October 3

A businessman told me he was going to fire a certain employee because the man was slow, dull, and sleepy. "Instead of firing him out of the business, why not fire him into the business?" I asked. "You mean build a fire under him?" he demanded. "No," I said, "build a fire in him. Get him excited. get him motivated." The employer did just that and now he reports of the same employee, "The man is a ball of fire."

October 6

One of Thomas Jefferson's rules of personal conduct was, "Always take hold of things by the smooth handle." Go at a job or at a difficulty or at a personal-relationship problem by a method that will encounter the least resistance. The less resistance, the faster things move.

October 5

A tornado swept through a southwestern city doing great damage. A mother there, confined to her bed because of infantile paralysis, paralyzed from the waist down, at the height of the tornado became alarmed for her two children in the next room. There was no one to help; the tornado was striking the house with force. Her limbs were assumed to be without power, but concern for the safety of her children was stronger than her limitations.

Slowly she got out of bed and painfully made her way into the adjoining room. Taking her babies in her arms, she walked with them out of the house. Love proved more powerful than the paralysis from which she had been told she might never recover. Some people become paralyzed, not in their limbs, but in their thoughts. They accept limitations by saying, "This is all I can do." But that depreciating self-appraisal is not the truth. You are greater than you think you are.

October 4

The Bible gives a tremendous statement which, in the softness of these days, is scarcely ever quoted, at least not often enough. I heard it frequently in the sturdier days of my boyhood: "Quit you like men, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13). We simply have to develop sturdiness of will if the tough, hard problems of life are to be handled effectively. Every person has a will. If it is soft, exercise will strengthen it. Think of your will as a "muscle" of the spirit. Like any muscle, if not exercised, it becomes flabby. But, with repeated use, it toughens up, acquiring tone and resiliency.