initiating or taking the lead." It is "Doing the right thing without waiting to be told." Be a leader in your town, not a trailer. Don't wait for others to initiate new ideas, initiate them yourself. You will make some mistakes, but if they be not too costly, they will tend to cultivate your judgment, and your earlier failures will become steps to success. It is a business crime to make the same mistake twice. No great successes are attained without great attempts. Fear to attempt things causes many men to fail. There is an element of chance in every business. You should have a will to take chances, but these chances must be taken only when your best judgment directs them as legitimate means to an end. There are cases when well-known business axioms are broken. Many of the great business men have at times smashed traditional regulations and made new ones for themselves.

Another success principle is concentration. Andrew Carnegie says that concentration is the prime secret of success. He says: "Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. A man can thoroughly master only one business, and only an able man can do this. I have never yet met the man who fully understood two different kinds of business. The concerns who fail are those which have scattered their capital. 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' is all wrong. 'Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.' It is easy to watch one basket and to carry it. It is trying to watch too many baskets that breaks most eggs in this country. The secret of success is a simple matter of honest work, ability, and concentration. If you are only above the average your success is assured, and the degree of success is in ratio to the greater degree of ability and attention which you give above the average.

"1

There are so many subjects included in Commercial Pharmacy that you will have to do a great deal of studying outside of business hours. Analytical reading, pointed conver

The Empire of Business, by Andrew Carnegie, Doubleday, Page & Company, N. Y.

sation and wise listening will greatly aid you. Read only the books on subjects closely related to your business and analyze these books, chapter by chapter. Try to firmly fix in your mind the main thoughts and central idea of the author. When in conversation with successful merchants and business men you can easily shape your conversation so it will point to some problem you wish solved, then wisely listen to the other man's views on this problem. This is one of the best methods known to the writer for obtaining knowledge about business principles. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and be sure to ask pointed ones in order to get real value from the answers.

Do not be content to know just what you are absolutely obliged to know in order to drift along. Study and learn more than you have to know about your business. On this point, Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, the noted New York financier, says, "If I understand correctly any single principle on which success is based, I know that a true one is this: 'Do more than you have to do that you may learn more than you need to know for doing your own simple daily task, and with this broader doing and wiser learning you will be laying the substantial foundation that is required for any career of eminence.' The successful man of the future has learned to welcome new work as new opportunity, and he has learned systematically to use his time outside of his regular work in gaining a specialized knowledge which will give him a thorough grasp of the principles of his business; and then above all he has taken greater interest in his work than in himself. He has cared more for getting the thing done right than he has for the personal credit of doing it. Unless there is some defect of personality or some accident of opportunity, the man who fits this outline will in a decade stand out from among his fellows a leader." 1

You, as a pharmacist of the future, must pursue a different course than that followed by the pharmacist of the past.

1

Business and Education, by Frank A. Vanderlip. Duffield & Company, N. Y.

Heretofore, the writers on pharmacy have treated only of the professional side and the pharmacist himself thought mostly of that. But, nowadays, commercial ability is recognized as high as professional ability. You owe it to yourself to be a good merchant just as well as a professional man. You should strive to advance the ethics of Commercial Pharmacy to the same high standard hitherto claimed exclusively for Professional Pharmacy.

You should be a man of high ideals. You should have a definite goal, then try to reach that goal by increasing your powers of initiative, concentration, imagination, ability, and judgment. You must be a good buyer and a good salesman, a competent judge of clerks and a champion of the success principle, "Service to the customer." You must have a thorough knowledge of your business and be sure that you conduct it for profit. You must "always know where you stand."

INDEX