Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-09-04
AFRAID TO FAIL?
NOHOPEFOR YOU
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX

If you are afraid to fail you need
not hope ever to succeed! The man
or woman who knows how to digest
defeat" has conquered it. Experience
is knowledge that is largely made up
of knowing how to do things because
you have found out how not to do
them.
BY a process of elimination any
clever man with plenty of stickto-
itiveness in his nature will be able to
figure out the right way to do a
thing just because he has failed
through trying to do it in all the
wrong ways.
Sitting and wishing you are in
Chicago won't transport you there
Building castles in the air" doesn't
set up even the foundation stones
of frame cottage on a plot of real
ground. Wishing for things, dream
ing about them, even trying to i'm
agine that you can obtain them,
won't make them come true for
you.
The only fairy wand there is to
wave is that of intelligent effort.
After the sales manager of any
corporation has spent a long time
in explaining to a new man how to
place a consignment of goods the
new man has some perfectly good
IneOTleS WHICH OuBHI 10 WOIhs DuJ
If they don't and he fails in that
job, he may go to his next one really
equipped to sell because he has tried
it a few times and failed at it.
Adjusting his personality to meet
the needs of the world, studying the
requirements of the world and try
ing to make it feel that he has some
thing to offer, are part of the edu-
cation, part of the equipment, part
of the very requirements for every
mans task.
Mistakes made on Monday may be
stepping stones to success on Tues
day. Regretting builders, worrying
about them, fearing lest they be re-
peated and being too terror-strick-
en- to try again because once you
have gone wrong are perfectly good
assurances of-failure. Eliminate
timidity and you have even in Mon
days complete failure the promise
of Tuesdays success.
A brilliant and successful woman
who has triumphed in hard SELL
ing game told me the story of her
beginning. When sudden overwhelm-
ing poverty took practically all she
had from her she saved a long coat
of real sealskin. with which to mask
the shabbiness which she feared
might be here all through the long
winter. Then she took the position
which influence had gotten for her.
And an undesirable enough position
it seemed! With two great packing
trunks full of samples, she started
off to sell all sorts of knit goods to
the dry good stores of Maine.
The very first store she visited
seemed we'll impressed by her goods.
She took pains to show them ad-
vantageously and felt that the sale
was almost assured when the buyer
asked her to return the next after
noon, since he had seen only one
line which. compared with hers in
any way.
When she returned the next day
the buyer took her into his private
office and said to her very frankly:
Mrs. S., I'm going to be very honest
with you. I like your line fully as
well as that the other people are
showing and our prices are just as
good. It's toss up between you,
and ordinarily I'd divide the order.
But the man who's showing the
other line is so shabby, he has a
family to support and he needs our
order, so we've giving it to him. It
won't matter to a woman in your
position"
Out of that little prank of fate.