Dollars and Sense | Page 6

mechanic is fairly sure of three dollars a day, and fifty-two weeks' employment in the year.
The mechanic does not have many worries. He does not have notes to meet at the bank. He does not have to face the ingratitude of employes and petty jealousies, for he has no employes working for him.
He lays down his tools when the bell rings and goes home to his family. His ambition is to have a good place to sleep, plenty to eat, money enough to buy clothing for his family and to send his children to school, and extra spending money enough over his fixed charges to allow him to take his family to the circus when it comes to town.
Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates taking chances.
Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at this statement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successful business man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in more money than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is a gambler. The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase his earnings is not a gambler.
We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaper we can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble.
Any man with two hands and ordinary health can earn a livelihood, but the ambitious man wants to make a name for himself and to make a success in business, so he works harder than he would do if his problem were only the obtaining of money enough to buy the things necessary for his existence.
The moment a man loses ambition, his progress, so far as business advancement is concerned, ceases.
Nearly every successful business today is successful because the proprietors, in the infancy of the business, were filled with ambition which made them work hard.
We are all familiar with the successful business man who loses his ambition. It is an absolute certainty that as soon as a man loses ambition his business falls off, unless he makes it an object to take care of the ambitious young men in his employ, so that they may keep up the pace of progress he established.

Lawyers
Keep in touch with a lawyer, but don't take his advice on business matters.
A lawyer should be like a dictionary--a place of reference.
Lawyers by the very nature of their vocation have much to do with concerns who are in trouble, and with firms who are poorly managed.
Lawyers know law first and business second; the business man knows business first and law second.
The advice of one successful business man is worth the advice of twenty-three lawyers on a matter of business.
Use the lawyer to keep you out of trouble. Let him see your contracts and the papers and agreements pertaining to leases, sales, purchases, royalties, and all documents which may from their nature be brought into court as evidence. These things are the ones on which to take the lawyer's advice.
When you are pushed into a corner and must fight, then get the best lawyer, for in a fight in court, like a fight in the prize ring, the best trained and equipped man usually wins.
It's more often the best lawyer wins than the best side of the case.
Legal struggles seldom pay. Law suits take up time and money, and the result, even if in your favor, seldom offsets the time, money and worry you have expended.
The good lawyer keeps you from fighting. Many lawyers, however, are grafters, and they advise fight, for they win whether you do or not.
Settle disputes even if you are imposed on. There is little satisfaction in getting a judgment for one hundred dollars, when your lawyers fees are fifty dollars and you have expended two hundred dollars' worth of time and worry over the case.
Ask your lawyer's advice on the legal status of your operations, and not on business propositions.
If you are a success in business that is an evidence, generally speaking, that your judgment is good.
You can get all the advice you want for nothing. If you state a case and lay out a proposed plan, and then ask your friends' advice on the subject, you can safely count that nine out of ten will say that your proposition is all right as outlined by you.
These friends figure that you have given the plan much thought and study, and it is much simpler for them to coincide with your opinion than to take an opposite view.
Honestly between ourselves we must admit that when we seek advice we generally do it only for the purpose of having our own opinions confirmed, and, if our friends do not agree with us, we say they are prejudiced.
Lawyers don't see the