- While trying to collect the facts about the problem that is worrying me, I sometimes
pretend that I am a lawyer preparing to argue the other side of the issue. In other words,
I try to get all the facts against myself-all the facts that are damaging to my wishes, all
the facts I don't like to face.
Then I write down both my side of the case and the other side of the case-and I
generally find that the truth lies somewhere in between these two extremities.
Here is the point I am trying to make. Neither you nor I nor Einstein nor the Supreme
Court of the United States is brilliant enough to reach an intelligent decision on any
problem without first getting the facts. Thomas Edison knew that. At the time of his
death, he had two thousand five hundred notebooks filled with facts about the problems
he was facing.
So Rule 1 for solving our problems is: Get the facts. Let's do what Dean Hawkes did:
let's not even attempt to solve our problems without first collecting all the facts in an
impartial manner.
However, getting all the facts in the world won't do us any good until we analyse them
and interpret them.
I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyse the facts after
writing them Sown. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our
problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision. As
Charles Kettering puts it: "A problem well stated is a problem half solved."
Let me show you all this as it works out in practice. Since the Chinese say one picture is
worth ten thousand words, suppose I show you a picture of how one man put exactly
what we are talking about into concrete action.
Let's take the case of Galen Litchfield-a man I have known for several years; one of the
most successful American business men in the Far East. Mr. Litchfield was in China in
1942, when the Japanese invaded Shanghai. And here is his story as he told it to me
while a guest in my home:
"Shortly after the Japs took Pearl Harbour," Galen Litchfield began, "they came
swarming into Shanghai. I was the manager of the Asia Life Insurance Company in
Shanghai. They sent us an 'army liquidator'-he was really an admiral- and gave me
orders to assist this man in liquidating our assets. I didn't have any choice in the matter.
I could co-operate-or else. And the 'or else' was certain death.
"I went through the motions of doing what I was told, because I had no alternative. But
there was one block of securities, worth $750,000, which I left off the list I gave to the
admiral. I left that block of securities off the list because they belonged to our Hong
Kong organisation and had nothing to do with the Shanghai assets. All the same, I
feared I might be in hot water if the Japs found out what I had done. And they soon
found out.
"I wasn't in the office when the discovery was made, but my head accountant was there.
He told me that the Jap admiral flew into a rage, and stamped and swore, and called me
a thief and a traitor! I had defied the Japanese Army! I knew what that meant. I would be
thrown into the Bridge house!
"The Bridge house 1 The torture chamber of the Japanese Gestapo! I had had personal
friends who had killed themselves rather than be taken to that prison. I had had other