He returned a week later with four. In high school he had completed the first album of what had now grown into a valuable stamp collection. In college he had set a record in selling more advertising space for the college humor magazine than any student had ever sold before. Then there was the day he celebrated passing his bar examinations. His fourth achievement was written in terse and bitter words: "The day I realized that after a quarter of a century on a sure salary, I wasn't getting anywhere."
He wasn't giving himself much to work on, but it was a start. The stamp album, for instance. He told me about it. His parents had objected to his hobby because it was confining, expensive, and a lot of nonsense adding up-to nothing. They thought he should be out with the other fellows, spending his money on sodas, movies, and sports instead of stamps. His friends, or rather his classmates because he had no real friends, thought of him as a sissy, and certainly the girls found nothing of interest in a boy who could talk only of stamps. But in spite of the fact that the opinions of others condemned him to a lonesome childhood, he found in his stamp collection a release for his talents that he could find in no other way.
What talent, you might ask, as was asked then, is needed to paste a few stamps in an album? Very little talent, we can answer today, if only a few stamps were involved. Every child goes through a period of collecting a few frogs, turtles, snakes, coins, eggs, dolls, and countless other items, but if this acquisitive period is of brief duration, it is without lasting significance. The boy who collects a few butterflies is not necessarily a future lepidopterist, nor is the young coin collector destined for a place in high finance if a few coins are the extent of his collection. But when a hobby survives in the face of many obstacles, we can be sure it has the solid support of genuine talent.
Today we know that the genuine collector expresses through his collection a desire for ownership, a desire for independence, a desire to run his own business, or his own department, or conduct his own research. In real life he may work in a field far removed from that around which his collection is centered, like the jockey who collects paintings, or the financier who collects mushrooms, but when he is with his collection he is king. He has something unique, created by his talents and his talents alone.
To return to my stamp-collector-turned-attorney, after 25 years as a corporation and government attorney, he still saw himself as the servant of others instead of the master of his own business. No longer was he looking upon his stamp collecting as a creative hobby but as a refuge in which he could escape the frustrations of daily life.
"Tell me what you have to do to be a good stamp collector," I suggested.
He didn't know. He hadn't thought about it. "I guess you just have to know the business," he said. Not much of an answer from one who had devoted much of his lifetime to his hobby.
"I think we've got a vein of gold here," I said, "and I don't mean in the cash value of the stamps you have collected. I know, for instance, that you have to be highly observant to be a stamp collector. You have to have a keen eye for color. You have to have an eye for detail that is practically microscopic. I know you stamp collectors can concentrate more intently on one square inch of stamp than can an art connoisseur on the Mona Lisa. You appreciate design. You are somewhat familiar with foreign countries. These are just the surface indications we all know about. As the expert in the field, you should be able to dig deeper. Suppose you write down a list of the talents you think a stamp collector needs, and why. While you're at it, you might as well write an explanation of how you were able to sell more advertising space for your college magazine than anyone else."
He did not find it easy to mine his own veins of gold, but no one has ever accused mining of any kind of being easy. We do have one big advantage, however, over the hard-luck miner. He must deal with matter, and no amount of mind-over-matter is going to bring two widely separated veins of ore together. But such is the human mind that we can combine two widely separated talents to produce a single vein of double richness. When several talents can be combined, the rewards can enrich all phases of your life, and mind truly has triumphed over matter.
In the case of my friend, he began by first recognizing that his stamp collection was no mere hobby but a release for a wide variety of talents. He found it harder to realize, after his years as a career lawyer, "taking the legal chores tossed my way," that his carefully nurtured collection was an expression of his deep, inner desire to be his own boss. Then, in analyzing his success as a space salesman for his college magazine, he found himself writing, "In the advertising department, I was what you might call the star. No one had to tell me where to go to solicit advertising." And as his own boss, he had set a record. No one was more astonished by this admission than he was. Like most people, he had never looked back at his achievement to determine some of its causes. Nor had he ever looked at it in terms of gold it might contain.
He had more difficulty in explaining why he considered passing his bar examination an achievement. Finally he wrote, "My parents had always wanted me to be a lawyer. I took pride in being able to please them." No one knows how many careers are ruined or handicapped when a dutiful child follows the dictates of his parents' ambitions instead of his own, but the number is horrendous. In this case, all was not lost. For all that my friend claimed to have been completely frustrated by his years as an attorney; a little deep self-examination revealed many accomplishments in which he could take pride. In the legal conflicts that crop up between men, and between corporations, and between governments, he had found great satisfaction in his ability to reconcile differences of opinion out of court. Under a little more self-examination, he was ready to admit that settling a case out of court involved a considerable amount of diplomacy along with abilities to arbitrate and negotiate, "but that sounds pretty conceited."
You see, he was still using the traditional word, "conceit," to slap down a realistic appraisal of his values. But at least he was beginning to feel "conceited" instead of "frustrated," and that indicated a healthy change of attitude. The next step was to combine these widely separated achievements into a single rich vein of ore. Here is the result:
He is the head of his own department in charge of foreign and domestic sales. Through his artistic abilities and attention to details, he has been able to dress up his products, bring about improved performance, increase the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, and "build up the little fellow." Thanks to his legal training, the stringent laws governing international commerce that his competitors find so baffling offer him no difficulties. And his diplomatic ability to arbitrate and negotiate has kept his company on top in countries too often influenced by British, West German, Russian, or Japanese salesmen.
He is mining all of his achievements to be a salesman of U. S. good will and his company's products. His one complaint:
"My wife and I are having so much fun on this job that I haven't been able to work on my stamp collection for months."
What I would like to make clear at this point is that the only advice he took in reaching his present position was his own. It is true that we had met at weekly intervals, but the only suggestions he needed were those offered you in these pages. I was the sounding board against which he bounced his own thoughts. The echoes returned to him, though amplified by my experience with thousands of others confronted by similar problems, were still his own words. These pages will provide a modern sounding board against which your own thinking will be reflected, and the words guiding you to success will be your own. In short, you will be like the modern navigator who sends out his radar signals, and reads the amplified echoes in his scope, or the modern miner who sends out his signals, and reads the amplified echoes in his detectors. The exciting difference here is that while the navigator is using his modern aid to probe space, and the miner to probe the earth, you will be probing for the right course to the rewarding ores within yourself.
The experience will seem a little strange at first, like the first time, you heard a true recording of your voice, but don't let it bother you. Several of the best actors in Hollywood still squirm in anguish when they see rushes of their day's acting on the screen. Nevertheless, they persist, knowing that only through analyzing their best achievements can they continue to improve.
