Excerpt:

The first test is your Mental product. What is it worth? Are you getting full value for it? What you get for your mental product depends entirely upon your ability to sell it to the best advantage. The chances are that many men with no more ability than yourself are being paid ten, twenty or fifty times more than you are, for a product no better than yours. If so, there is a reason, and this chart will explain it.

Estimate the value of what you have to sell, your knowledge, your experience, your loyalty, your energy, and if you are marketing it at its full rate value give yourself 100 per cent.; if you are only getting one-half of what it is worth give yourself fifty per cent., but be fair; do not underestimate the value of what you have to offer; remember that loss leads to greater loss and most loss comes from self-depreciation. Cause and effect do not operate somewhere, sometimes, but everywhere, always. This is an invariable law, so that whatever we receive, good or bad, is the result of a definite cause and reaches us either as a penalty or a reward.

And remember this, your ability to sell your mental product as the rate of 5 per cent. annually, on $100,000, does not depend upon ability or knowledge either; you may be selling your product for $400 a year, and it may be more valuable than that of many who are being paid at the rate of $5,000 a year. The reason is plain. Knowledge does not apply itself; you are allowing it to remain in static form; you must convert it into dynamic form by applying creative power and concentration. The lack of concentrated, intelligent, charted effort may be costing you $4,000 a year.

Next, take Health. If you eat well, sleep well, take a reasonable amount of recreation, and can attend to your business, profession or household duties without any consideration for or thought of the state of your health, give yourself 100 per cent.; but if your body needs constant attention, if you have to be continually worried about what to eat or what not to eat, if you cannot sleep, or if you have aches or pains of any description, deduct from the 100 per cent.; if you think your health is 90 per cent. of what it should be, give yourself 90 per cent., or if you are only 50 per cent. efficient, put it down—be absolutely fair.

Remember that your physical body is maintained through a process of continuous destruction and reconstruction. Life is simply an exchange of the old for the new, and health is only the equilibrium which nature maintains during the process of creating new tissue and eliminating the old or waste tissue.

Birth and death are constantly taking place in our body, new cells are constantly being formed by the process of converting food, water and air into living tissue. Every action of the brain, every movement of a muscle means the destruction and consequent death of some of these cells and the accumulation of these dead, unused and waste cells is what causes pain, suffering and disease. The symptoms depend upon what organs are being taxed in their effort to eliminate the waste matter.

An understanding of these laws and a consequent knowledge as to how to preserve an equilibrium between the new cells which are being created and the old cells which are being eliminated is the secret of perfect health.

Next in importance comes Time Efficiency because time is all that we have, and what we accomplish depends entirely upon what use we make of our time. If you work eight hours, sleep eight hours, and use eight hours for recreation, study and self-improvement and all the time is fully utilized, give yourself 100 per cent.

But if any part of the eight hours which should be sold at a profit is spent in idleness, or gossip, or any form of mental dissipation; if any part of this time is wasted, or worse than wasted by allowing your thought to rest on critical, discordant or inharmonious subjects of any kind, cut down your percentage accordingly. If you fall asleep the minute your head touches the pillow, all right, but if you spend from fifteen minutes to an hour trying to get to sleep, cut your percentage down again: if your sleep is disturbed by dreams or fear or worry of any kind, cut your percentage down again.

If you jump up early and feel refreshed and vigorous, if you bathe and make your toilet without the loss of any unnecessary time, well and good, but if you idle or dream or fritter away from fifteen minutes to a half-hour needlessly, cut your percentage down again. If you spend the rest of your time in good healthy recreation, which benefits you, both physically and mentally, well and good; you are acquiring capital which will have a cash value, but if you let the time get away from you with nothing to show for it, you are not better physically, mentally or morally; if the time has gone and left nothing of value, then it has been lost for it may leave something detrimental, something which will prove a handicap in your race for success. Here again you must be fair with yourself and give yourself exactly the percentage to which you are entitled.