How To Get Rich

How To Get Rich

Most people the world over would like to get rich, but only a few ever achieve it. And those are the ones who follow a particular way to getting rich. Yes, there is a true and proven way to getting what you want, including becoming rich.

Most people think the way to be rich is to set out to make as much money as they can possibly make. And with such mindset, they will want to be paid for every service they render, and for each extra second they spend in their work place – they are all out for immediate gratification.

But that is not the way to get rich. In fact, no one ever attains lasting and fulfilling riches by setting out to be rich. Riches come naturally when your life purpose follows a particular way, which many miss in their hurry to make more money.

I will allow you to discover how to get what you want, including riches from Napoleon Hill in his book, The Master Key To Riches.

Here is the excerpt, enjoy it

An Easy Way To Get What You Want

You who work for wages should learn more about this sowing and reaping business.

Then you would understand why no man can go on forever sowing the seed of inadequate service and reaping a harvest of full grown pay. You would know that there must come a halt to the habit of demanding a full day’s pay for a poor day’s work.

And you who do not work for wages, but who wish to get more of the better things of life! Let us have a word with you. Why do you not become wise and start getting what you wish the easy and sure way? Yes, there is an easy and a sure way to promote one’s self into whatever he wants from life, and its secret becomes known to every person who makes it his business to go the extra mile. The secret can be uncovered in no other manner, for it is wrapped up in that extra mile.

The pot of gold at the “end of the rainbow” is not a mere fairy tale! The end of that extra mile is the spot where the rainbow ends, and that is where the pot of gold is hidden.

Few people ever catch up with the “end of the rainbow.” When one gets to where he thought the rainbow ended he finds it is still far in the distance. The trouble with most of us is that we do not know how to follow rainbows. Those who know the secret know that the end of the rainbow can be reached only by going the extra mile.

Late one afternoon, some forty-five years ago, William C. Durant, the founder of General Motors, walked into his bank after banking hours, and asked for some favor which in the ordinary course of business should have been requested during banking hours.

The man who granted the favor was Carol Downes, an under official of the bank. He not only served Mr. Durant with efficiency, but he went the Extra Mile and added courtesy to the service. He made Mr. Durant feel that it was a real pleasure to serve him. The incident seemed trivial, and of itself it was of little importance. Unknown to Mr. Downes, this courtesy was destined to have repercussions of a far-reaching nature.

The next day Mr. Durant asked Downes to come to his office. That visit led to the offer of a position which Downes accepted. He was given a desk in a general office where nearly a hundred other people worked, and he was notified that the office hours were from 8:30am to 5:30p.m. His salary to begin with was modest.

At the end of the first day, when the gong rang announcing the close of the day’s work, Downes notices that everyone grabbed his hat and coat and made a rush for the door. He sat still, waiting for the others to leave the office. After they had gone he remained at his desk, pondering in his own mind the cause of the great haste everyone had shown to get away on the very second of quitting time.

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Durant opened the door of his private office, saw Downes still at his desk, and asked Downes whether he understood that he was privileged to stop work at 5:30.

“Oh yes,” Downes replied, “but I did not wish to be run over in the rush.” Then he asked if he could be of any service to Mr. Durant. He was told he might find a pencil for the motor magnate. He got the pencil, ran it through the pencil sharpener and took it to Mr. Durant. Mr. Durant thanked him and said “good night.”

The next day at quitting time Downes remained at his desk again after the “rush” was over. This time he waited with purpose aforethought. In a little while Mr. Durant came out of his private office and asked again if Downes did not understand that 5:30 was the time for closing.

“Yes.” Downes smiled. “I understand it is quitting time for the others, but I have heard no one say that I have to leave the office when the day is officially closed, so I chose to remain here with the hope that I might be of some slight service to you.”

“What an unusual hope,” Durant exclaimed. “Where did you get the idea?

“I got it from the scene I witness here at closing time every day,” Downes replied. Mr. Durant grunted some reply which Downes did not hear distinctly and returned to his office.

From then on Downes always remained at his desk after closing time until he saw Mr. Durant leave for the day. He was not paid to remain over time. No one told him to do it. No one promised him anything for remaining, and as far as the casual observer might know, he was wasting his time.

Several months later Downes was called into Mr. Durant’s office and informed that he had been chosen to go out to a new plant that had been purchased recently to supervise the installation of the plant machinery. Imagine that! A former bank official becoming a machinery expert in a few months.

Without quibbling, Downes accepted the assignment and went on his way. He did not say, “Why, Mr. Durant, I know nothing about the installation of machinery.” He did not say, “That’s not my job,” or “I’m not paid to install machinery.” No, he went to work and did what was requested of him. Moreover, he went at the job with a pleasant “mental attitude.”

Three months later the job was completed. It was done so well that Mr. Durant called Downes into his office and asked him where he learned about machinery. “Oh,” Downes explained, “I never learned, Mr. Durant. I merely looked around, found men who knew how to get the job done, put them to work, and they did it.”

“Splendid!” Mr. Durant exclaimed. “There are two types of men who are valuable. One is the fellow who can do something and do it well, without complaining that he is being overworked. The other is the fellow who can get other people to do things well, without complaining. You are both types wrapped into one package.”

Downes thanked him for the compliment and turned to go.

“Wait a moment,” Durant requested. “I forgot to tell you that you are the new manager of the plant you have installed, and your salary to start with is $50,000.00 a year.”

The following ten years of association with Mr. Durant was worth between ten and twelve million dollars to Carol Downes. He became an intimate advisor of the motor king and made himself rich as a result.

The main trouble with so many of us is that we see men who have “arrived” and we weigh them in the hour of their triumph without taking the trouble to find out how or why they “arrived.”

There is nothing very dramatic about the story of Carol Downes. The incidents mentioned occurred during the day’s business, without even a passing notice by the average person who worked along with Downes. And we doubt not that many of these fellow-workers envied him because they believed he had been favoured by Mr. Durant, through some sort of pull or luck, or whatever it is that men who do not succeed use as an excuse to explain their own lack of progress.

Well, to be candid, Downes did have an inside “pull” with Mr. Durant!

He created that “pull” on his own initiative.

He created it by going the extra mile in a matter as trivial as that of placing a neat point on a pencil when nothing was requested except a plain pencil.

He created it by remaining at his desk “with the hope” that he might be of service to his employer after the “rush” was over at 5:30 each evening.

He created it by using his right of personal initiative by finding men who understood how to install machinery instead of asking Durant where or how to find such men.

Trace down these incidents step by step and you will find that Downes’ success was due solely to his own initiative. Moreover, the story consists of a series of little tasks well performed, in the right “mental attitude.”

Perhaps there were a hundred other men working for Mr. Durant who could have done as well as Downes, but the trouble with them was that they were searching for the “end of the rainbow” by running away from it in the 5:30 rush each afternoon.

Long years afterward a friend asked Carol Downes how he got his opportunity with Mr. Durant. “Oh,” he modestly replied, “I just made it my business to get in his way, so he could see me. When he looked around, wanting some little service, he called on me because I was the only one in sight. In time he got into the habit of calling on me.”

There you have it! Mr. Durant “got into the habit” of calling on Downes. Moreover, he found that Downes could and would assume responsibilities by going the extra mile.

What a pity that all of the American people do not catch something of this spirit of assuming greater responsibilities. What a pity that more of us do not begin speaking more of our “privileges” under the American way of life, and less of the lack of opportunities in America.

Is there a man living in America today who would seriously claim that Carol Downes would have been better off if he had been forced, by law, to join the mad rush and quit his work at 5:30 in the afternoon? If he had done so, he would have received the standard wages for the sort of work he performed, but nothing more. Why should he have received more?

His destiny was in his own hands. It was wrapped up in this one lone privilege which should be the privilege of every American citizen: the right of personal initiative through the exercise of which he made it a habit always to go the extra mile. That tells the whole story. There is no other secret to Downes’ success. He admits it, and ever’ success. He admits it, and everyone familiar with the circumstances of his promotion from poverty to riches knows it.

There is one thing no one seems to know: Why are there so few men who, like Carol Downes, discover the power implicit in doing more than one is paid for? It has in it the seed of all great achievement. It is the secret of all noteworthy success, and yet it is so little understood that most people look upon it as some clever trick with which employers try to get more work out of their employees.

Just after the end of the Spanish-American War, Elbert Hubbard wrote a story entitled A Message To Garcia. He told briefly how President William McKinley commissioned a young soldier by the name of Rowan to carry a message from the United States Government to Garcia, the rebel chieftain, whose exact whereabouts were not known.

The young solder took the message, made his way through the fastnesses of the Cuban jungle, finally found Garcia, and delivered the note to him. That was all there was to the story – just a private soldier carrying out his orders under difficulties, and getting the job done without coming back with an excuse.

The story fired imaginations and spread all over the world. The simple act of a man doing what he was told, and doing it well, became news of the first magnitude. A message to Garcia was printed in booklet form and the sales reached an all-time high for such publications, amounting to more than ten million copies. This one story made Elbert Hubbard famous, to say nothing of helping to make him rich.

The story was translated into several foreign languages. The Japanese Government had it printed and distributed to every Japanese soldier during the Japanese-Russian war. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company presented a copy of it to each of their thousands of employees. The big life insurance companies of America presented it to their salesmen. Long after Elbert Hubbard went down on the ill-fated Lusitania in 1915, A Message To Garcia continued as a best-seller throughout America.

The story was popular because it had in it something of the magic power that belongs to the man who does something, and does it well.

The whole world is clamoring for such men. They are needed and wanted in every walk of life. American industry has always had princely berths for men who can and will assume responsibilities and who get the job done in the right “mental attitude,” by going the extra mile.

Andrew Carnegie lifted no fewer than forty such men from the lowly station of day laborers to millionaires. He understood the value of men who were willing to go the extra mile. Wherever he found such a man, he brought “his find” into the inner circle of his business and gave him an opportunity to earn “all he was worth.”

People do things or refrain from doing them because of a motive. The soundest of motives for the habit of going the extra mile is the fact that it yields enduring dividends, in ways too numerous to mention, to all who follow the habit.

No one has ever been known to achieve permanent success without doing more than he was paid for. The practice has its counterpart in the laws of nature. It has back of it an impressive array of evidence as to its soundness. It is based on common sense and justice.

The best of all methods of testing the soundness of this principle is that of putting it to work as a part of one’s daily habits. Some truths we can learn only through our own experience.

Americans want greater individual shares of the vast resources of this country. That is a healthy desire. The wealth is here in abundance, but let us stop this foolish attempt to get it the wrong way. Let us get our wealth by giving something of value in return for it.

We know the rules by which success is attained. Let us appropriate these rules and use them intelligently, thereby acquiring the personal riches we demand, and adding to the wealth of the nation as well.

Recommended ResourceThis is a great book by all standard, and I very much gladly recommend it to you if your desire is to start and run your business and become your own boss.

The Master Key To Riches………………………………..

Recommended

Put your business on the path to success with a solid plan created with Business Plan Pro Software .

Experts in business and technology, as well as daily users rate this software higher and above others. Click here to see why