The Templeton Plan

by Sir John Templeton

  “Like most children, the eight of them were prone to a certain amount of grumbling and squabbling. And there was one younger child in particular whose life was mainly one constant grumble. At the start of the trip we said to him, ‘Your job is to police the attitudes of the others. If anybody says anything unpleasant, they must remain silent until they’ve found two happy things to say.’

  “It worked like a charm. Not only did he conscientiously get on the others but, because he was the designated enforcer, he converted himself. The lively and warm side of his personality came out.”

  If complaints are invidious, so are comparisons, particularly comparisons between people. Almost every comparison is negative by its very nature. Rid yourself of the habit of saying, “This girl is prettier than that girl” or even “I like oranges better than apples.” However they may be framed, comparisons have a negative aspect to them and are often harmful. The successful person learns to avoid comparisons of all types.

  Instead, learn to say, “What a pretty girl!” or “I like oranges very much.” The same ideas can be expressed without the use of comparisons.

  John Templeton gives a dramatic example of how he learned this lesson: “As a young man I attended a house party. There was a girl there who wanted to know me better, and the host of the party had her listening in on our conversation while he asked me questions about her. I dealt in comparisons; I was carelessly negative, more than I meant to be. When later I discovered that she’d listened in, I was mortified. I was only trying to be honest and answer my friend truthfully, but I learned my lesson. Always talk as though the subject under discussion is an invisible presence who can see your expressions and hear every word you say. Then you’ll be careful and scrupulous in your judgments. That’s the kind of behavior that makes a successful person.”

  Gossip is another vice shunned by the success-bound person bent on finding the positive in the negative. Most gossip is adverse information, usually riddled with exaggeration and falsity. The individual who hopes to be successful, to be admired and popular in business, should work hard to avoid gossip.

  The ability to speak well of others, without comparisons, and to avoid gossip are positive approaches to life. Most circumstances can be interpreted in two ways; it all depends on your point of view. When two people look at a given situation, one can take a positive posture, the other a negative one. There is the famous illustration of two people studying a glass of water. One says that it is half empty. To the other, it is half full. We can train ourselves to look up rather than down—by finding the positive in the negative, by viewing the glass as half full. Two guaranteed methods for approaching that happy state are to shun comparisons and avoid gossip in your relations with others.

  John Templeton also recommends that you devote part of your reading time to material of an inspirational nature. Guideposts, a magazine with over 3 million subscribers, dedicates itself to uplifting stories. It forges a clear connection between business success and a life of inspiration.

  Templeton recommends Norman Vincent Peale’s books on the power of positive thinking; the television programs and books by Robert Schuller, featuring his method called Possibility Thinking; and the Reader’s Digest. As Templeton points out, the inspirational movement is one of America’s greatest success stories. Reader’s Digest has become the most widely read magazine in the world, with the largest circulation, and has accomplished this without articles dealing with sensationalism, degradation, and violence. Reading inspirational material can be an essential item in yout success portfolio.

  The motto of the Christophers, a Roman Catholic organization of hundreds of thousands of people, is that “it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” If you live by that precept, you will be following the steps to success.

  Light a candle in the darkness that will illuminate your life and the lives of those around you, and that very light will lead you to your goal.

  To summarize Step 6, anything that can be formulated in positive terms will lead to harmony among people and productive change. Through practice, you can almost always find the positive in any situation.

  Below are listed areas for further study:

  When you start to analyze the character of person B while talking to person A, stop yourself. Resist the impulse. It is gossip, and gossip is a negative force that leads away from success and happiness.

  Avoid comparisons. They have a way of making negatives out of positives.

  Be sure that your life is a seminar in living. You can achieve this by learning something new each day, no matter how small; by reaching out to others; by never passing up an opportunity for a new experience that will enlarge your knowledge; and by traveling as much as possible so that you can see new places and meet new people from different backgrounds.

  Read literature that inspires you. Inspiration is a core characteristic of the positive personality.

  STEP 7

  INVESTING YOURSELF IN YOUR WORK

  “I’LL BUY TWO Roman candles!” said one boy.

  “Give me a pinwheel!” cried another.

  “Three firecrackers for me!” demanded yet another.

  Money was changing hands so fast that you might think an experienced adult entrepreneur was hawking fireworks for the Fourth of July. But such was not the case.

  John Templeton, at the age of eight, was the salesman who had found the market and was busily raking in the profits. Even in those early days in his hometown of Winchester, Tennessee, he was beginning to make his mark in the world of business. And one of the most striking personal characteristics he displayed, while only a child, was the ability to formulate an idea, plan ahead carefully, and then invest himself totally in the work at hand.

  How did hard work pay off for him at such a tender age?

  Because there was no fireworks store in Winchester, there was a vacuum in the market and, hence, an opportunity for him. He did some research to see how he could buy quantities of fireworks at cut-rate prices and then sell them at a profit to his classmates. Through diligent detective work, he discovered a mail-order outlet in Ohio, and about a month before the holiday he was ordering various kinds of fireworks from Cincinnati—Roman candles, pinwheels, sparklers. You name it, he had it. Then, just before the Fourth, he would pack up his wares into his schoolbag, run off to class, and sell them to the other children at a healthy markup in price.

  Young John Templeton had learned one of the cardinal success secrets at a tender age: the importance of hard work. In his long life, he has never stopped working hard, and he has never regretted a single moment of it.

  Through his extensive reading, Templeton has compiled a number of quotations on the value of hard work and how hard work leads to success. Here are some of his favorites:

  Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes believed in “work, hard work, and long hours of work. Men do not break down from overwork, but from worry and dissipation.”

  The advice of Harlow Herbert Curtice, an automobile manufacturer, was to “do your job better each time. Do it better than anyone else can do it. Do it better than it needs to be done. Let no one or anything stand between you and the difficult task. I know this sounds old-fashioned. It is, but it has built the world.”

  Grenville Kleiser wrote some of the earliest successful “how-to” books. He believed that “there is honor in labor. Work is the medicine of the soul. It is more: It is your very life, without which you would amount to little.”

  William Feather, publisher and author, said: “The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can; to act as though the eye of opportunity were always upon us. In the hundred-yard race the winner doesn’t cross the tape line a dozen strides ahead of the field. He wins by inches. So we find it in ordinary business life. The big things that come our way are seldom the result of long thought or careful planning, but rather they are the fruit of seed planted in the daily routine of our work.
”

  For Sir Theodore Martin, the nineteenth-century Scottish biographer: “Work is the true elixir of life. The busiest man is the happiest man. Excellence in any art or profession is attained only by hard and persistent work. Never believe that you are perfect. When a man imagines, even after years of striving, that he has attained perfection, his decline begins.”

  In the opinion of Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish essayist and historian: “The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.”

  Henry Ford, the automotive great, believed that “nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.”

  Author Jacob Korsaren gave this advice: “If you are poor, work. If you are burdened with seemingly unfair responsibilities, work. If you are happy, work. Idleness gives room for doubts and fear. If disappointments come, keep right on working. If sorrow overwhelms you and loved ones seem not true, work. If health is threatened, work. When faith falters and reason fails, just work. When dreams are shattered and hope seems dead, work. Work as if your life were in peril. It really is. No matter what ails you, work. Work faithfully—work with faith. Work is the greatest remedy available for both mental and physical afflictions.”

  The English statesman and man of letters Lord Chesterfield said: “It is an undoubted truth that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and, therefore, one seldom does it at all; whereas, those who have a great deal of business must buckle to it; and then they always find time enough to do it.”

  Psychiatrist W. Beran Wolfe put it this way: “If you observe a really happy man, you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that had rolled under the radiator, striving for it as the goal itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of each day.”

  Former President Calvin Coolidge was certain that “all growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work. Work is not a curse; it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization.”

  And perhaps the Greek playwright Antiphanes summed it all up when he said: “Everything yields to diligence.”

  Very few of us work as hard as we can. We think we work hard. But in fact nine out of ten people waste more time than they use.

  The successful person learns to avoid wasting precious moments. It is helpful to carry with you reading material that is necessary in your career. Then, when you have a few minutes between appointments or while riding on a bus or train, you can absorb a page or two, or an entire article. Thus you’ve used your time fruitfully.

  Whenever possible, carry a tape recorder with you in your briefcase. You will find that you can jot down ideas and dictate letters, accomplishing something in what might otherwise be wasted time. Career success depends on such tactics. If you can learn to use all that time that would otherwise be wasted, you are learning the meaning of hard work.

  Forty years ago, when John Templeton was first calling on investment counseling clients, he trained himself to arrive early for appointments. He set his watch ten minutes fast (he does to this day) so that he would be likely to be ahead of schedule at all times. While waiting for his appointment, he would spend those extra ten minutes reading.

  Another way to save time is to think two thoughts at once, a trick that Templeton has mastered. He has found that it’s possible while, say, giving a lecture to be thinking also of what you’re going to do the next day. Our time is limited, and it’s helpful to think along one channel while functioning on another.

  As strange as it may seem, you will make fewer mistakes by distributing your thoughts over a wide range of consciousness and you will accomplish more. For example, if you’re carrying on a conversation, analyze at the same time what your objective is in carrying on that particular conversation. Is it to produce a book or a paper? Is it to persuade someone? Is it to convey new ideas or to sharpen your own viewpoint through discussion?

  Think while you talk. It takes long practice to train yourself to concentrate on a subject that you’re not discussing or doing or reading about, but the payoff is that you can extend each workday by packing more substance into it.

  Those who learn the secret of hard work will find success; the winning of awards and scholarships will point you in the right direction. The awards needn’t be major; they can be ribbons awarded for winning a spelling bee or a swimming meet in school. But big or small, it pays to set yourself the task of winning an award because it trains you to work harder. Once you win something, you’re all the more motivated to win something else.

  We live in a credit economy and an advertising culture that advises us to buy now and pay later. At best this is a dubious proposition. The underlying philosophy—a dangerous one—is that we accept gratification before we’ve earned it. Although it goes against the grain of our current “live for the moment” orientation, children should be taught to “study first and play later.” If children do their homework in school or as soon as they get home, they will begin to build a reputation as students who know the meaning of responsibility and hard work. They will please their teachers, their parents, and themselves. They will make the honor roll and win scholarships. They will truly enjoy their leisure time because they will have earned it. Those children will already be on the fast track to success because they will have learned the first key lesson: Defer pleasure until the job is done.

  When John Templeton worked for an oil company in Dallas, his first important position, he watched to see what time his boss arrived and left each day. Templeton then scheduled his time so that he was always in before the boss arrived and still at his desk when the man left each evening. He feels that his rapid rise had much to do with the impression he made on his boss as a man willing to work long hours. He was labeled as a hard worker, and hard workers advance the most rapidly in any enterprise.

  It was in his second year at Yale, however, in 1931, that John Templeton truly learned the meaning of hard work. His father told him, “John, I can’t give you one more dollar toward college. I can barely hold on through this depression.”

  The news was a blow to young Templeton’s future hopes. But when he got over the initial shock, he searched for answers. Should he look for a job or return to college? He prayed and sought advice from family and friends. He mulled over their suggestions and offers, including that of his uncle, Watson G. Templeton, who was willing to lend him $200 if he would try to work his way through the next three years of college.

  Templeton finally decided to borrow the money from his uncle. With a positive “can-do” attitude, he returned to Yale that fall prepared to scramble for the necessary funds to finish his education.

  On his arrival, he immediately went to Ogden Miller, the man in charge of the college’s Bureau of Appointments, and explained his financial predicament.

  Because of his excellent freshman record, he not only received a scholarship but got employment from the university as well. He had taken a chance in returning to Yale on his uncle’s modest loan. And now, to stack the odds solidly in his favor, he was forced to invest more of his own effort and sweat to see that the gamble paid off.

  One lesson he learned during that period was that you must “always deliver more than you promise.” Another lesson: “Seeming tragedy can be God’s way of educating his children.” Most important, the need to earn his own college expenses taught him the meaning of hard work and thrift.

  Templeton says, “I knew that to continue at Yale I would have to get not one but several scholarships simultaneously. To do that I would have to have
top grades, and so for the first time in my life, I became a really hard worker. Throughout my college career, I always had at least two scholarships, and at the end of my junior year, I was the number-one student in my class.

  “How did this happen? Not because I was the smartest kid in my class. I wasn’t. There were dozens of students with superior intellects. But I had learned to be a hard worker, and that’s more significant in the end than being intellectual. Success depends more on how you develop your talents than on how many talents you have.”

  In college exams, you have to answer as many questions as possible as accurately as possible. One success secret that Templeton learned is not to dwell on those questions that pose difficulties. If you have an examination of ten questions, glance through it quickly and first complete the answers you are sure of. Do those accurately and thoroughly. Then try the others. If, by the time the examination is over, you have neglected anything, it is likely to be a question you couldn’t have answered in any case.

  Don’t waste time on the impossible when you can make valuable headway in the area of the possible. That is a valuable success habit to carry through life.

  John Templeton believes that successful people, ever conscious of time management, will not get their news from television. Too much time is wasted. During a thirty-minute program, there are numerous commercial interruptions and very little substantive news. For the hard worker, conscious of time, it is far more expedient to read a good newspaper. In only ten minutes with a newspaper, by running your eyes down the columns and picking out the headlines of significant items, then scanning what is pertinent, you will gain ten times the information you will receive from half an hour of television viewing. He further believes that no one who watches more than 100 hours of television a year will become a success.