact is a mental looking-glass in which you may see a perfect reflection of your own mental attitude.

 

As an example of direct application of the Law of Retaliation, let us cite an experience that I recently had with my two small boys, Napoleon Junior and James. We were on our way to the park to feed the birds and squirrels. Napoleon junior had bought a bag of peanuts and James had bought a box of "Crackerjack."

 

James took a notion to sample the peanuts. Without asking permission he reached over and made a grab for the bag. He missed and Napoleon junior "retaliated" with his left fist which landed rather briskly on James' jaw. I said to James: "Now, see here, son, you didn't go about getting those peanuts in the right manner. Let me show you how to get them."

 

It all happened so quickly that I hadn't the slightest idea when I spoke what I was going to suggest to James, but I sparred for time to analyze the occurrence and work out a better way, if possible, than that adopted by him.

 

Then I thought of the experiments we had been making in connection with the Law of Retaliation, so I said to James: "Open your box of `Crackerjack' and offer your little brother some and see what happens."

 

After considerable coaxing I persuaded him to do this. Then a remarkable thing happened - a happening out of which I learned my greatest lesson in salesmanship! Before Napoleon would touch the "Crackerjack" he insisted on pouring some of his peanuts into James' overcoat pocket.

 

He "retaliated in kind!"

 

Out of this simple experiment with two small boys I learned more about the art of managing them than I could have learned in any other manner. Incidentally, my boys are beginning to learn how to manipulate this Law of Retaliation which saves them many a physical combat.

 

None of us have advanced far beyond Napoleon Junior and James as far as the operation and influence of the Law of Retaliation is concerned. We are all just grown-up children and easily influenced through this principle.

 

The habit of "retaliating in kind" is so universally practiced among us that we can properly call this habit the Law of Retaliation.

 

If a person presents us with a gift we never feel satisfied until we have "retaliated" with something as good or better than that which we received. If a person speaks well of us we increase our admiration for that person, and we "retaliate" in return!

 

Through the principle of retaliation we can actually convert our enemies into loyal friends. If you have an enemy whom you wish to convert into a friend you can prove the truth of this statement if you will forget that dangerous millstone hanging around your neck, which we call "pride" (stubbornness).

 

Make a habit of speaking to this enemy with unusual cordiality. Go out of your way to favor him in every manner possible. He may seem immovable at first, but gradually he will give way to your influence and "retaliate in kind!"

 

The hottest coals of fire ever heaped upon the head of one who has wronged you

are the coals of human kindness.

 

One morning in August, 1863, a young clergyman was called out of bed in a hotel at Lawrence, Kansas. The man who called him was one of Quantrell's guerrillas, and he wanted him to hurry downstairs and be shot.

 

All over the border that morning people were being murdered. A band of raiders had ridden in early to perpetrate the Lawrence massacre. The guerrilla who called the clergyman was impatient.

 

The latter, when fully awake, was horrified by what he saw going on through his window. As he came downstairs the guerrilla demanded his watch and money, and then wanted to know if he was an abolitionist.

 

The clergyman was trembling. But he decided that if he was to die then and there it would not be with a lie on his lips. So he said that he was, and followed up the admission with a remark that immediately turned the whole affair into another channel.

 

He and the guerrilla sat down on the porch, while people were being killed through the town, and had a long talk. It lasted until the raiders were ready to leave. When the clergyman's guerrilla mounted to join his confederates he was strictly on the defensive. He handed back the New Englander's valuables, apologized for disturbing him and asked to be thought well of.

 

That clergyman lived many years after the Lawrence massacre. What did he say to the guerrilla? What was there in his personality that led the latter to sit down and talk? What did they talk about? "Are you a Yankee abolitionist?" the guerrilla had asked. "Yes, I am," was the reply, "and you know very well that you ought to be ashamed of what you're doing"

 

This drew the matter directly to a moral issue. It brought the guerrilla up roundly. The clergyman was only a stripling beside this seasoned border ruffian. But he threw a burden of moral proof on to the raider, and in a moment the latter was trying to demonstrate that he might be a better fellow than circumstances would seem to indicate.

 

After waking this New Englander to kill him on account of his politics, he spent twenty minutes on the witness stand trying to prove an alibi. He went into his personal history at length. He explained matters from the time when he had been a tough little kid who wouldn't say his prayers, and became quite sentimental in recalling how one thing had led to another, and that to something worse, until - well, here he was, and "a mighty bad business to be in, pardner." His last request in riding away was: "Now, pardner, don't think too hard of me, will you?"

 

The New England clergyman made use of the Law of Retaliation, whether he knew it at that time or not. Imagine what would have happened had he come downstairs with a revolver in his hand and started to meet physical force with physical force! But he didn't do this! He mastered the guerrilla because he fought him with a force that was unknown to the brigand.

 

Why is it that when once a man begins to make money the whole world seems to beat a pathway to his door?

 

Take any person that you know who enjoys financial success and he will tell you that he is being constantly sought, and that opportunities to make money are constantly being urged upon him!

 

"To him that hath shall be given, but to him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he bath" This quotation from the Bible used to seem ridiculous to me, yet how true it is when reduced to its concrete meaning.

 

Yes, "to him that hath shall be given!" If he "hath" failure, lack of self-confidence, hatred or lack of self-control, to him shall these qualities be given in still greater abundance!

 

But, if he "hath" success, self-confidence, self-control, patience, persistence and determination, to him shall these qualities be increased!

 

Sometimes it may be necessary to meet force with force until we overpower our opponent or adversary, but while he is down is a splendid time to complete the "retaliation" by taking him by the hand and showing him a better way to settle disputes.

 

Like attracts like!

 

Germany sought to bathe her sword in human blood, in a ruthless escapade of conquest. As a result she has drawn the "retaliation in kind" of most of the civilized world. It is for you to decide what you want your fellow men to do and it is for you to get them to do it through the Law of Retaliation!

 

"The Divine Economy is automatic and very simple: we receive only that which we give."

 

How true it is that "we receive only that which we give"!

It is not that which we wish for that comes back to us, but that which we give.

 

I implore you to make use of this law, not alone for material gain, but, better still, for the attainment of happiness and good-will toward men. This, after all, is the only real success for which to strive.

 

SUMMARY In this lesson we have learned a great principle - probably the most important major principle of psychology! We have learned that our thoughts and actions toward others resemble an electric magnet which attracts to us the same sort of thought and the same sort of action that we, ourselves, create.

 

1. We have learned that "like attracts like," whether in thought or in expression of thought through bodily action.

2. We have learned that the human mind responds, in kind, to whatever thought impressions it receives.

3. We have learned that the human mind resembles mother earth in that it will reproduce a crop of muscular action which corresponds, in kind, to the sensory impressions planted in it.

4. We have learned that kindness begets kindness and unkindness and injustice beget unkindness and injustice.

5. We have learned that our actions toward others, whether of kindness or unkindness, justice or injustice, come back to us, even in a larger measure!

6. We have learned that the human mind responds in kind, to all sensory impressions it receives, therefore we know what we must do to influence any desired action upon the part of another.

7. We have learned that "pride" and "stubbornness" must be brushed away before we can make use of the Law of Retaliation in a constructive way.

8. We have not learned what the Law of Retaliation is, but we have learned how it works and what it will do; therefore, it only remains for us to make intelligent use of this great principle.

 

· · · · · · · · You are now ready to proceed with Lesson Nine, where you will find other laws which harmonize perfectly with those described in this lesson on Selfcontrol.

 

It will require the strongest sort of self-control to enable the beginner to apply the major law of the next lesson, on the Habit of Doing More Than Paid For, but experience will show that the development of such control is more than justified by the results growing out of such discipline.

​

​

​

Lesson Eight - Self Control / Mastering Ones Self

Page - 1.., 2.., 3..  4...