Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

of life under their care are always in the right place at the right time and under the right conditions. Since there is such an incalculable mass of these important trifles to be looked after, it is well that the majority of people are better detail workers than formulators of policies and leaders of great movements. Tragedy results when the man with the detail worker's heart and brain attempts to wear the diadem of authority. He breaks his back trying to carry burdens no human shoulders are broad enough to bear. He is so bowed down by them that he sees only his mincing footsteps and has no conception of the general direction in which he is going. Nine times out of ten he travels wearily around in a little circle, which grows smaller and smaller as his over-taxed strength grows less and less.

When you put a man of larger mental grasp in charge of a wearying round of monotonous details, you have mingled the elements out of which a cataclysm sometimes comes. These are the men who, with the very best intentions in the world, fail to appear with the horseshoe nail at the correct moment. To be there, at that time, with the horseshoe nail is their duty. Nothing greater than that is expected of them. Yet, because their minds grasp the great movements of armies in battles and campaigns, they overlook the horseshoe nail and, as the old poem says:

"For the want of the nail, the shoe was lost;
For the want of the shoe, the horse was lost;
For the want of the horse, the rider was lost;
For the want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For the want of the battle, the kingdom was lost—
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail!"

Perhaps the man who bore the title of rider ought to have been charged with the duty of being there with that horseshoe nail, and the man who was only a blacksmith's helper should have ridden the horse and saved the battle and the kingdom.

INDICATIONS OF DETAIL AND NON-DETAIL APTITUDES

It ought not to be difficult for any man or woman to know whether or not he or she is qualified for detail work. The man who enjoys detail and takes pleasure in order, system, accuracy, and exactitude, down to the last dot and hairline, ought to know that he is qualified for detail work and has no business trying to carry on or manage affairs in which there is a considerable element of risk as well as many variables. Strangely enough, however, many of them do not know this, and over and over again we find the detail man wearing himself into nervous prostration in the wrong vocation.

On the other hand, the man who hates routine, grows restive under monotony, is impatient with painstaking accuracy and minute details, ought to know better than to make himself—or to allow himself to be made—responsible for them. And yet, nearly every day someone is coming to us with a complaint about the monotony of his job—how he hates its routine and how often he gets himself into trouble because he neglects or overlooks some little thing.

It ought to be easy enough to tell the difference between these two classes of workers. If you are a brunette, with fairly prominent brows and somewhat sloping forehead, a chin prominent at the lower point and receding upward toward the mouth; if your head is high and square behind; if your fingers are long and square-tipped; if your flesh is elastic or hard in consistency, then you can trust yourself to take responsibility for things in which seeming trifles may be of the highest importance. If, on the other hand, you are blonde or red-haired; if your head is round and dome-shaped just above the temples and round behind; if your nose is prominent and your chin narrow and receding at the lower point; if your flesh is elastic, with a tendency toward softness; if your fingers are short and either square or tapering, then you had better prepare yourself for some vocation where you can deal with large affairs, where you can plan and organize and direct, and let other people work out the details.

COURAGE AND RECKLESSNESS

The story is told of two soldiers going into battle. Both pushed forward swiftly and eagerly. They were rapidly nearing the danger zone. Already men were falling around them. As they went on, one suddenly looked at the other. "Why," he cried, "your face is white, your eyes are glazed, your limbs are trembling. I believe you are afraid!"

"Great God, man! of course I am afraid," replied the other. "And if you were one-half as afraid as I am, you would turn and run."

Here we have the discrimination between real courage and mere foolhardiness or recklessness. There are some vocations which require courage. There are others which require an element of recklessness. It requires courage to drive the locomotive of a railroad train at a speed of eighty miles an hour, but it also requires caution, prudence, watchfulness, and even apprehension.

In a western factory men were wanted for an important job, one in which a moment's carelessness in the handling of levers might cost a dozen fellow workmen their lives. "Find me," said the superintendent, "the most careful men you can get. I do not want anyone dumping damage suits on the company." The employment department found the very careful men, but none of them were satisfactory; they were all so careful that they made no speed, and soon had to be relieved for this reason, and because the constant nervous strain was too much for them. Here was a kind of work requiring a certain cool, calm, deliberate recklessness. Men were found with steady nerves, keen eyesight, quick reaction time, and smooth co-ordination of muscular action, together with a moderate degree of cautiousness. These men liked the work for the very tingle of the danger in it. They swung their ponderous machines to their tasks with a sureness of touch and a swiftness of operation which not only delighted the superintendent, but inspired confidence in their fellow workers.

INDICATIONS OF COURAGE AND CAUTION

If you are brunette, with small, sway-back or snub nose, narrow, rounded chin, and a tendency to disturbances of the circulation; if your head is narrow at the sides and high and square behind, look for a vocation where caution is a prime requisite, but do not get yourself into situations where you will have to fight or where there is so much risk that your natural apprehensiveness will cause you to worry and lie awake nights.

Contrary wise, if your chin is broad and prominent, your head is wide above the ears, low and round behind, and rather short; especially if you are a blonde, with a large nose, high in the bridge, and a big rounded dome just above the temples, select for yourself a vocation where success depends upon a cheerful willingness to take a chance. You may blunder into a tight situation now and then, and you will occasionally make a bad guess and lose thereby, but you will not be inclined to worry and you will greatly enjoy the give and take of the fight by means of which you will extricate yourself from undesirable situations.

QUICKNESS OR SLOWNESS OF THOUGHT AND ACTION

If you are of the thoughtful, philosophical type, instead of the keen, alert, practical type, don't attempt to win success in any vocation requiring quick thought and quick decision. You like to reason things out; you want to know why before you go ahead. Your success lies in lines which require slow, thoughtful, careful reasoning, mature deliberation, and an ability to plod diligently through masses of facts and arguments.

If, on the other hand, you are of the observant, practical, matter-of-fact, scientific type, your vocation should be one calling for quick thought, quick decision, ability to get the facts and to deal with them, keen observation, and one not requiring too great a nicety of mental calculation.

If you have a small, round, retreating chin, beware of any vocation which requires great deliberation in action, because you are very quick to act. Your hands, once their task is learned, move very swiftly. You are inclined to be impulsive. If your forehead is of the type which indicates quick thinking and you have a large nose, high in the bridge, then you are of the keenest, most alert, most energetic and dynamic type. No sooner do you see a proposition than you decide. No sooner do you decide than you act, and when you have acted, you want to see the results of that action immediately. You are, therefore, unfitted for any vocation which requires prolonged meditation, great deliberation in action, and a patient, plodding willingness to wait for results.

If your chin is long, broad, and prominent at the point, your action will always wait upon your thought. If your thought is quick, as indicated by the sloping forehead, your action may follow very quickly, but never impulsively. If, on the other hand, your forehead is one which indicates reflection and slowness of thought, then you will be very deliberate, postponing action in every case until you have carefully and painstakingly thought the entire matter out. It is useless for anyone to try to rush you to either decision or action, for you may have it in you to be quite hopelessly stubborn.

THE SOCIAL QUALITIES

Some time ago a splendidly educated young man came to us for advice. "What I want to know more than anything else," he said, "is why Hugo Schultz always sells more goods than I do. I spent two years in high school, four years in a special preparatory school and four years in college. I have had eight years of fairly successful business experience. For two years I have been a traveling salesman. When I first started out my sales amounted to only about $5 a day, on an average. Within a year I had pushed them up to $1,000 a day, on an average, and now sometimes I sell $3,000 or $4,000 worth a day. With the exception of Hugo Schultz, I sell more goods than any other man representing our company. If I sell $52,000 worth in a month, Schultz sells $65,000 worth-yet Schultz has never been beyond the fourth grade in school. He is ten years younger than I am, has had practically no business experience, and has only been on the road one year."

Upon examination, we found that this young man was selling goods with a splendidly trained intellect. He analyzed all the factors in his problem carefully, even down to the peculiarities of every one of his customers. He presented his goods with faultlessly worked out arguments and appeals to the common sense and good judgment of his customers. He was, therefore, more than usually successful. In answer to our inquiry, however, he said: "No, I hate selling goods. The only reason I keep it up is because there is good money in it—more money than I could make with the same amount of effort in any other department of business. I do not like to approach strangers. I have to lash myself into it every morning of my working life, and it is very hard for me to be friendly with customers about whom I care nothing personally."

"What about Peter Schultz?" we asked. "Is he a good mixer?"

"It is his whole stock in trade. Now that you have called my attention to it, I can see clearly enough that he takes delight in meeting strangers. Why, even when he is off duty, he finds his recreation running around into crowds, meeting new people, getting acquainted with them, making friends with them. I see it all now. He sells goods on the basis of friendship. He appeals to people's feelings rather than their intellects, and most people are ruled by their feelings. I know that."

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