Excerpts from

  
The Secret of Power in Business
by Glenn Clark





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Book Description
In this excellent and very hard to find book Glenn Clark outlines positive, sound, biblical principles that can be utilized by anyone to achieve success in any type of business. Chapters include: Teamwork, Fairness to the Customer, Fairness to Employees, Keeping in the Flow, Tithing, Think Straight, One's Duty to Oneself, Enthusiasm and Joy, Reverence toward God.

"There are only two great economic systems in operation in the world today. If Capitalism in the spirit of Christian love can solve the problem of distribution and bring unemployment to an end, it will find itself spreading and recapturing the nations it has lost to its rival. But if Capitalism is permeated with selfishness it will gradually give way to Communism, Technocracy or some other form of Socialism.


The theme of this book is not how to save Capitalism, but to serve as a guide that may help practical businessmen to make God their Senior Partner as they serve their fellowmen."



The Secret to Power in Business

A new science has just been discovered, a science that is already revolutionizing one whole area of the medical profession. In fact, there is not a single area in the entire art of healing that has not felt its influence. I refer to the science of psychosomatics.

The revolutionary idea at the root of this new science is that emotional states can influence health as much as and usually much more than physical states. In other words, the medical profession, after all these years, is just commencing to discover what Jesus, two thousand years ago, stated in very simple terms: "Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man."

And so doctors today, when confronted by a case of asthma, instead of giving pills, say, "Stop your self-pity and break loose from your mother's apron strings"; when confronted with rheumatism say, "Stop your criticism"; when confronted with anemia say, "Stop your unhappiness."

Now if a person's heart can be improved in tone by more love, and if the circulation of the blood is enhanced by more joy, and if other conditions in the body can be brought back to normal through adequate use of peace and harmony, just think of how these same principles might function when applied to business!

When a patient with a sick body comes to a physician the very first thing he does is to find out where the source of infection is, and he then proceeds at once to drain out the poison. In the old days this process was limited to the body alone.

But the new science has revealed that frequently the source of poison is to be found in the mind and soul.

Now let us apply this to the business world. When a sick business is brought to an Efficiency Expert first of all he naturally will look for the "poisons." For instance, he investigates to find out if they have too large a payroll, too many untrained or inefficient workers, or if they are using too poor materials or are located in the wrong districts. Supposing he takes a cue from the medical profession, however, and goes one step further and looks for poisons in the heart and soul of the directors, the managers and the workers.

Let us see if here we can find a new secret for opening a doorway to business success. As a coach of football and track for twenty years, I have found this to be amazingly true in opening doors to athletic success. Let me illustrate . . .



Throw out the Ballast

One day one of my athletes came in my office and said, "There is something wrong with my life. I always thought an athlete had to be tough, and the tougher he was, the better the athlete. But I find that the best athletes on your team are the finest boys in college. I asked the captain what was the big idea. He replied, 'We have found here that if you want to travel far and fast, you must travel light. In other words, you must throw out the ballast.' That has set me to thinking. I know that I can't do my best until I get right inside."

"So there is something you want to get rid of--some ballast?"

"Exactly. That is it."

"Well," I said slowly, "I wonder if you realize that most of what is bad in this world is only something good in the wrong place."

"I don't understand," said the other.

"Well, let us take for example garbage that they feed to chickens and pigs.

Garbage is all right in the garbage can, still better in the trough where the pigs and chickens can eat it. But it is in the wrong place if you keep it in the kitchen."

"That is true," said the boy.

"Suppose a selfish woman is so jealous of her neighbors who own the pigs that she won't put the garbage in the trough, where they can get it, and so she conceals it in a big can in the kitchen. Pretty soon that can is filled and she has to buy another, and then another and another, till the whole kitchen is filled with garbage cans. That would be bad, wouldn't it?"

"You are sure telling me!" exclaimed the boy.

"In the same way, suppose you have a lot of energy and you keep it shut in for your own selfish uses, it becomes cruelty, doesn't it? And thrift shut in for your own self becomes covetousness; love used for selfish gratification becomes lust; self-confidence that eats in on itself becomes arrogance, and so on.

Do you get me?"

"I sure do. But how can a fellow get rid of some of those things? How can we empty out the garbage?"

I looked around. My eye fell on the closed window.

"I'll tell you," I said rising. "To make the thing very simple--very simple and easy, suppose you hand me these things you have shut up in yourself and let me just toss them out the window."

"I'll be only too glad to." It was like a sigh.

"Sweep the old barn out into the garden," I said as I threw wide the window, "and let the Good Gardener convert it all to His use and service." I paused and looked out a few minutes, then added, "There, it is all gone," and I slammed down the window. I went back to the boy.

"I am not sure whether you caught all I was driving at," I remarked.

The boy seized my hand and said with feeling, "I am sure that I did, coach.

Thanks an awful lot." And he vanished down the hall.

That night I said to my wife, "I am going up to see our basketball team play. They have lost all their games, but tonight they are going to play the champions of the state, on which team there are two all-state players, whom it is worth the price of the admission to watch. We will probably lose by a big score."

Down the floor came the all-state players. No one seemed able to stop them.

Under our basket I noticed the boy who had been in my room that afternoon.

Suddenly he shot between the two players, intercepted the ball, dribbled down the floor and made a basket. When the game ended that night, that championship team all combined had made twenty-one points; the boy who had come to my room, single-handed had made twenty-three points.

He later became the all-around champion track athlete, and made the all-state football team. When he graduated, he came to my room and said, "There was certainly a big load of ballast taken off my shoulders when I came in this room several years ago.

Everything has gone wonderfully since then--my athletics, my social life and my studies."

He paused in the doorway and said, in a tone I shall never forget, "But there was a big barn to clean--a big barn to clean."

That spring I was invited to the University of Wisconsin to talk to the track team.

The boys came in their track suits to the new fieldhouse where the talk was to be given. I did not talk about winning games; I talked simply of the need of throwing out the ballast and the value of cooperation and teamwork. When I had finished, a handsome chap, slightly bow-legged, came up, grasped my hand and said, "I want to build those principles into my life." A few weeks later I read in the morning paper that the Big Ten Indoor Field meet would be held that day and that the championship lay between Ohio, Illinois and Iowa. The morning paper the next day read, "The surprise of the meet was the way Wisconsin ran away with the meet, led by a little bow-legged chap they couldn't stop."

What particular ballast is especially demoralizing and destructive to success in business? Let us try to name a few. Some of these might be disloyalty, dishonesty, discord, injustice, criticism, cynicism, jealousy, fear, anxiety, doubt, distrust, gloom.

Perhaps one of the vices that blocks prosperity most of all is jealousy. A business man who "draws" prosperity to himself said to me one day, "Do you want to know the secret for success? It is to rejoice in the prosperity of others. I am surrounded by friends who are always failing in business. They all have one fault in common. Whenever they hear of another man succeeding they become jealous. Whenever they read of a person inheriting a small fortune they growl about the unfairness of fate. On the other hand, when I read of someone coming into money, I rejoice. I share in his happiness just as I do when I read a novel and share in the happiness of the hero."

So I say, cast out your jealousy along with your egotism, your drunkenness and all your other bad habits. If you would travel far and fast, travel light!

"Let me illustrate what I mean by the danger of one little improper thought," said Walter Russell to a group of salesmen he was training. "A nationally known real estate man, who was considered one of the best salesmen in New York, had a client for a hundred thousand dollar cooperative apartment in one of my buildings. The client asked him to come to his house one night in reference to the sale. This meant the cancellation of theater tickets by the salesman. He said to me: 'I've got to go up and sell that man an apartment because I need the money, but I do wish the old fossil would pick daytime instead of nights!"'

"To me that attitude of mind was a shock and I told him that his sale was impossible because that thought would get across to his client and prevent the sale. And it did. He reported to me that the sale was off for good, but I knew better, for I closed the sale the next morning myself."

"Irreverence for even the slightest detail of any element of any work of man keeps it from becoming a masterpiece. That irreverent thought was not just one thought of an impatient moment. It started years ago when that man began to build himself into the kind of man who could think such a thought regarding a work of his own creation."

Yes, let us throw out the ballast.


  The Secret of Power in Business
by Glenn Clark


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