that he himself had once been young. The children instinctively avoided him, so I sensed disaster as he approached.

He lined up with us and turned to his mother: “Sister, I see that you went out for a walk. I like to see a mother with her children in such harmony.” The mother said: “Yes, brother, we went out for a walk. But not only. I think I have to confess something to you. The children were sick. When they were recovering, I read Uncle Tom's Cabin to them. They liked the book very much. There is a play in town tonight and my boy has earned tickets. I agreed to take the kids to the play. It cannot be worse than the book, and the book has undoubtedly had a beneficial effect on children.”

The priest replied: “I understand your logic, sister, and your desire. The book was indeed a very good factor. But remember this: the time will come when these children will be out of your control. They will see the fires of the devil's dens, which will beckon them. What will they say when faced with such temptations? Won't they say it was their mother who took them to see their first play, and won't they go without hesitation?"

The mother agreed: “You are right. I shouldn't be setting such a bad example." She turned around and took us home. In an instant, I lost all respect for what mother represented, and that respect never returned.

In those years, another person had a noticeable influence on me. He was a railroad foreman who made $1.60 a day. He had several workers under him, whose earnings were $1.25 a day.

Until the age of 6 or 7, I was surrounded by carefree college students. I knew nothing about the serious side of the life of students, but I watched their antics. Thus, I had a strong idea that all life was a playground.

This ten's manager changed my ideas. I was impressed by the difference between him and his assistants. Assistants worked under duress. They tried not to overwork and counted the hours until the end of the working day. On Saturday evenings they went to the city and lowered there everything that they had earned during the week.

The foreman worked with enthusiasm. He said: “Guys, let's put so many sleepers today. Let's fix this section of the road." His assistants endured everything stoically, performing their duties as if they were bored by it. But the foreman knew how to turn work into play.

In the evenings, he built his house, and this was after 10 hours of work on the railway. He broke garden around the house. Then he married the most attractive girl in the village and lived with her very cheerfully. In the end, he was promoted, but by that time I had already managed to learn a lot from him.

He said, “Look how those guys play ball. I call it hard work. I cover the roof - and try to overtake time. I know what surface I must cover before sunset in order to complete my task. That's what I call fun."

“Pay attention to how these guys are talking tongues, discussing the railroad and politics. The maximum that each of them knows about the road is how to drive a pin. They will always do just that and nothing else. Notice what I did while they were talking all evening: I made most of the porch of my house. Soon I'll be sitting comfortably on it, courting a pretty wife. And they will sit all their lives on boxes of soap at the store. Well, then what is work and what is play?

“If something is useful, it is called work; if it is useless - a game. Both require effort. Both can be considered a game. There is rivalry here and there. And here and there they are fighting to get around others. The difference is in attitude."

I will always remember these conversations.

Later, as director of America's Volunteers, I studied the lives of outcasts. I've watched them in kitchens where free soup was given out, in prisons, and when they were released on bail. Their main problem was not laziness, but an excessive craving for entertainment. Or, better to say, a misconception about entertainment. Most of them worked from dawn to dusk in their youth. But some threw the ball, while others worked the corn. The achievements of some were marked with chalk, while the achievements of others were embodied in stone. Everything rested on a different idea of ​​​​fun.

I loved my job the way other people love golf. And I still love her. Often I run away from playing bridge, from dinner or dancing, to spend the evening in my office. I can sneak out of a Sunday party at my country house to spend a couple of hours at a typewriter.

The love of work can be instilled in oneself in the same way as the love of entertainment. Everything is interchangeable. What others call work, I call play, and vice versa. We do best at what we like the most. If someone likes to kick the polo ball, then most likely he will succeed in this. If a person likes beat others at chess or win at something else, he will become an ace at it. It is very good if a young man can treat his work as the most exciting game known to him. And it should be like that. The applause for the athlete will die down in a minute. Applause for a successful worker may not stop until his death.

Chapter 2 Lessons in Advertising and Selling

My father owned a newspaper in our awkward prosperous city. People had money to spend, so advertisers flocked to the newsroom like flies to honey. We smile now, remembering the advertisements of those days, but we smile, and remember the crinolines.

Most advertisements were paid by barter. Our house has become a warehouse of advertised goods. I remember how we had six pianos and six sewing machines at once.

One of the products my father advertised was bitter vinegar. Somehow I learned a story related to him. The vinegar manufacturer ruined an entire batch by fermenting it wrong. It turned out to be a very strong product. People in those days believed that an effective medicine must be terrifying. We also had oils and drugs "for man or animal" in our everyday life, equally wild. We used "snake oil" and "skunk oil" perhaps because of their names. As long as the cure was not something worse than the disease itself, no one respected it.

Thus, we had a large number of different burning liquids. The worst was bitter vinegar, and therefore it was most popular. My father took dozens of bottles of this drug as payment for advertising. People bought pianos, organs, sewing machines, etc. from us, but not medicines. And the stocks of bitter vinegar kept growing and growing.

Being Scottish, my mother would not allow herself to throw anything away. She had to find a use for these medicines, and I, as the sickest in the family, became her victim. I was regaled with bitter vinegar in the morning, afternoon and evening. If the makers of that remedy are still alive, I can assure them that now I can boast of excellent health.

In the office of his newspaper, my father also printed leaflets. I studied them and sometimes typed them. Then I would usually go to the advertiser and offer my distribution services. There were a thousand houses in our city. I offered to distribute flyers home for $2. It took 35 miles to walk around all the houses. Other boys asked for $1.50 for the same job, but they usually put a few flyers in each mailbox and ignored the outlying neighborhoods. I asked advertisers to compare results, and soon became a monopoly.

This was my first experience with tracked results advertising. He taught me the desire to receive obvious and comparable returns, and since then it has become my rule. Only in this way can a real service be able to show its effectiveness. Doing something in the dark is stupid.

When I was 10 years old, my mother was a widow. From this age I had to support myself and help my family. I have made money in many ways, but in this context, those that influenced my work in advertising are interesting.

Mom used to make silver polish. She gave it the shape of briquettes and packed it in beautiful paper. I went from house to house and sold it. If I described properties near the door, one out of ten hostesses bought it. But if I was allowed into the kitchen, where I could demonstrate the product, I sold to almost everyone.

From this I learned another lesson that I have never forgotten. A good product is its best seller. It is very difficult to sell a product in person or through advertising without samples.

The hardest battle of my life was with advertisers to teach them how to use patterns. Or offer items to try. No one sends salespeople to work without samples. But people are willing to spend fortunes on advertising designed to convince customers to buy a product without seeing or trying it. It is sometimes said that samples are too expensive. Some argue that there will be those willing to ask for samples again and again. And yet words alone cost a lot more.

I wish every advertiser who doesn't believe this would do what I did with silverware polish. The lesson I learned has saved advertisers millions