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The Most Important Characteristic In The World!
Is there one trait that is more important than any other in business?
I believe there is. And no it’s not intelligence. It’s not talent, or charisma, or salesmanship.
It’s not even marketing.
Read the following story about “carrying the message to Garcia” and discover what it is for yourself. I guarantee that once you find it and develop it in yourself, you’ll reap rewards for the rest of your life.
It reveals the most prized characteristic on earth.
IN ALL THIS CUBAN BUSINESS there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain and the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba—no one knew where. No mail or telegraph could reach him. The President must secure his co-operation, and quickly.
What to do!
Someone said to the President, "There is a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and having delivered his letter to Garcia—are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?"
By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing—"Carry a message to Garcia."
General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.
No man who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands are needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man—the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook or threat he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.
You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within call. Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio."
Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?
On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye, and ask one or more of the following questions:
Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don't you mean Bismarck?
What's the matter with Charlie doing it?
Is he dead?
Is there any hurry?
Sha'n't I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?
What do you want to know for?
And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him find Garcia—and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course, I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average I will not.
Now, if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C's, not in the K's, but you will smile very sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself. And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift—these are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?
A first mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night holds many a worker to his place. Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply can neither spell nor punctuate—and do not think it necessary to.
Yo see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.
"Yes, what about him?"
"Well, he's a fine accountant, but if I'd send him uptown on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street would forget what he had been sent for."
Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?
We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "down-trodden denizens of the sweatshop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," and with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.
Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne'er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long, patient striving after "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues: only, if times are hard and work is scarce, this sorting is done finer—but out and forever out the incompetent and unworthy go. It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best—those who can carry a message to Garcia.
I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He can not give orders, and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself!"
Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular firebrand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled Number Nine boot.
Of course, I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold the line in dowdy indifference, slipshod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry and homeless.
Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds—the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner-pail and worked for a day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.
My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks will be granted. He is wanted in every city, town and village—in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed and needed badly—the man who can "Carry a Message to Garcia."
I’m sure you captured the essence of that true story that took place many years ago. It’s interesting how few people really understand the idea of refusing to accept anything less than success.
You’ve seen it over and over again with employee’s and vendors. People who can’t or won’t think on their own or do what it takes to get the job done. They’ll do decent work when the boss is around, but as soon as his back is turned they are back to doing shoddy work.
I see it all the time with business owners. People who give lip service to the fact that they want to be wealthy. They want to live life on their own terms, but then they have a couple of bumps in the road and they give up.
If the first marketing piece they use doesn’t create HUGE results, they discount what they are learning. They use it as an excuse that this stuff doesn’t work for them. They give up.
And they always get what they deserve.
The guy who delivered the message to Garcia was like the mean dog who latches on to the mailman’s leg. The mailman shook his leg but the dog held on, growling at him. The mail man kicked the dog with the other leg. The dog held on. The mailman drug the dog down the sidewalk. The dog held on. He sprayed the dog with mace, hit him on the head with his mail sack and swung him into the tree. The dog still held on.
The man who delivered the message to Garcia wasn’t exceptionally fast, or strong, or even intelligent.
He simply had one characteristic which was the ability to get the thing done. Whatever it is, whether it’s a new marketing piece, or dealing with a pile of paperwork sitting on the desk.
I find most people are remarkably eager to quit. To give up, or throw in the towel. But not the really successful entrepreneurs. Look at Donald Trump. 10 years ago the press was having a field day with his financial problems. The grimy annoying little reporters scurrying around with their pads of paper and microphones, gloating over the fact that he was on the edge of bankruptcy.
But No. He wasn’t going to throw in the towel and let someone else deal with 300 million in debt. He was going to make a comeback. And come back he did.
In the direct marketing business there are a lot of chances to give up. You can try a mailer, and have it fail miserably. You can try again, with the same frustrating result. And after 3 or 4 of those “failures” (or tests as I call them and that’s really what they are), its easy to say ‘oh this stuff doesn’t work for me.’
In fact if I would’ve done that, I guarantee I wouldn’t be here today. I’ve had my share of speed bumps and flat out brick walls in the way of my success. But I won’t accept anything less than success.
My very first marketing piece I ever did using these techniques got a whopping 0 calls. That’s right, zero, zilch, nada. I spent over 1000 bucks (when I didn’t have it) and not one person called me. My partner spent over $3000.00 sending out 10,000 flyers another time and had about 3 people call him. What a dismal failure, right? Wrong. Just a test. (10,000 is way too many to test by the way, I told him that, but alas, he didn’t listen.)
So whatever it is you want in life, business, and financially, personally; set your sights on it and do not give up. Regardless of the road block in your way.
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