SELF-CONTROL 525How many millions of years Nature has required in which to
produce this animal, no one knows, but every intelligent student of
psychology knows it is the dominating thoughts that determine the
actions and the nature of the animal.
The point I wish to clearly establish in this lesson is that thought,
whether accurate or inaccurate, is the most highly organized functioning
power of your mind, and that you are but the sum total oj your dominating
or most prominent thoughts.
If you would be a master salesperson of goods or of personal serv-
ices, you must exercise sufficient Self-Control to shut out all adverse
arguments and suggestions. Most salespeople have so little Self-Control
that they hear the prospective purchaser say no, even before it is said.
They have so little Self-Control that they actually suggest to themselves
that their prospective purchaser will say no when asked to purchase their
wares.
How different is the person of Self-Control! He or she not only
makes the self-suggestion that the prospective purchaser will say yes,
but if the desired yes is not forthcoming, he or she stays on the job
until the opposition breaks down. If the prospective purchaser says
no, the person of Self-Control does not hear it. If the prospective
purchaser says no a second, and a third, and a fourth time, he or she
does not hear it, for a person of Self-Control permits no suggestions
to reach the mind except those which are invited.
The master salesperson, whether engaged in selling merchandise or
personal services or sermons or public addresses, understands how to
control their own thoughts. Instead of being a person who accepts, with
meek submission, the suggestions of others, the master salesperson is
one who persuades others to accept his or her suggestions. The master
salesperson becomes a dominating personality. This, too, is Self-Control!
A master salesperson is one who takes the offensive, and never the
defensive, side of an argument, if argument arises.
Please read the foregoing sentence again!