How to Build Self-Confidence

How to Build Self-Confidence

the scientific principles outlined in this lesson have brought

success and happiness to millions of people. This particular

treatise on ‘‘How to Build Self-Confidence’’ was written more than

seven years ago as a part of a general course in applied psychology.

Later it was published in booklet form, and more than three

hundred thousand of the booklets have been distributed. One large

industrial concern presented a copy of it to every employee on its

payrolls, several thousand people.

The lesson which you are about to read has an interesting history. I

have evidence of more than a hundred cases of men and women

finding their proper bearings in life through the aid of that which you

are about to read.

The most striking example of immediate transformation of failure

into success, through the aid of this article, happened about four

years ago, during the war. One day a tramp came to my office. When I

looked up at him, he was standing in the door with his cap in his

hands, looking as if he wanted to apologize for being on earth.

I was about to offer him a quarter when he startled me by pulling a

little brown-covered booklet out of his pocket. It was a copy of How to

Build Self-Confidence. He said, ‘‘It must have been the hand of fate that

slipped this little booklet into my pocket yesterday afternoon. I was

on my way to punch a hole in Lake Michigan when someone gave me

An attractive personality is something that is always found near

a heart that beats with kindness and sympathy for struggling

humanity.

this book. I read it. It caused me to stop and think, and now I am

satisfied that, if you will, you can put me back on my feet again.’’

I looked the tramp over again. He was about the worst-looking

specimen of humanity I have ever seen. He wore a two weeks’ growth

of beard. His clothes were unpressed and ragged. He wore no collar.

His shoes were run down at the heels. But, he had come to me for

help that I could not refuse. I asked him to come in and sit down.

Frankly, I had not the slightest idea that I could do anything for him,

but I did not have the heart to tell him so.

I asked him to tell me his story, to tell me what brought him down

to that station in life. He told me his story. Briefly, it was this: Prior to

the war, he was a successful manufacturer up in the state of Michigan.

The war caused his factory to fail. It wiped out his savings and his

business, and the blow broke his heart. It undermined his faith in

himself, so he left his wife and children and went out and became a

beggar.

After I had heard this story, I thought of a plan for helping him. I

said to him, ‘‘I have listened to your story with a great deal of interest,

and I wish I could do something for you, but there is absolutely

nothing that I can do.’’

I watched him for a few seconds. He turned white and looked as if he

were about to faint. Then I said, ‘‘But, there is a man in this building to

whom I will introduce you, and that man can put you back on your feet

in less than six months if you will rely upon him.’’ He stopped me and

said, ‘‘For God’s sake, lead me to him.’’ I took him out into my

laboratory and stood him in front of what looked to be a curtain over a

door. I reached over and pulled the curtain aside, and he stood face to

face with the person to whom I had promised to introduce him,

looking himself squarely in the face, in a tall looking glass.

I pointed my finger at the glass and said, ‘‘There is the only person

on earth who can help you, sir; and unless you sit down and become

acquainted with the strength back of that personality, you might just

as well go ahead and ‘punch a hole in Lake Michigan’ because you will

be no good to yourself or to anyone else.’’

He walked over real close to the glass, rubbed his bewhiskered

face, then stepped back, and tears began to trickle down his cheeks.

I led him to the elevator and sent him away, never expecting to see

him again.

About four days later, I met him on the streets of Chicago. A

complete transformation had taken place. He was walking at a rapid

pace with his chin up in the air at a forty-five-degree angle. He was

dressed from head to foot with new clothes. He looked like success,

and he walked as if he felt like success. He saw me and came over and

shook hands.

He said, ‘‘Mr. Hill, you have changed the whole course of my life.

You have saved me from myself by introducing me to myself—to my

real self—the one I did not know before—and one of these days, I

am coming back to see you again. When I do, I am going to be a

successful man. I am going to bring you a check. Your name will be

filled in at the top, and my name will be filled in at the bottom. The

amount will be left blank, for you to fill in, because you have marked

the biggest turning point in my life.’’

He turned and disappeared in the crowded streets of Chicago. As I

watched him go, I wondered if I would ever see him again. I

wondered if he would really make good. I just wondered and

wondered. It seemed almost like reading some tale from the Arabian

Nights.

Which brings me to the end of my introductory remarks, and to an

appropriate place to say that this man has come back to see me again.

He made good. If I mentioned his name in these columns, you would

recognize it immediately, because he has attained phenomenal

success and placed himself at the head of a business that is known

from coast to coast.

To doubt is to remain in ignorance.