Sean Rasmussen

One of the advantages that grow from collapse is possibility and potential. If we look at all the times throughout history where one ‘great’ has fallen, something else has arisen to take its place. That means that every down turn creates some opportunity for someone else. You just need to decide which side of the coin you will be on.

Bigger And Better

With the changed conditions ushered in by the world economic collapse during the time of the Great Depression came also the need for newer and better ways of marketing personal services. Hill found it hard to figure why someone had not previously discovered this stupendous need, in view of the fact that more money changes hands in return for personal services than for any other purpose.

Opportunities Of Today And Yesterday

Again, we find a parallel in this to today’s marketplace. The technology era has changed everything we used to know about job-searching, applying for work, and self-promotion. The internet has given employers and contractors access to such a huge pool of available and qualified workers, that simply submitting a resume is an overwhelming and daunting task. What’s more, the ability to work from remote locations via the internet and other technologies has vastly increased the available work force for any given job where telecommuting is a possibility; employer’s options are no longer limited to the best of the crop that are available locally. Here again, it is necessary for job-seekers to get creative in marketing themselves if they hope to stand out in the very crowded marketplace.

Perhaps this is the very idea in which some reader will find the nucleus of the wealth they desire! Ideas with much less merit have been the seedlings from which great fortunes have grown. Woolworth’s Five and Ten Cent Store idea, for example, had far less merit, but it piled up a fortune for its creator.

A Simple Seed

All it takes to succeed is one simple start, one simple seed. Anyone can have a thought and cultivate that seed if they have the mindset and desire and dedication to do so. This is what Napoleon Hill has tried to illustrate all along—that anyone can have what it takes to live well and prosper, and that includes you!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 - 2009

So who is most to credit for Halpin’s success? Is it Andrews or Halpin himself?

The Credit Goes To….

It is difficult to say whether Mr. Andrews or Mr. Halpin is more deserving of tribute, for the reason that both showed evidence of having an abundance of that very rare quality known as imagination. Mr. Andrews deserves credit for seeing, in young Halpin, a “go-getter” of the highest order. Halpin deserves credit for refusing to compromise with life by accepting and keeping a job he didn’t want. That is one of the major points Hill is trying to emphasize throughout this entire philosophy—that we rise to high positions or remain at the bottom because of conditions we can control if we want to control them.

What Habit Will Get You

Hill is also trying to emphasize another point; namely, that both success and failure are largely the results of habit! Without a doubt Dan Halpin’s close association with the greatest football coach America ever knew planted in his mind the same brand of desire to excel which made the Notre Dame football team world famous. Truly, there is something to the idea that hero-worship is helpful, provided one worships a winner. According to Halpin, Rockne was one of the world’s greatest leaders of men in all history.

Hill believed that business associations are vital factors, both in failure and in success, so intently that he intervened when his son Blair was negotiating with Dan Halpin for a position in his company. Mr. Halpin offered him a beginning salary of about one half what he could have gotten from a rival company. Nevertheless, Hill pressured his son to accept the position with Halpin, because he believed that close association with someone who refuses to compromise with circumstances they do not like is an asset that can never be measured in terms of money.

The Company You Keep

And so we are back to this point as well—that your success or failure is also a reflection of the company that you keep. Those who you choose to admire and emulate and associate with on a regular basis certainly will impact your outcome, so best to choose carefully and wisely! Have your heroes and mentors, but make sure they are worthy of you!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 - 2009

Hill took pains to exemplify success from all levels of beginning. The story of Dan Halpin is just one such example.

Dan Halpin’s Story

Dan Halpin’s story, provided by the author, is an excellent example of what it means to rise out of the low-man position.

During his college days, Dan was manager of the famous 1930 National Championship Notre Dame football team, when it was under the direction of the late Knute Rockne.

Perhaps he was inspired by the great football coach to aim high, and not mistake temporary defeat for failure, just as Andrew Carnegie, the great industrial leader, inspired his young business lieutenants to set high goals for themselves. At any rate, young Halpin finished college at a most inopportune time, when the depression had made jobs scarce, so, after a fling at investment banking and motion pictures, he took the first opening with a potential future he could find—selling electrical hearing aids on a commission basis. Anyone could start in that kind of job, and Halpin knew it, but it was enough to open the door of opportunity to him.

Curing Dissatisfaction

For almost two years, he continued in a job he didn’t like, and he would never have risen above that job if he had not done something about his dissatisfaction. He aimed, first, at the job of Assistant Sales Manager of his company, and got the job. That one step upward placed him high enough above the crowd to enable him to see still greater opportunity; also, it placed him where opportunity could see him.

Halpin built himself such a good record selling hearing aids, that A. M. Andrews, Chairman of the Board of the Dictograph Products Company, a competitor of the company Halpin worked for, wanted to know about that man Dan Halpin who was taking big sales away from the long established Dictograph Company. He sent for Halpin. When the interview was over, Halpin was the new Sales Manager in charge of the Acousticon Division. Then, to test young Halpin’s metal, Mr. Andrews went away to Florida for three months, leaving him to sink or swim in his new job. He did not sink! Knute Rockne’s spirit of “All the world loves a winner,” and has no time for a loser inspired him to put so much into his job that he was later elected Vice-President of the company, and General Manager of the Acousticon and Silent Radio Division, a job which most men would be proud to earn through ten years of loyal effort. Halpin did it in just over six months.

In The Sites Of Success

And so we hear it once again—if you continue to take the same actions, you get the same results. You also get lost in the field of others who are doing the same. If you want opportunity to be able to find you, you need to do something different and be in its line of site. Take action today to set yourself out above the crowd!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 - 2009

Why bother with effort? That was the question we were left with at the end of the last post in Mindset Mastery 118. If you recall this was the story of the woman who had prepared a complete biographical portfolio for her son to help him land a job after college—a task that seems like overkill.

Why Go To Extra Lengths?

The answer is this—”Doing something well is never trouble! The plan prepared by this woman to benefit her son helped him get the job he was applying for, at the first interview, at the salary he named.”

Moreover—and this is important, too—the position did not require the young man to start at the bottom. He began as a junior executive, at an executive’s salary.

Do you still ask “Why go to all this trouble?”

Planning In Presentation

Well, for one thing, the planned presentation of this young man’s application for a position took off at least ten years of time he would otherwise have spent just to get to where he began if he had “started at the bottom and worked his way up.”

This idea of starting at the bottom and working your way up may appear to be sound, but the major objection to it is this–too many of those who begin at the bottom never manage to lift their heads high enough to be seen by opportunity, so they remain at the bottom. You should also know that the outlook from the bottom is not so very bright or encouraging. It has a tendency to kill ambition. It’s called “getting into a rut,” which means that we accept our fate because we form the habit of daily routine, a habit that finally becomes so strong we stop trying to throw it off. And that is another reason why it pays to start one or two steps above the bottom. By doing so a person forms the habit of looking around, of observing how others get ahead, of seeing opportunity, and of embracing it without hesitation.

Pave Your Own Way

This lesson is so applicable to so many aspects of life; it even applies to wealth creation. Why start at the bottom rung and fight to find your way to wealth—and more likely to get discouraged and never achieve personal prosperity? With all the excellent wealth creation resources, books, seminars, courses, blogs, websites, social media and more that is out there, why go the route of the unproven struggle, why not pave your way with the success of others who have gone before you? By doing just that you can cut at least ten years off your learning curve, too.

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 - 2009

It’s interesting to see how the success of one leads on to the success of another. And then another, and on and on for a whole new type of successful contagion.

Out Of One, Many

There are thousands of people the world over who have excellent business services to offer, but who need the services of an advertising specialist or copywriter with the skills of prepare attractive marketing materials. The idea described here was born of necessity, to bridge a need in an emergency situation, but it did not end with that one man. The woman who came up with the idea had a keen imagination. She saw in her newly born brain-child the making of a new profession, one destined to render valuable service to thousands of people who need practical guidance in marketing personal services.

Spurred to action by the instant success of her first “Prepared Plan to Market Personal Services,” this energetic woman turned next to the solution of a similar problem for her son who had just finished college, but had been totally unable to find a market for his services. The plan she originated for his use was a very fine specimen of marketing material.

Applied Success

When the plan book had been completed, it contained nearly fifty pages of beautifully typed, properly organized information, which told the story of her son’s native ability, schooling, personal experiences, and an extensive variety of other information. The plan book also contained a complete description of the position her son sought after, together with a detailed picture of the exact plan he would use to fulfill the obligations of the position.

The preparation of the plan book required several weeks’ labor; during that time the woman sent her son to the public library almost daily, to find the data needed to sell his services to his best advantage. She also sent him to all the competitors of his prospective employer, and had him gather vital information from them concerning their business methods; the information proved very valuable in the formulation of the plan he intended to use in filling the position he sought. When the plan was finished, it contained more than half a dozen excellent suggestions for the use and benefit of the prospective employer. (The suggestions ultimately were put to use by the company).

You might be asking yourself here, “Why go to all this trouble to land a job?” The answer is straightforward.

Why Bother?

…and for that answer you’ll have to come back for the next installment of Mindset Mastery. In the meantime, think about how contagious success can be, and how much better you can potentially make the world, just by you being you, reaching out, and forging your path to success and wealth!

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 - 2009