How To Obtain An Increase In Income – Dr. J B Jones

(An excerpt from If You Can Count to Four available on Amazon)

How To Obtain An Increase In Income

Would you like to obtain a raise in your salary? If you are a salesperson working on commission, would you like to have an increase in your earnings? Certainly any person in his normal mind would say, “yes,” to both of those questions. It is possible for you to obtain a raise in your salary, or if you are on a commission basis, an increase in your earnings, if you will learn a very simple principle was I choose to call the habit of going the second mile.

First, let me define what I mean by the habit of going the second mile. It means rendering more service than what is it usually expected and rendering that extra service in a spirit of joy or in a spirit of positiveness.

Fortunately, we are dealing with a basic law. A law which is as tangible as gravity, electricity or chemistry. This law deals with the mental processes, and it responds to our thoughts as tangibly as the soil causes the seeds to germinate, to grow, and in time, rendering a harvest.

Not in the spirit of criticism, but in the spirit of analysis, it seems that the majority of the people in the world are in the habit of rendering barely the amount of service which is necessary to meet the minimum requirements in order to receive their paychecks. A few people in the world have developed the habit of rendering more service than what is expected of them. They appropriate the law of increasing returns. They sow generously, therefore, they reap generously.

There are a number of reasons why it pays to develop this wonderful habit of going the second mile. I would like to enumerate a few of them. Rendering this additional service, more service than that which is usually expected, brings one to the favorable attention of those who can provide opportunities for a promotion. Needless to say, it is necessary for us to come to the favorable attention of those who are in a position to do us a favor or provide us additional opportunities. So, the one way for us to come to the favorable attention of those who can help us is to go the extra mile in service.

For example, recently a friend of mine was telling me that he was quite favorably impressed by an outstanding young man who waited on him when he went into one of the larger service stations to buy a tank full of gasoline. This young man fill the tank, check the air in the tires, check the oil, then he went around and cleaned all of the glass on the car. Instead of giving it just a lick and a promise, he did a very thorough job in every part of his service. He seemed to have great joy in giving that extra attention. He did all of this in a wonderful spirit of helpfulness.

When my friend offered him a generous tip he refused to accept it, saying it was his pleasure to do this, that he enjoyed it very much. My friend told me that he was so deeply impressed with this young man that since that time he drops four or five miles out of his way to go into this particular service station to have his car serviced.

In other words, the attitude on the part of this young man working in the service station came to the attention of my friend, and he became a loyal customer because of the practicing of this principle. He has told the service station owner of this, so, the young man has come to the favorable attention of his employer who has the power of rewarding him.

Another advantage of practicing this principle of going the extra mile is that it tends to permit one to become indispensable in many different relationships. This enables one to command more than an average compensation. In other words, it is one of the few legitimate reasons why any individual can ask his employer for a raise in salary.

Another advantage of going the extra mile is that it protects one against the loss of employment and places them in a position to choose his own particular position in life and the conditions under which he will work. He can also expect new promotional opportunities.

It enables one to profit by the law contrast. The majority of people do not practice the habit of going the extra mile to try to get more than that to which they are entitled.

Making the extra mile principle part of one’s habitual expression for all humanity leads to the development of a positive attitude, and habitually rendering more service than that which is usually expected, tends to change our basic habit patterns from a negative to a positive and, of course, one of the most desirable traits in the world is a positive mental attitude.

Practicing the habit of going the second mile, or rendering more service than that which is usually expected, tends to develop a keen alert imagination as it is a habit which keeps one continuously seeking new and more effective, efficient ways of rendering useful service. In other words, it creates a continuous challenge to find new ways of rendering a service because it switches ones focal point of attention from the “I” consciousness to the “YOU” consciousness.

It develops the important factor of personal initiative, without which no one may obtain any position above mediocrity, without which no one may acquire economic freedom.

Personal initiative is the most outstanding trait of a typical successful American citizen. It definitely serves to develop self-reliance. It serves also to build the confidence of others on one’s integrity and ability. It needs one in breaking the destructive habit of procrastination, which is among the more common causes of failure in all walks of life.

It develops definiteness of purpose, without which no one can hope for success. It makes easier the mastery and the application of the mastermind principle through which personal power is attained. The mastermind principle is a system by which two or more individuals form a friendly alliance to work together toward a definite major purpose.

We get our cue to the soundness of the principle of going the extra mile from observing some of nature’s ways. For example, nature goes second mile by producing enough of everything for her needs, together with an overage for emergencies and waste. Fruit on the trees, frogs in the pond, blooms from which the fruit is grown, fish in the seas.

Nature produces enough to ensure perpetuation of all species of every living thing and allowing for emergencies of every sort. Nature has arranged for all of her creatures to be adequately compensated by paying in advance for all they do in carrying out her plans. Bees are compensated with honey for their service pollenizing the flowers, but they have to perform service to get the honey and it must be performed in advance.

Nature compensates the farmer after he has done his part in planting and tending his crops. It pays the farmer by yielding not only the original seeds he plants, but an over plus.

Throughout the universe, everything has been so arranged that nature’s budget is balanced. Everything has its opposite, equivalent in something else. Positive and negative in every unit of energy. Day and night. Hot and cold. Success and failure.

Sweet and sour. Man and woman. Everywhere and in everything one may see the law of action and reaction in operation. The pendulum swings back the same distance that it swings forward. The same is true in human relationships and in the rendering of personal service as in all other things.

Put this down as an established fact. If you neglect to apply the principle of going the second mile you will never become personally successful and he will never become financially independent. This is borne out by the fact that all successful people follow this habit as an established part of their daily routine, in all their human relationships.

Test any successful person by this rule and you will be convinced. Observe any person who is not a success and you will be convinced.

One must render as much as he is being paid for in order to hold his job or to maintain his source of income, whatever it may be. One has the privilege of always rendering and over plus as a means of accumulating a reserve credit of goodwill, as a means of gaining higher pay and a better position. If no such over-plus is rendered, one has not a single argument in his favor by asking for a better position or increased pay.

Think this over for yourself and you will have the real answer to why it pays to render more service and better service than you are being paid for.

Every position provides one with an opportunity to apply this principle. This very freedom of opportunity is the major benefit of the great American system of free enterprise which has made this the richest in the freest nation on earth. It was to preserve this principle of free enterprise based upon the privilege of individual self- determination that our wars have been waged at such great expense.

If you are a person who says, “I am not paid to do this or that, therefore, I will not do it,” you are writing yourself an insurance policy against success. If you are a person who renders more service and better service than you are paid for and render it in a willing, positive mental attitude, then you are writing yourself an insurance policy against failure.

This basic rule of success has never failed to work and it never will. Lastly, remember that the personal attitude is the factor that determines, more than all else, the time that lapses between delivery of the service and the payoff.

I like the formula suggested by the great Napoleon Hill, which he calls the Q.Q.M.A. Formula. This means the quality of service rendered, plus quantity of service rendered, plus mental attitude in which it is rendered, determines the compensation one shall receive and the place one may occupy in the world.

The very famous, Knott’s Berry Farm, near Buena Park, California is a wonderful example of the extra mile principle in action. We are all familiar with the story of how Mr. and Mrs. Knott, approximately 45 years ago, opened up a little roadside Berry stand and that by rendering additional services, more than that which was usually expected, the customers began to come in droves, so to speak, and they continued to increase week after week, until now Knott’s Berry Farm has become an institution. They have continued to seek new avenues of increasing the amount of service, which they can render to their customers, in the form of good food and entertainment. They entertain you lavishly when your primary purpose of coming to their place is to eat a good chicken dinner. In just a relatively short while, they have grown from a roadside Berry stand to a multi-million dollar business.

Another famous example of this principle is the great Edwin C. Barnes, who rode into the hometown in which Thomas A. Edison lived, on a freight car just like a hobo. He walked into Mr. Edison’s office and announced he had come to be Edison’s partner. He started as custodian and he did such a wonderful job, even as a custodian, that he came to the favorable attention of Mr. Edison and went from one position to another until finally he became the partner of Thomas A. Edison.

Even the great Napoleon Hill served Andrew Carnegie for 20 years without direct compensation in organizing his great philosophy of individual achievement. His compensation has already amounted to the privilege of occupying a high place in the world and made many of his books bestsellers throughout the world. I highly recommend his books, “Think and Grow Rich,” and “Master Key to Riches,” to you. They have meant a great deal to me.

This idea, or principle, of rendering more service than that which is usually expected is closely associated with the idea of directing our attention toward something in particular and setting a definite goal. It also is an integral part of the development and functioning of the mastermind principle, the power which makes it possible for us to secure all the missing ingredients which are necessary for our success. It also ties in, very definitely, with the principle of self-discipline and the will power, as well as the principle of personal initiative and applied faith.

So, to be certain of securing a raise in salary, or an increase in income through commissions, switch your focal point of attention from, “How little can I do and still draw my paycheck and be satisfactory to my employer,” to “How can I do more and get more efficient service, so I will become indispensable and valuable to my employer.”Actually, the employer is not the one who pays your salary, you are. You pay your own salary. It doesn’t cost your employer a penny to pay your salary, provided he is paying you what you’re worth.

So, the only honest way that any employee can ask for a raise is after he has gone the second mile in quality and quantity of service, to the point where he is literally earning and producing more than his present income would indicate. Then, after he has produced this additional wealth, by rendering this extra quality and quantity of service, he is entitled to be compensated, financially, in the form of a raise in income.

Any honest employer will respond to this great principle automatically and will be happy to compensate accordingly, every employee who has rendered a greater quality and a greater quantity of service habitually than that which is usually expected.

So may I challenge you to analyze your own situation and to ask yourself continually, “Am I just going the first mile or am I going the second mile in my relationship with my position and my employer?”

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