Increasing Efficiency In Business | Page 5

ments of
each operation, they were shown that they could accomplish twice or
three times as much as their customary tasks.
_Actual instances prove that great increase of work and results can be
secured by outside stimulus and by conscious effort_.
If there is one place where the limit of exertion can be counted upon, it
is in an inter- collegiate athletic contest. While taking part in football
games, I frequently observed that my team would be able to push the
opposing team halfway across the field. Then the tables would be
turned and my team would give ground. At one moment one team
would seem to possess much superior physical strength to the other; the
next moment the equilibrium would be changed apparently without
cause. Often, however, the weaker team would rally in response to the
captain's coaching. On the field a player frequently finds himself

unable to exert himself. His greatest effort is necessary to force himself
to work. In such a mental condition a vigorous and enthusiastic appeal
from the coach may

supply the needed stimulus and stir him to
sudden display of all his strength.
I recently conducted a series of experiments on college athletes to
determine whether coaching could actually increase a man's strength
when he was already trying his ``best,'' and whether he could continue
to work after he was ``completely exhausted.'' I put each man at work
on machines which allowed him to exert himself to his utmost and
measured his accomplishment. While he was thus employed, the coach
began urging him to increase his exertion. Ordinarily the increase was
marked--sometimes as much as fifty per cent.
Again, when the man had exhausted himself without coaching, the
extra demand would be made on him; usually he was able to continue,
even though without the coaching he had been unable to do any more.
There was, of course, a point of exhaustion at which the coaching
ceased to be effective.
_The tests proved conclusively that when a man is doing what he
believes to be his best, he is still_

_able to do better; when he is
completely exhausted, he is, under proper stimulus, able to continue_.
Before a horse is started in a race it is vigorously exercised, ``warmed
up.'' To the uninitiated this process seems so strenuous as to defeat its
purpose by wearing out the strength of the horse. Every horseman
knows, however, that the animal cannot attain top speed till after it has
undergone this severe discipline.
In training for a contest an athlete usually takes long runs. Soon after
the start he feels weary and exhausted, but, by disregarding this feeling
and continuing to run, a sudden change comes over him commonly
known as ``getting his second wind.''
Thus the runner feels wave upon wave of exhaustion followed by
waves of invigoration. Had he stopped when he first began to tire, he
never would have known of his wonderful reserve fund of strength

which can be drawn upon only by passing through the feeling of
exhaustion. He seems to be able to tap deeper and deeper reservoirs of
strength.

_Many men have never discovered their reserve stores of strength
because they have formed the fixed habit of quitting at the first access
of weariness_.
Thus they never become conscious of the wonderful resources which
might be used if they were willing to disregard the trifling wave of
weariness.
Our best energies are not on the surface and are not available without
great exertion. We have to warm up and get our second wind before we
are capable of our best physical or mental accomplishments. All our
muscular and psychical processes are dependent upon the activity of
the nervous system. This activity seems to be at its best only after
repeated and vigorous stimulation and after it has reached down to
profound and widely distributed centers.
_Most of us never know of our possible achievements because we have
never warmed up and got our second wind in our business or
professional affairs_.
When an individual succeeds in tapping his

reserve energies,
others marvel at the tremendous tasks he accomplishes. They judge in
terms of superficial energy, and for such the results would, of course,
be impossible, even though many of the admiring spectators could
actually equal or excel the deed.
Consider for a moment the work achieved by Mr. Edward Payson
Weston who recently walked the entire distance from New York to San
Francisco without halt or rest in one hundred and four days.
Throughout the entire journey Mr. Weston covered about fifty miles
daily, once attaining the remarkable distance of eighty-seven miles in
twenty-four hours. Though Mr. Weston is seventy years of age, at