The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1889-03-20
PRENTICE MULFORD'S
Good Advice on Business Matters.-Why
Men do not Succeed.

any use Ill your DoluS ON6THDelu6u
with business" You should not LET
any thing overwhelm you. You're
the worse off for being overwhelmed
by any thing. The fact is, more than
half you do and expend your time
and struggle on isn't business at all.
You'll stand and talk with a man for
half an hour, when neither of you
have anything to say, and when
you're through, you'll suddenly recol-
lect you're late for your train or your
interviews with somebody else. Then
you rush off in hurry. You carry
hurry with you. You infect every
body with it you meet. You carry
on your interviews in a hurry, think
ing all the time Of the next thing
you've got to do. You leave the busi-
ness concerned in that interview
about half done because you were
not able to fix or center your mind
wholly on it. You leave business
with tags and loose ends. You are
always in fret and worry because of
the consequence of your hurried state
of mind-and you call all this "busi-
ness"
You have "forty things" to think of
and do at once. You shouldn't have
forty things to do at once. You
should have only one thing to do at
once. That's business. You mislay
things. Yeu forget things. You
tuck important papers away in un-
important and obscure rat holes,
hardly conscious of what you're do
ing. You lose minutes, hours and
strength in looking for them. You
call that business. All your mistakes
and worries you dignity by the name
of business. You get in hurry and
forget where you've laid your hat,
and you call the hunting of that hat
business" Well, it is business, but
it's the wrong kind of business. You
get your thread in tangle instead of
properly wound ball and you call
the tangle business. You carry a
tangle around with you in your head
and call it business. You carry
your tangle to bed with you. You
think it over and over The same
old tangle,all night, instead of sleep
ing as you should to get strength for
tomorrow, and you call that "busi-
ness" Real business is making a
business of sleep when the time
comes to sleep and not going to work
when you should go to sleep. You've
no more business carrying your work
to bed with you then q wood sawyer
has to carry his saw and buck to bed
with him.
You're worry and a pressure and
nuisance at times to your friends
and those who are trying to be your
friends in always talking about the
load you have to carry in your busi-
ness. The less ofa load business is
to man the better he does business.
Ii you're horse jockey and it's a
pleasure for you to sell horses, you'll
sell horses and possibly sell the peo-
pie you sell them to. But If it's q
load and worry and an annoyance
for you to sell horses, then you won't
sell many. The more a man loves his
work the less of load it is to him
and the better he succeeds in his
work. The thing that's best done is
the thing or act that gives most
pleasure in the doing. A live sales
man loves to sell goods. A dead
salesman who looks like a funeral
when he's selling goods and mourns
while selling them that he must sell
them won't sell many goods. Your
idea of business" for the last ten
years has been the borrowing of S10,-
600 from anybody who was simple
enough to lend it to you to start the
business" You will then in three
years time spend $1,000 on yourself,
lose the other $1,000 and wind up
with nothing.
You had no idea of doing any one a
wrong or deceiving any one. But
when You gothic money you cheated
yourself into the delusion that your
own expenses were a very necessary
part OF the business and you were
tempted to enlarge the expenses.
You're always in this way chasing a
phantom and getting out Of one busi-
ness into another. Your real business
is that of losing other peoples money.
Your real business is that of cheating
other people into your own decisions
You are the most dangerous of all
swindlers because you are really
honest and a believer in your own
swindle. You see millions in it."
and magnetIze other people into see
ing your shadowy millions. You
have considerable ability as talker,
a reasoner, prevailer. You are the
man that can make others see gold
mine in hill of barren rock. You
are man who can cover in imagina-
ton a mud fat or sand waste with a
full built town and make corner lots
worth thousands before the stakes
are driven and while the frogs are
concerting upon them.
When you are talking business you
don't talk to the center, the pith, the
rule of the thing. You don't aim at
any bulrs-eye. You hum and haw,
and talk all around the board, and all
round what you've got to say or to
propose, because you're afraid to say
it. You never know exactly what you
want yourself. Of course you cant
then make others know what you
want. You always want to get lit
tie more out OF man than what you
say you want. That's one reason why
so many times you get nothing at all.
You lose too much time IN feeling
around and taking soundings. When
the main channel is marked and
buoyed out straight before, and that
channel is the talking straight out of
what Won want TO do to the other man