Chapter 22 I HAVE a folder in my private filing cabinet marked “FTD”—short for “Fool Things I Have Done”. I put in that folder written records of the fools things I have been guilty of. I sometimes dictate these memos to my secretary, but sometimes they are so personal, so stupid, that I am ashamed […]
Chapter 21 I ONCE interviewed Major-General Smedley Butler-old “Gimlet-Eye”. Old “Hell-Devil” Butler! Remember him? The most colourful, swashbuckling general who ever commanded the United States Marines.He told me that when he was young, he was desperately eager to be popular, wanted to make a good impression on everyone. In those days the slightest criticism smarted
Chapter 20 AN EVENT occurred in 1929 that created a national sensation in educational circles. Learned men from all over America rushed to Chicago to witness the affair. A few years earlier, a young man by the name of Robert Hutchins had worked his way through Yale, acting as a waiter, a lumberjack, a tutor,
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Chapter 19 As I HAVE said, I was born and brought up on a Missouri farm. Like most farmers of that day, my parents had pretty hard scratching. My mother had been a country schoolteacher and my father had been a farm hand working for twelve dollars a month. Mother made not only my clothes,
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Chapter 18 WHEN I started writing this book, I offered a two-hundred-dollar prize for the most helpful and inspiring true story on “How I Conquered Worry”.The three judges for this contest were: Eddie Rickenbacker, president, Eastern Air Lines; Dr. Stewart W. McClelland, president, Lincoln Memorial University; H. V. Kaltenborn, radio news analyst. However, we received
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Chapter 17 WHILE writing this book, I dropped in one day at the University of Chicago and asked the Chancellor, Robert Maynard Hutchins, how he kept from worrying. He replied: “I have always tried to follow a bit of advice given me by the late Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck and Company: ‘When you
Chapter 16 I have a letter from Mrs. Edith Allred, of Mount Airy, North Carolina: “As a child, I was extremely sensitive and shy,” she says in her letter. “I was always overweight and my cheeks made me look even fatter than I was. I had an old-fashioned mother who thought it was foolish to
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Chapter 15 I have known Harold Abbott for years. He lives at 820 South Madison Avenue, Webb City, Missouri. He used to be my lecture manager. One day he and I met in Kansas City and he drove me down to my farm at Belton, Missouri. During that drive, I asked him how he kept
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Chapter 14 I recently met a business man in Texas who was burned up with indignation. I was warned that he would tell me about it within fifteen minutes after I met him. He did. The incident he was angry about had occurred eleven months previously, but he was still burned up about it. He
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Chapter 13 ONE NIGHT, years ago, as I was travelling through Yellowstone Park, I sat with other tourists on bleachers facing a dense growth of pine and spruce. Presently the animal which we had been waiting to see, the terror of the forests, the grizzly bear, strode out into the glare of the lights and
Chapter 12 A Few years ago, I was asked to answer this question on a radio programme: “What is the biggest lesson you have ever learned?”That was easy: by far the most vital lesson I have ever learned is the importance of what we think. If I knew what you think, I would know what
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Chapter 11 As I write this sentence, I can look out of my window and see some dinosaur tracks in my garden-dinosaur tracks embedded in shale and stone. I purchased those dinosaur tracks from the Peabody Museum of Yale University; and I have a letter from the curator of the Peabody Museum, saying that those
Chapter 10 WOULD you like to know how to make money on the Stock Exchange? Well, so would a million other people—and if I knew the answer, this book would sell for a fabulous price. However, there’s one good idea that some successful operators use. This story was told to me by Charles Roberts, an
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Chapter 9 When I was a little boy, I was playing with some of my friends in the attic of an old, abandoned log house in north-west Missouri. As I climbed down out of the attic, I rested my feet on a window-sill for a moment—and then jumped. I had a ring on my left
Take an origami sheet. Make the creases as shown. Fold the top and bottom edges to the middle line. Turn it over. Now, fold the left and right sides to the centerline. Now, fold downwards in half. Your wallet is ready.