7 Dark Roses - Free Audio ebooks

THE FORCE OF HABIT

There was a time when I was a fairly heavy cigarette

smoker. Then, several years ago, I was on a vacation and

motoring through France. One day, after driving for hours

through some particularly foul rainy weather, I stopped for

the night at a hotel in a small town in the Auvergne. Tired

after the long and difficult dr

ive, I had dinner and went up

to my room. I undressed, got into bed and quickly fell

asleep.

For some reason, I awoke about two

., acutely aware

that I wanted a cigarette. Switching on the light, I reached

for the cigarette package I’d placed on the nightstand

before retiring. It proved to be empty. Annoyed—but still

wanting a cigarette—I got out of bed and searched the

pockets of the clothes I had been wearing. The search

proved fruitless, and I went on to grope through my

luggage in hopes that I might have accidentally left a pack

of cigarettes in one of my suitcases. Again I was

disappointed. I knew the hotel bar and restaurant had

closed long before and guessed that it would be worse than

useless to summon the crotchety

night porter at such an

hour. The only way I could hope to obtain any cigarettes

was by dressing and then going to the railroad station,

which was located at least six blocks away.

The prospect was not very pleasant. The rain still pelted

down outside. My car was garaged a considerable distance

from the hotel and, in any event, I had been warned the

garage closed at midnight and did not reopen until six

o’clock in the morning. The chances of getting a taxi were

nil.

All in all, it was clear that if I was to have the cigarette I

wanted so badly, I would have to walk to the railroad

station—and back—through the pouring rain. But the

desire to smoke gnawed at me and, perversely, the more I

contemplated the difficulties entailed in getting a cigarette,

the more desperately I wanted

to have one. And so I took

off my pajamas and started putting on my clothes. I was

completely dressed and reaching for my raincoat when I

abruptly stopped and began to laugh—at myself. It had

suddenly struck me that my actions were illogical, even

ludicrous.

There I stood, a supposedly intelligent human being, a

supposedly responsible and fa

irly successful businessman

who considered himself sensible

enough to give other peo-

ple orders. Yet I was ready to leave my comfortable hotel

room in the middle of the night and slosh a dozen blocks

through a driving rainstorm for no other reason than that I

wanted a cigarette—because I felt that I “had” to have one.

For the first time in my life, I was brought face to face

with the realization that I had developed a habit so strong

that I was willing—automatically and unthinkingly—to let

myself in for a very great deal of personal discomfort

merely to satisfy it. Instead of simply enjoying the pleasure

of an occasional smoke, I’d allowed myself to form a habit

that had grown completely out of hand and was obviously

operating contrary to my best interests, producing no

commensurately beneficial results. Suddenly sharply aware

of this, I rebelled mentally. I needed only a moment to

arrive at a decision. I considered it an excellent idea—and

an ideal time and place—to rid myself of a habit that was

certainly doing me no good.

Having made up my mind, I took the empty cigarette

packet that still lay on the nightstand, crumpled it up and

tossed it into the wastebasket. Then I undressed, once more

put on my pajamas and got back into bed. It was with a

sense of relief—even of triumph—that I switched off the

light, closed my eyes and listened to the rain beating

against the windows of the

room. In a few minutes, I

drifted off into a sound and contented sleep. I haven’t

smoked a cigarette— nor have I felt any desire to smoke

one—since that night.

Now, I do not intend any of this as an indictment of

either cigarettes or smoking. I recount the anecdote solely

to show how, in my own case, a habit got out of control to

the extent that it controlled me, rather than the other way

around.

Practices do become habits—and the force of those

habits can, indeed, be mighty. However, human beings

have a considerable degree of latitude. They are, after all,

endowed with the ability to form their own habits and to

break or discard those which they find undesirable.

Nowhere do habit patterns count for as much, and no-

where does the force of habit demonstrate its might more

emphatically than in the business world. A businessman’s

habits are among the most important factors that

determine whether he will be a success—or a failure.

For instance, it is a helpful habit for a businessman to

be optimistic and enthusiastic

. It will make his own work

better and easier and will also serve to hearten and inspire

his associates and subordinates. However, habitual opti-

mism and enthusiasm can be carried to dangerous—and

even disastrous—extremes of overestimation and

overzealousness.

I recall the case of a brilliant and highly capable busi-

nessman—Bill Smith is as good a name for him as any—

whose optimism helped him greatly in establishing and op-

erating several manufacturing firms that showed good

profits and great promise. Unfortunately, all of Bill Smith’s

business experience was obtained during a boom period.

Consequently, his rosiest outlooks and hopes were always

realized by developments in what was a steadily rising

market.

Then, suddenly, there was a relatively mild economic

recession. It was a time when

seasoned businessmen pulled

in their horns somewhat, did a little retrenching and pro-

ceeded cautiously while they waited for the business situa-

tion to become stabilized.

Bill Smith was totally unable to adjust to what, for him,

were new and unfamiliar conditions. His habits of optimism

and enthusiasm were too deeply ingrained. Instead of

applying his brakes, he continued to move at full speed,

supremely confident that everything would turn out fine.

Within a very short time, Smith had bitten off far more

than he could chew under the

business conditions that then

prevailed. He overextended himself and his companies and

eventually went bankrupt.

It is the widespread custom to say that people “develop”

good habits and “fall into” bad ones. The implication, of

course, is that the former are difficult to achieve, that the

individual must make a constant conscious effort to form

them, while he will slide easily and effortlessly into the

latter. This is true—but needlessly so and almost solely

because of the perversity of human nature. Actually, a

habit is a habit. There should be no valid reason why it is

any more difficult to fo

rm good ones than bad.

For instance, I—along with a great many others—con-

tend that promptness, or the lack of it, is largely a matter

of habit. One either forms the good habit of being on time

—or forms the bad habit of being chronically tardy.

It is to any individual’s advantage and best interests to

be prompt, whether it is in keeping an appointment, paying

a debt, meeting an obligation or keeping a promise of any

kind.

The habitually late dinner guest discommodes his hosts

and the others who have been invited to the affair. He

quickly becomes unpopular and, sooner or later, he is

dropped from guest lists.

Habitual promptness is an especially valuable asset for

any businessman. That ancient adage “Time is money” has

always been valid and it is more valid today than ever be-

fore. The pace and complexity of contemporary business

place a premium on every hour and minute. Businessmen

and executives must run their

workdays on the tightest of

schedules. They cannot afford to waste their productive

time any more than they can afford to have needless

stoppages on the production line.

Witness the constantly increasing number of corpora-

tions that operate their own aircraft so that they can move

their executives from one place to another faster—to get

them wherever they must go on time. There are more than

34,000 corporate aircraft in the United States today.

General Motors, for example, maintains a fleet of 22 planes.

Montgomery Ward openly admits that the cost of flying

its executives aboard its own airc

raft is a third more than it

would be to send them to their destinations on regular

scheduled airline flights. But the use of corporate planes

saves nearly 60 percent of the company executives’ travel-

ing time—and Montgomery Ward, like so many other com-

panies, understands that the time saved is well worth the

additional cost.

In short, the man who is where he said he would be at

the time he promised to be there is not only making an

excellent impression, he is saving—and thereby making—

money for himself or for his company.

The need for promptness extends to every phase of busi-

ness. The businessmen and firms most likely to succeed are

those that fill their orders, deliver their merchandise,

provide their services, pay their bills and meet their notes

and other obligations on time. Customers who are made to

wait for delivery on their orders beyond the promised time

are likely to place their next

orders elsewhere. Individuals

and firms that pay their bills when they fall due establish

good credit ratings—while those that lag behind soon find

that it becomes extremely difficult or impossible for them to

obtain credit anywhere.

Notwithstanding the countless advantages of habitual

promptness, there are those who form the habit of being

late regardless of the consequences. It is perversity,

laziness and lack of foresight that cause an individual to

form the habit of being tardy—just as it is these same

factors that cause most people to form most of the habits

that harm them and their business careers.

Thrift is another habit that can be formed—and that

very often adds a deciding

ingredient to any business

success formula. Common sense should prove to any person

that it is sound policy to economize wherever it is

reasonably practicable to do so.