Stop Killing Time: Seeing Life’s Beauty Before It’s Too Late

Stop Killing Time: Seeing Life’s Beauty Before It’s Too Late

Hello. Some time ago I read a story that had a very profound effect on me. With my customary brilliant memory, I can recall neither the name of the book nor the author. Maybe you'll recognize it. Anyway, it was about a young man who was to be hanged for committing some crime. This was way back, the early days. The young man didn't sleep at all during his last night on earth, and dawn found him standing at his cell window from where he could see over the prison walls to the countryside beyond. At the first sign of the beautiful rosy-fingered dawn, as Homer used to call it, a change began in the young man. Suddenly he became tremendously interested in seeing the first faint rays of the sun touch the leaves of the trees. He noticed the rich brown earth and the bright green of the fields, and as he gripped the bars of his cell and stared intently at the scene which had been played every morning for countless centuries, tears started down his cheeks. He realized that he was seeing the glory and the magnificence of the world and all it meant for the first time in his life, and as the muffled footsteps of the jailers could be heard on their way to take him to the gallows, he was still at his cell window, transfixed by the unspeakable beauty of the sunrise. The beauty and the wonder of life had been there all along. He had simply waited until it was too late to enjoy it, and I doubt if he's been the only one. All of us have a tendency to waste time. Maybe it's because we don't realize that it's one of the few really precious things we'll ever own until we're in danger of losing it. Let's take the average, if there is such a thing, the average working man, for instance. He works 40 hours a week. Now this leaves him 72 hours a week when he's neither working nor sleeping. This is supposing he sleeps a full eight hours every night. 72 hours of time every week. This is almost twice the time he spends on a job that supports his whole family. Think what he could do with just a part of this time. But what does our average man do with it? Well, as a general rule, he doesn't do anything at all with it. You've heard the expression, I'm just killing time. Well, that's what he does with it. Home on a typical evening, he eats dinner and then goes into the living room and turns on his escape box. The screen lights up and people and horses begin moving around on it, and from then on he's through for the next four or five hours. He spends all this time in front of a TV set watching other people earn excellent incomes in the pursuit of their careers while he makes not a nickel and only gets red eyes and a hollow head for his efforts. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. Nothing wrong, that is, if you're so bored and discouraged with your own world that you have to devote all of your free time escaping to other worlds you must feel are superior to your own. I think television stands as one of the world's greatest developments. But as Ben Franklin used to say, everything in moderation. A part of that free time should be devoted to becoming great where you are, studying ourselves, our job, our industry, and above all to the job of becoming a fairly rational intelligent human being. A good way to spend the next dull evening might be to catalog all the books in your house and find out how many you still have to read. As for me, I only watch the great shows on TV, the ballgames and the fights. I'll be back in a minute. If you find you can hardly wait to lose yourself in some route of escape every time you don't have something to do, it might be time to sit down and have a long talk with yourself and ask yourself such questions as, where am I going? What is it I really want? And who am I?

Your Most Valuable Tool: Building Vocabulary for Success in Life

Hello. Do you know what your most valuable tool is when it comes to getting along with other people and getting what you want from life? Well, it's the most obvious thing in the world, and I suppose one of the most overlooked. It's your ability to use your language. It's a strange and unfortunate thing, but the great majority of folks have just about the same vocabulary as adults as they had in the 8th or 9th grade. They unnecessarily cripple themselves in this most vital aspect of successful living. Words are the tools with which we express our thoughts and desires to others, and the more tools we have in this toolbox, the more jobs we can handle. And it's no news to anyone, I suppose, but the way you use the English language is an immediate tip-off to just about anyone as to how well you're educated. In the old days, and not so old at that, people used to go around poo-pooing what they called book learning. I guess this is a hangover from the dark ages when people were suspicious of anything they didn't understand. I can remember as a kid hearing older folks complain about the younger generation spending too much time in book learning instead of going out and getting a job, any job, the way they had to do. All knowledge is stored in books. The more you read, the more knowledge you acquire, and knowledge still is, and always has been, power to the person who has it. And the use of the language, more than any other single thing, is a barometer of a person's knowledge. One time at a leading Eastern university, they gave a vocabulary examination to the graduating class. Then they kept track of them. And after 5, 10, 15 years and so on, checked to see how these surviving grads were doing. Without a single exception, the ones who scored highest in vocabulary were doing best out in the world. That is, they had better jobs and were making more money and so on. And here again is a subject anyone can learn, but very few do. There are lots of wonderful books on English and vocabulary in every bookstore and library, but again it smacks of work so most folks just slip along using a horse-and-buggy vocabulary and wondering why they're traveling at a horse-and-buggy pace. One of the really funny aspects of our society is the number of people who will poke fun at those who speak with a foreign accent. Whenever you hear a foreign accent, it means the person can speak at least two languages. The ones who laugh as a rule can't even speak their own, and have a vocabulary you could toss into the ear of a gnat. If you'd like to improve your vocabulary, simply get a good book on English, a good dictionary, and make sure you know the pronunciation key and what the little symbols mean, and then study the language an hour a day and read a lot. Whenever you come to a word you're not sure of, look it up and then write it down along with its meaning. Usually this will help you remember it. And then start working your new words into your vocabulary, but only when you're sure they fit. For an American to not know his language is just like a plumber who doesn't know what his tools are for. He's not going to be trusted with very important jobs, is he? This is an interesting and vital aspect if we'll just spend a little bit of time every day or every week for a few months to learn it. I'll be back in just one minute. If a person would just set aside one hour a day for study, six days a week, it would come to 312 hours a year. You know, it wouldn't take long to be an expert at just about anything with that kind of a program, would it? And the time will pass anyway, whether we use it or not. Thank you.

Four Pages a Day: The Hard Work and Rejections That Make a Writer

Have you ever thought you might like to become a writer? Here's something a lot of people could do and very successfully, but not very many will and you know why? It's because becoming successful as a writer is just about the hardest work in the world. Outside of writing my own radio programs, I've never done too much of it. I tried to hire writers for my radio programs one time, but it just never worked out. They didn't write things I was interested in. But I guess I had one of the finest writing teachers who ever lived. He was Professor W.S. Campbell, who for so long headed up the writing department of the University of Oklahoma. I didn't go to that fine school except for the writing course, which has probably turned out more successful writers than any other in the country. Dr. Campbell is dead now, but he had a formula that was sure fire. The first thing you had to do, aside from getting a generally good education, was to pick the magazine you wanted to write for, if magazine writing was what you wanted. Then you'd have to read every issue of that magazine you could find. In this way, you could discover the kind of stories the editor of that particular magazine liked. Then you study the ads, because the ads and the stories were naturally slanted toward the same market. Then you just had to start writing stories similar to the ones you'd been reading and sending them in. Of course, they'd come bouncing right back time after time, but gradually you'd be getting better as a writer, and eventually you might get a note of encouragement from the editor along with your rejection slip. And finally, when you had enough rejection slips to paper the walls of a good-sized barn, you'd have a story accepted. From then on, usually you were in and could call yourself a professional writer. The big thing seemed to be to write about things in which you were intensely interested, things which moved you emotionally. You know, if you'll sit at your typewriter and pick out four double-spaced pages every day, just four pages a day, you'll finish a full-size book every 90 days. That's four complete books every year, or 40 books in the next 10 years. Of course, writing a book and having a book published are two indistinctly separate things, but of one thing you can be absolutely positive. The editors of magazines and the publishing houses will read your manuscripts, and if you show any promise, they'll tell you so. They're searching constantly for new writers because that's where their bread and butter comes from. Don't ever believe people who tell you it's who you know. It's nothing of the sort. Actually, writing can be a wonderful profession if you're qualified and willing to devote the same number of years to it that you'd have to devote to anything else in order to become successful. A good writer can work any place in the world. All he needs is a typewriter and a post office. He can sit out on the patio and have his coffee at 10 in the morning if he feels like it, and he can enjoy whatever fame he can earn. But at some time, he's got to go into that room, close the doors, put a piece of paper into the typewriter, and perform what the writers themselves call the hardest work on earth. Like having a baby, the joy comes after it's all over. A sort of humorous aspect of our society is the number of writing clubs where the members meet to talk about writing, but who, for the most part, never quite get around to doing the actual work. I'll be back in just one minute. If a writer waited around for a wisp of inspiration to come floating through the window, he'd eventually petrify in his chair. Inspiration comes from work. It has hardly ever been the other way around. Why don't you write a book? All you have to do is decide to spend three or four hours a day in front of a typewriter until it's finished.

The Confidence Man: Ponzi, Grand Deception, and the Lure of Easy Money

I suppose criminal psychology is one of the world's most interesting subjects and, at times, certainly the most terrifying. There's hardly a day goes by when the paper doesn't report some strange, senseless, twisted crime. But the most interesting of all, because of its sheer waste of talent and time, is the story of the Confidence Man. For example, there's a really interesting book published in 1955 by J.P. Lippincott Company called Grand Deception, which is a collection of the world's most spectacular and successful hoaxes, impostures, ruses and frauds, collected and edited by Alexander Klein. And in reading the many dozens of cases, the so-called normal person must shake his head and ask with wonderment, why don't those characters go straight? A lot of them have everything in the world it takes to be a really large success at just about any legitimate business, but because of some mental or emotional quirk in their natures, it's just no fun for them unless they're parting someone from his wallet dishonestly. And the thing that keeps them going is another quirk of human nature that's never changed and was old in the days of ancient Egypt. I guess you'd have to call it the ubiquitous belief that it's possible to get something for nothing. Freeling Foster, in his book Keep Up with the World, tells about the most spectacular. Charles Ponzi, an ignorant Italian, came to this country in 1899 and settled in Boston. For a while he worked at odd jobs such as dishwashing, but in 1919 he opened an investment business and offered to pay interest of 50% on any sum invested with him for just 90 days. Well, to the few who asked how this was possible, Ponzi claimed he was making a fortune in international postal coupons, buying them in countries where their price was low and selling them in countries where they brought higher prices. But, of course, he was lying. He was simply meeting the few demands on him for interest with money from his constantly growing capital. And, my golly, how it grew. After kind of a slow start, the money started coming in so fast it became impossible to keep books on it, and his 16 clerks had to work so rapidly that they tossed the money into wastebaskets under the counter. By public demand, Ponzi opened branch offices in four states and shortly was taking in such staggering sums each day. Now, on one day, he took in more than $2 million. Not bad, you'll admit, for one day. That he was naturally investigated and exposed. This started a run in all the people who thought they were getting something for nothing panicked and, of course, lost their shirts. When he was arrested a few days later, it was learned that during his operations of less than eight months, he had taken from some 50,000 investors about $18 million, half of which was never found or restored. Ponzi served a couple of prison terms and was deported to Italy in 1934, later went to South America where he eventually died in a hospital charity ward, 1949. But what a terrible waste of everybody's time. He could have founded a legitimate company and, while it would have taken longer, could have eventually left behind him a sound business, friends instead of enemies, and a good name instead of a prison record. Put your money where you know it's safe, where it's guaranteed, and where you earn a good but honest return. In this way, you'll get something for something. I'll be back in one minute. If a person would just put the same time and energy into being legitimate, he could keep what he earns, after taxes that is, and sleep like a baby. But as Plato said more than 300 years before Christ, everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

Talent Isn’t Enough: Earl Nightingale on Taking Your Gift to Market

Some years ago, a man came into my office whom I've never forgotten, and for whom I've never stopped being sorry. I've often thought that there must be thousands of people in the same boat. My secretary had given him an appointment, and he started right off on the wrong foot by arriving 15 minutes late. He then told me a long, sad story. As I remembered, it went something like this. Mr. Nightingale, everyone tells me I have a beautiful singing voice. In fact, they tell me my voice is better than most of the male singers in this country including, and right here he tossed off the names of our highest paid male singing stars. Well, I asked him why he'd come to me, and he replied it was because I was in the radio and television business. And I then asked him what he had done to get his voice heard by people other than his family and friends, who all raved about what a great voice he had. And right here he got a sort of pained look on his face and said something to the effect that someone ought to do something about the fact that he had such a great voice. At first I thought he was kidding, but after studying him for a moment, I realized he was quite serious. So I overcame the urge to throw him out into the hall and then tried to explain as patiently as I could that when we have something we think is worthwhile, it's up to us to do something about it. I told him that in his case, his course was clear. Since he had the finest larynx since Caruso, he should do two things. One, he should study voice under a competent coach, and two, he should sing every chance he got. Sing in church, sing for service clubs, sing for nothing, but sing until he qualified for the big chance he felt someone ought to give him. I then went on to explain that the world didn't give two hoops in you-know-where whether he had a good voice or not. He could make Perry Como sound like the baritone in a Salvation Army quartet, but unless he brought his songs to the people, the world would keep turning, the sun would still come up, and he could just forget about the whole thing. Well then, thinking that maybe I was being a little rough on him, I told him how all the big stars got started, how they worked and kept going and kept picking themselves up every time something or someone knocked them down until they had earned the greatness and its corresponding rewards they sought. Well, I guess I made quite a little speech, but I couldn't reach him. He finally left the same way he came in, petulant and hurt because the world didn't stand at attention just because the good Lord had given him a great voice. He probably went back to his hometown where his mother would sit in pure rapture while he shook the kitchen walls with his booming basso or whatever he had. This was quite a number of years ago. I wonder whatever became of him. Probably the same thing thousands of other youngsters do, even though they've been awarded the precious gift of real talent. Nothing at all. While the great stars keep coming along, working their way up the hard way, and someday knowing the acclaim of the world that will pay any price for greatness except making it easy to get there. Something to think about, isn't it? Well, I'll be back in just one minute. Having an outstanding talent is like raising a great crop. Unless you take it to market and sell it, the world will never miss it because no one ever knew it existed. If you think you've got something the world should know about, make it your career to see that the world knows about it. Thank you.