How To Acquire A Million-Dollar Personality

By LeRoy Brown

Anyone can acquire a powerful personality says Professor LeRoy Brown, and in this amazing book he proves it beyond dispute!

Yes, once LeRoy Brown's secrets are unfolded to you, it will be as through you had a master instructor at your elbow, willing and able at all times to teach you how to avoid poverty, misfortune and unhappiness. Magically, you will be able to bring your own life material comfort, lasting peace of mind and the ability to get anybody to like you.

Take a good look at yourself. Suppose you were to meet yourself five or ten years from now. Will you pleased? If you are to be pleased, it is vitally important that you become aware that you are developing your future self now through the attitudes you have today and because of the habits you presently possess. Remember that your personality is the result of what happens to you today and how you react to those influences now.

In this book you are shown how to control and direct your attitudes and personality developing habits, so that you will know how to manage yourself and therefore others. Today, educators realize that social skills, achieved through attractive personalities, can be acquired as surely as you can develop your mental powers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc.
• Release date: May 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780883913857

LeRoy Brown

LeRoy Brown teaches public speaking at Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois, and taught the Dale Carnegie course in Chicago for twenty years. Dr. Brown is biographically listed in Contemporary Authors, vol. 11-12, in Who's who in American Education, vol. 22. He has also been invited for listing in volume 11 of Who's Who in the Mid-West. Dr Brown has written six books, among which are two published by Frederick Fell: HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SPEECH and HOW TO USE THE POWER OF ENTHUSIASM.

Book preview

PERSONALITY

1

YOUR BEST SELF

At a church in Memphis, seven-year-old Elizabeth Hamlin dropped a quarter into the collection plate. Then, after waiting a moment, she put in a penny. For tax, she whispered to a friend.

At another time and in another church, a young telephone switchboard operator, who had been up late the night before, dozed through most of the sermon. When the song leader announced the concluding hymn, number 2-8-5, and then repeated it for clarity, 2-8-5, the switchboard operator blinked her eyes, yawned and said, Sorry, the line’s busy. Please call later.

Those girls were both responding to habits. Their actions illustrate a truth that a little man with a big mind, Aristotle, stated about two thousand years ago: Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

Test this truth

Have someone put your hat on your head. Probably, regardless of how carefully he applies the hat, you must move it or adjust it in some slight way before you can feel comfortable.

Why? Because of habit. For years you have been putting on your own hat. You do it as easily as an expert fry-cook flips a pancake. Through habit you know the feel of this activity.

Consider a person who has driven a stick-shift automobile for years and then starts driving a car which has push-button shifts. At first, because of habit, he reaches toward a stick that is not there to shift gears. As simple as the pushbutton system is, he may handle it rather awkwardly until he has formed new habits.

Habits incite our actions in numerous ways. For instance, have you ever looked at your left wrist for the time even when you were not wearing your watch? The reflexes of a Michigan motorist were so well conditioned that he once stopped for several moments at a street corner before he realized that the red light which held him was simply a big nose of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, being used to advertise a product!

Habits in action

If habits are influential in minor matters, is it probable that they can also be harmful or helpful in more important elements of life?

Professor Orbit, for example, habitually walks about the campus with his brilliant mind somewhere in space, perhaps thinking of a lecture or a bill or two coming due. His habit of aloofness prevents him from recognizing people, although, if questioned, he would probably mildly declare that he never intends to ignore anyone.

The campus gardener sees everyone and willingly stops working to chat with anyone who is inclined to talk. Little Miss Busybody knows all the neighborhood gossip and peddles it freely. A timid college student still seeks her own shadow although she is a senior. A businessman feigns a trip out of town to avoid speaking in public. Little Johnnie threatens to eat worms if he cannot have his way.

These people, along with millions of others, are responding to habits which they have formed. In turn the habits have really formed them.

The mark of environment

The following story, which was published in numerous daily newspapers, indicates the extent to which habits, developed largely because of circumstances and conditions, can effect a personality:

FIND CHICKEN BOY ROOSTING WITH FEATHERED FRIENDS

Irish Lad Can’t Talk, Walk or Eat Human Food

Belfast, Northern Ireland—Police discovered Thursday a boy—about 7—who they said has never bathed, cannot eat human food, grunts like an animal and roosts like a chicken.

Sgt. Hugh Ross said the pitiful little boy was found in a hen house at Down Patrick, County Down 15 miles from Belfast.

He has been taken to a home in Belfast and turned over to physicians for examination.

Sgt. Ross said a group of children playing hide and seek ran into the hen house, which adjoins a cottage occupied by a widow and her two grown daughters.

The children found the boy perched on a roost with the hens and roosters.

He cannot talk. He cannot walk and he cannot eat human food, the police sergeant said.

The mat of hair on his head did not appear ever to have been cut or washed. He had claw-like fingernails which probably never had been trimmed.

Said William Hamilton, official of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, He gets about by hopping like an ape and he replies to voices with grunts in a half-human fashion.

Police would not give the name of the widow who is being questioned.

Although this case is extreme, considering the circumstances, it is reasonable and surely indicates that uncontrolled conditions can wreck a personality. As Plutarch said: The richest soil if uncultured, produces the rankest weeds. Misused personal faculties cannot become well developed. For instance, regardless of the capacity for intelligence a child may have, if from birth he were forced to live with pigs only, never to see or to hear any person, he would eat, talk, and act much like a pig. These results would be inevitable because he would know only pigs’ ways.

Of course, you and I have not been forced to live with pigs or chickens. Although is it not likely, whatever our environments have been or are, that our attitudes and actions have been definitely influenced by them.

But people have minds and will power, says someone. So they don’t need to be influenced unfavorably by environment.

True. Yet, a human tendency is to take the course of least resistance. Often, people do become birds of a feather in compliance with environment. Fortunately environment and training can also produce favorable, rather than negative, results.

For example, a young man from the heart of darkest Africa once spoke on our college chapel program. He had been trained at a Christian school in Africa and at an American college. His speech and manners were cultured. He was courteous, polite and refined—likeable.

Regardless of this young man’s inherent abilities, will anyone believe that without culture and training he would be any different from the many uncouth savages in Africa who either do not have an opportunity, or refuse, to learn?

Study the people you know well. Have they not been molded largely by the experiences and training they have had, by the way they have responded to those experiences and by the influence of environment? Is it not also likely that you are much like you are because of your experience and training and your reactions to them?

Heredity vs. environment

Through the ages, educators have discussed and tried to determine the relative value of heredity and environment as contributing influences upon the development of able personalities. No exact conclusions have been reached.

Some psychologists believe that from 20 to 30 per cent of a total personality is determined by heredity and that the quality of the remaining 70 or 80 per cent depends upon environment and what is done to develop personality.

Others believe heredity has only a very slight, if any, effect upon personality. Donald Laird, for instance, in his book, Why We Don’t Like People, said: When we turn to personality traits we find no consistent or conclusive evidence that they are inherited. For five years, at his Colgate University experimental laboratory, he collected a considerable amount of data. But Dr. Laird’s conclusion was that this data furnishes no conclusive indications.

It seems probably that this truth could also be appropriately applied to the development of an effective social personality. Perhaps few people would doubt that a large nose or small feet can be inherited. But personality traits are so variable, depending largely upon attitudes and habits, that it is difficult to understand how they could be determined at birth.

Heredity is past and fixed

If having an able personality depended entirely upon heredity, what a fateful, hopeless mess life would be for some of us. Suppose heredity had dealt you and me a poor hand in this respect. How could we change our personal heritage even if we tried? If at birth some infants should receive Grimes’ golden apples while others got only crab apples from their family trees, nothing they could do would change those conditions.

Should I, for instance, indulge in self-pity because my grandfather, William Hyder Brown, was a Hoosier dirt farmer who coaxed a bare living from a yellow sixty acres? Or should I worry because my ancestors did not, or could not, supply the proper genes to make an intellect such as Albert Einstein’s possible for me? Because I do not have the capacity for intellectual giantism shall I refuse to use the ability I do have? I may fail to develop the one talent I have if I spend my time and energy weeping because God did not give me ten.

Most people have enough capacity and ability to develop able personalities whether they were gifted at birth or not. Psychologist Julian Rotter indicated that motives exert far greater influence on personalities than does heredity. He said: A girl named Betty may be more vivacious and gregarious than Mary because her experience has taught her she can best achieve her goals that way, not necessarily because she has superior glands. Mary has different experiences, has set different goals and reacts accordingly. Dr. Rotter defines personality as being the characteristic behavior of an individual—modifiable, changing with experience.

Look to the present—and the future

Studying the past to determine why you are like you are could contribute to self-understanding, although anyone hoping for personal improvement must not worry about the past or continue living in it. Why blame our ancestors for inherited conditions? Little Red, for instance, cannot justly criticize his auburn-haired grandmother because his sandy crew cut incites schoolmates to tease, Red head, ginger bread, two-bits a cabbage head. He can, however, justly blame himself if he refuses to develop his best self.

Today we are building, or failing to build, able personalities. Some people build well. Others simply do not try, perhaps because they are not champions at the beginning. Or they may have handicaps which discourage them. Yet lack of patience or having a handicap need not stop one from developing a better self. For instance, Napoleon could have spent a lifetime in self-pity because nature built him only about five feet tall. But simply because he had to climb up on a bench to mount a horse did not keep him from mounting or cause him to ride a pony.

Probably this little man could never have played center on your high school basketball team, but he actively developed his personality. Although we may not approve everything he did, his effort to develop what he considered to be his best self is surely admirable.

At the other physical extreme was a clumsy, gangly, backwoodsman, called a human ape by some people of his day. Although there is only one letter that is different between ape and Abe, that difference was vast. Other than Jesus, Abraham Lincoln became probably the most influential personality who ever lived. He became a great personality largely because he willingly developed the qualities he had, feeling all the while there’s not much to a person who is not better off today than he was yesterday. He developed his best self regardless of constant criticism from numerous countrymen. Even after he became President, he said that if he had taken time to read all the critical letters he received, he would have had no time to do anything else.

More recently, Eleanor Roosevelt, despite the lack of comely appearance and the probability of being completely overshadowed by her dynamic husband, developed a highly attractive and useful personality. She was able to do this because she worked consistently for personal improvement.

Surely a charming personality, as well as outstanding leadership ability, characterizes Dwight D. Eisenhower. And Jacqueline Kennedy’s personality and great strength of character have endeared her to the hearts of millions.

One does not need to go to Capitol Hill, however, to observe the attractive influence of personality. It may be as evident in a cabin as in a castle. Its influence can inspire and help others anywhere. Surely each of us will want to be the type of person who inspires others with positivism rather than one who discourages or creates a negative effect upon people. To be at its best, a personality must be active in the present with a look toward the future. We cannot develop an attractive personality by trying to relive the past. Its improvement requires a forward look.

Personality can be developed

Many years ago, educators believed that personality was almost completely determined by heredity. But as early as 1936, an eminent psychologist, Henry C. Link, said: Personality was once regarded as an indefinable something which certain people had and others lacked. Now it is becoming as definite and measurable as scholastic intelligence. We have discovered, too, that personality can be developed by training just as the mind can.

And another modern psychologist, Albert Edward Wiggam, said: "Human conduct is largely predictable . . . you will discover that the reactions, attitudes, and habits of your own mind can be almost completely controlled and directed. You will see also that the reactions you call forth from your fellow men—whether they like you or dislike you, desire to be in your company or try to avoid you—can be largely determined because they depend enormously upon what you do."

One need not wonder why some people are personally successful and popular while others are weak in human relationships. There are definite reasons for either condition. The various elements of attractive personality—self-confidence, sincerity, positiveness, courtesy, friendliness, tactfulness, enthusiasm and emotional control—can be neglected or developed.

How? Chiefly by replacing negative, unattractive personal habits and actions with positive, attractive habits and actions. Our social personalities are judged largely by what we believe, think, feel, say, do and by the manner in which we express ourselves. All these characteristics are regulated to a great extent by the habits we form.

We can be thankful for favorable habits. Fortunately, unfavorable, unattractive, even repulsive ones can be replaced. As wise Erasmus said: A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit. Furthermore, in his booklet, What’s Your Trouble?, Norman Vincent Peale said: You can change any habit.

In Psychology Applied, Doctor George Crane assures readers that: Like any other profession, the art of social diplomacy can be acquired by any intelligent person who is willing to study it diligently. This truth includes numerous phases of personality development. Of course, in addition to studying, we must also apply the principles learned to achieve maximum results.

Why develop a more effective personality?

To get more out of life, a student said. To put more into it, said another. Still others have said that personal development helps people to be more useful or serviceable, happier or more satisfied with their contribution to life. Giving and getting, with considerably more emphasis upon giving, seem to be worthy purposes for personality improvement.

Serving humanity well is within itself a strong force for personality improvement. However, a person who strives for personality improvement simply for the purpose of grasping values only for himself may well find that his total personality has depreciated rather than improved. A person who uses personal influence to manipulate others as though they were merely puppets to do his selfish bidding will rarely deceive even those he attempts to influence. And, his selfish efforts will not be attractive.

Using effective human relations and personal influence is not the application of a bag of tricks for achieving selfish designs. It is, as Frank A. Vanderslip, a bank executive said: a man’s ability to make people feel he is frank, human, capable, honest—a broad-gauge man. An able person is not just a human machine or a mouthpiece making noise and empty promises. Basic honesty and genuine sincerity are so necessary for the development of a truly able personality.

Developing a capable personality is surely worthwhile. Many years ago Goethe declared: People and slaves and conquerors, all admit, in all times, that the greatest good fortune of earth’s children is Personality. This fortune, of course, cannot be measured or limited by dollars or possessions alone. The personal satisfaction, the oneness with humanity and the realization that life has become richer and fuller supersede any material values that may come as results of improved personalities. But material values need not be discredited or considered unimportant.

Why is personal improvement often neglected?

Considering the total values of an effective personality, we might think everyone should be eager to develop personal qualities to capacity. However some people merely wish for an attractive personality and are unwilling to work for it. They want favorable or even exceptional results without expending even fair efforts to attain them. Being an able personality is not the result of idle wishing. Without effort, one cannot become proficient in this skill any more than he could become stronger physically without exercising or well educated without studying.

I don’t want to tinker with my personality. Just let nature take its course, is also a common attitude. Nature is certainly wonderful, but if people had not directed nature, what type of civilization would we have today? Would children attend school or even take baths if nature controlled them completely? Could you improve your golf or bowling score, or any other