Specialized Knowledge

Audio link: https://t.me/Bob_Proctor_PoP/61

Specialized knowledge. If you haven't got it, get it. I see specialized knowledge as the keys to the kingdom.

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge. Now we're going to take a look at the fourth step moving toward riches. And it comes under the heading specialized knowledge.

Personally, this is the one that really made all the difference for me at the start, and it could make all the difference for you at the start. I see specialized knowledge as the keys to the kingdom if you want. It'll help you get anything you want.

And without specialized knowledge, you're probably going to work pretty hard all your life and really not collect too much. He'll make it very clear there's two types of knowledge. There's general and there's specialized.

Now, general knowledge, regardless of the quantity or the variety, is of little value. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and intelligently directed through the practical plans of action to the definite end of earning money or anything else that you may want to accomplish. See, it's not just the money.

You may have another goal that you're shooting at that maybe doesn't fall under the heading of money, but it takes specialized knowledge, and it has to be directed towards that end. You see, Henry Ford understood this. A lot of people do not understand this even today.

Now, keep in mind, what we're talking about now goes way back over almost 100 years. Certainly well over 50 or 75 years. When Ford was really starting to move, he took a shot Kukaga newspaper to court in a lawsuit for liable.

They had written articles on him, and they referred to him as an ignorant pacifist. And he took exception to that, and he took him to court. Well, when they got to court, of course, the newspapers, they were trying to justify why they said this.

And so they put Ford on the stand and they started to ask him all kinds of questions. And they wanted to know who Benedict Arnold was. And then they wanted to know how many armed forces or soldiers did the British send over for the upheaval in 1776.

Ford got a little disgusted with the questions, and he leaned over and he looked at the prosecutor and he pointed his finger. He said, Let me tell you something. He said, if I wanted to have this information, I'd have it.

But he said, I don't need to gather it myself. He said, I have a row of buttons on my desk, and if I want the answer to any of these silly questions that you're asking, I just have to press a button and a person has all that. Information will come to me.

He said, Those questions are useless in my line of work. Now, when he said, if I needed this, I would have it. I don't need it.

So why would I want to clutter my mind up with a bunch of useless information for the sole purpose of answering questions. He won the court case. Everybody in court knew that this explanation or this little talk that Ford was given to the prosecutor wasn't that of an ignorant person.

He was a highly intelligent person. He understood something about education. Now, I want you to think about that.

Ford had information. It was specialized information. It was directed towards a particular end.

And here we are today, over a hundred years later, we're still buying his cars and we're still driving in his cars and we're still telling the story about the man that was considered stubborn, obstinate. No, he was focused. He understood something that most people didn't understand, most people still don't understand.

If you really want to make it happen, got to follow Ford's model, get the specialized information directed towards the particular end. See, Carnegie put this very well. He said, the accumulation of great fortunes calls for power.

He said, power is acquired through highly organized and intelligently directed, specialized knowledge. But he said, the person who has the knowledge or the person who collects the fortune doesn't necessarily have to have the knowledge. You need help.

Everyone needs help. Now, as we go along in this particular fourth step to riches, specialized knowledge, I'm going to share four stories that Napoleon Hill shares. And they're excellent stories.

And these people, these four people benefit greatly from the concept of specialized knowledge. One of the people I want to talk about is a man by the name of Stuart Austin Weir. The second one I want to talk about, the name is not mentioned, but he was a salesperson for a grocery store.

The third one was somebody that helped that salesperson who was a home typist, the lady that worked at home. And the fourth one who was close associate of Newt Rockman, the great football coach. This man's name is Dan Halpin.

Now, you're going to find these stories interesting. And the one story literally caused me to change everything that I was doing in my life and helped me earn a respectable amount of money. Now, before we get into these stories, I think Napoleon Hill brings out something that every one of us really want to clearly understand.

He points out that successful people in all columns, they never stop acquiring specialized knowledge related to the major purpose, business or profession they're involved in. Those who are not successful usually make the mistake of believing that the knowledge acquiring period ends when they finish school, which is pretty ridiculous if you think about it. We're dealing with an infinite source of supply when we're dealing with knowledge.

The truth is that school does little more than put us in the way of learning how to acquire practical knowledge. Now let's take a look at the first person I wanted to talk about, stuart Austin Weir. Keep in mind this story takes place right bang just after the start of the great Depression way back, 1929.

And some people say it went to around 33 or 34. Truth is, it went right till 39, if you do some deep research until the Second World War broke out. And that was more or less the end of the Depression.

But right around the beginning of it, stuart Weir was in the construction business. He was a construction engineer, and there wasn't a whole lot of construction going on when there was no money. So he found himself out of work.

Now, what he did, he decided he was going to switch careers and become a lawyer. Now, this wasn't any small decision, and he wasn't just a young guy that had no responsibility. He was married.

He was married at the time he was over 40. But he decided that he would become a lawyer, and he became a very successful lawyer. He did in two years what it would take the average person to do in four years.

And then he started his own practice in Dallas, Texas. And the last that Napoleon Hill was writing, he had a very successful practice, and he was turning away business. So do you see, here was a guy that found himself in a bad situation.

He spent a lot of time becoming an engineer, but there were no calls for engineering. And so he thought, what can I do? And he decided on law. Now, he had to go back to school, and he had to go through the bar.

He had to do a lot of studying, but he took special courses, made it happen, and he made it happen fast, and he became a very successful lawyer. Now, the second story that I want to share, that Hill brings out beautifully, is about a man that worked in selling for a grocery store. And again, this all happened right around the same time as Weir found himself in trouble.

While this salesperson found himself in trouble, he found himself out of work. Now, he had some bookkeeping knowledge, but he went away, and he took special courses in accounting. And he familiarized himself with the latest bookkeeping office equipment material.

And he decided he was going to start a bookkeeping company. And he thought he'd start with the store he was working for, which was a good decision. Now, he ended up with over 100 stores.

In fact, he became so successful that he put everything on a truck. He ended up with a number of trucks. He had a new modern bookkeeping machinery going.

He had a fleet of bookkeeping offices on wheels and very, very successful. Now, he was given the idea of doing this. And when he was given the idea, he liked the idea because he did have some knowledge, but he had no knowledge of how to turn it into money.

And so he started to look for help. He found a woman at home that was very good at typing, and she took pictures. She put together a folder for him and she was going to show him how to put this to work.

It was so successful that he ended up with a fleet of trucks. You see, the book that she put together, napoleon Hill referred to as the Silent Salesperson because this book was providing how he was going to provide service. It was a great idea and it was all put together in a book where everything was explained, all the benefits.

You see, you don't sell the bookkeeping service, you sell the benefits of this bookkeeping service. This woman seemed to understand that and she outlined it all in this beautiful booklet in this presentation folder. And that's what turned this salesperson that found himself out of work into a very successful business person.

He went and took advanced courses in bookkeeping and built himself a super successful business. Now, the woman herself had a son. This is written so well, I want to share it exactly the way Napoleon Hill shared it.

He said the idea here described was born of necessity to bridge an emergency which had to be covered. But it did not stop by merely serving one person. The woman who created the idea had a keen imagination.

She saw in her newly born brainchild the making of a new profession, one that is destined to render valuable service to thousands of people who need practical guidelines in marketing personal services. Now, listen how she took the idea. Then I'm going to add a personal story to this that is every bit as powerful.

Spurred to action by the instantaneous success of her first prepared plan to market personal services, this energetic woman turned next to the solution of a similar problem for her son, who had just finished college but had been totally unable to find a market for his services. The plan she organized for his use was the finest specimen of merchandising of personal services that I have ever seen. Now, Hill wrote that he said, when the plan book had been completed, it contained nearly 50 pages of beautifully typed, properly organized information telling the story of her son's native ability, schooling, his personal experiences and a great variety of other information too extensive for description.

The plan book also contained a complete description of the position her son desired, together with a marvelous word picture of the exact plan he would use in filling his position. The preparation of the plan book required several weeks labor, during which time its creator sent her son to the public library almost daily to procure information needed in selling his services. To the best advantage.

She sent him also to all the competitors of his prospective employer, gathered from them vital information concerning their business message which was of great value in the formation of the plan that he intended to use in filling the position that he was seeking. When the plan had been finished, it contained more than a half a dozen very fine suggestions for the use and benefit of the prospective employer. The suggestions were put into use by the company.

1 may be inclined to ask why go to all this trouble to secure a job? The answer is straight to the point. Also, it is dramatic because it deals with the subject which assumes a proportion of a tragedy with millions of men and women whose sole source of income is personal services. Keep in mind this is all going on right at the start of the Great Depression.

19, 29, 30, right through to 39. Well, here's the answer. The answer is doing a thing well, never is trouble.

The plan prepared by this woman for the benefit of her son helped him get the job for which he applied at the first interview at a salary fixed by himself. Moreover than this is important, the position did not require the young man to start at the bottom. He began as a junior executive at an executive salary.

Why go to all the trouble, do you ask? Well, the one thing the planned presentation of this young man's application for a position clipped off no less than ten years of time that he would have required to get to the point where he began. You see, preparation is the key. It's definitely the key.

And it was here. Now, I want to share something with you before I go into Dan Helpen's story, which is rather interesting. I want to read you the last paragraph in specialized knowledge.

If you have imagination, this chapter may present you with an idea sufficient to serve as the beginning of the riches you desire. Remember, the idea is the main thing. Specialized knowledge may be found just around the corner, any corner.

Well, I have to go back many, many years to the early 60s when I first picked up Napoleon Hills material. I started studying Napoleon Hills material and I started cleaning offices. All I wanted to do was earn some money.

Somebody said there was good money cleaning offices. I said, I'm not proud I'll clean offices. The man said, if you're going to clean them, don't clean them for somebody else, clean them for yourself.

So here I find myself in business for myself. No business experience, no formal education, and absolutely no idea on selling. I did not know anything about selling.

I put together a proposal, a proposal in the early sixty s that I still use today. We would go into an office, take a look at it today. Tomorrow we would go back with a presentation on how we were going to clean this office.

It looked like we were going to buy the building. Now, it might have only been a 500 square foot office, might be 2000 sqft. But we had a very, very beautifully prepared presentation.

And it was the presentation that did the selling. I still use that presentation today, over half a century later. If I'm going into a company.

And I'll tell you how we do it. We put a cover page. It's all in a beautiful folder.

But there's a cover letter where we thank them for the opportunity of presenting our proposal. Then in the folder there's a divider page and it says Observations. Then there's a section on observations.

And we tell them what we found when we wandered around and looked at their office. And we point out that if they're getting our office claimed by a service, they are not getting what they're paying for. And we point it all out in detail.

Then there's a divider on recommendations and we make recommendations on how we're going to come in and change everything. The recommendations cover what's in the observation. After the recommendations, there's another divider page and it's on investment.

And we point out by hiring us, it wasn't an investment. And there you would have the cost of service. Then the next page would be on conclusion.

The conclusion was reselling what we pointed out in the observations and what we bought out in the recommendations. And that's where we closed in the conclusion. We had this put together.

You would honestly think we were going to buy the building in a beautiful folder, beautifully typed. And it all came from how that woman prepared the presentation for her son. And prior to that, the success of the grocery salesperson getting new business in bookkeeping.

Well, do you know, that all come back to me as I was preparing for this. And I thought that's where that presentation started. I've shared that kind of a presentation with a lot of people.

But do you know like that it started our business and took off like a rock. We started opening offices in different cities. I went into Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, london, England, a very successful cleaning business prior to leading that, leaving that business and come into the business I'm in now to go to work with Earl name Lloyd Conan.

But you see, it was the last chapter in Specialized Knowledge where they pointed out he'll pointed out that something you've just read could change your business. It may be the start of you earning a lot of money. Well, it certainly was for me and it can be for you.

You know, the the same silent salesperson that I was using that I picked up from that woman's work with the grocery salesman, that same silent salesperson helped me build a business in this industry. And I'm going back to the but I'd put together a proposal and we sold almost all of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, worked the whole country. We went from there.

We went into Imperial Life Insurance company worked that entire company. We went to the Prudential of America, worked the entire country. And it was all through the start by laying out what we were going to do in this proposal.

And although we were dealing with thousands of people, the proposal was for a seminar for one person, just one. I knew that it would be multiplied. That's all I had to sell.

I had to sell them on the idea of what I could do for one person. Because you see they hire their salespeople one person at a time. We raised the sales by hundreds of millions of dollars.

In fact one retired VP in Prudential said he figured we took it up over a billion dollars and it was all put together in this silent salesperson. So although we used it to secure the cleaning of an office of maybe 500 or 5000 sqft we also used it with one of the largest companies in the world. It was the same idea.

You get the right idea and you follow what Napoleon Hill has laid out you cannot lose. A lot of people thought proctor you're really smart. I wasn't very smart.

I was just aware. I paid attention to what Napoleon Hill said. I paid attention to the ideas that were executed because although those ideas were executed almost 100 years ago right in the midst of an enormous depression those ideas are sound today.

The idea has nothing to do with the conditions of circumstance or anything. It has to do with what's going on in our mind. Study these principles very carefully.

Now as I talked to you about Dan Helpin I want you to stop and think about this very very clearly. Dan helpin was the manager. In fact he was in charge of managers for the Notre Dame football team when Newt Rockney was the coach.

Newt Rockney was still is very very well known football guy and he was a very strong man. He influenced anyone that came in contact with him. Well Dan helpen was in his last year in university and he was the head manager of all the managers.

They put all the equipment and everything together for the players. When Dan Helpin graduated from university right around that time around 1930 he found himself graduating right into the heart of a depression. Now he got a couple of jobs one I think in a movie industry and one in a radio or something like that and kept losing those jobs.

Then he took and he got a position selling for an electric hearing aid company and on straight commissions. Now this is a job anyone could get and Help and knew it. And he continued on with this for two years.

He did not like it but you know in the middle of a depression I guess you take what you can get. He not only took what he could get but he made up his mind he was going to get himself in a position where he would be seen in his first job that he aimed at. The first target he had was to be the assistant sales manager and he did become the assistant sales manager and he became very very successful.

He became so successful in this that a man by the name of Am Andrews, who was the chairman of the dictograph Company, a competitor of Helpin's Company, started to pay attention to what was going on. And he could see that this other company was taking a lot of his business away. Andrews wanted to know what was going on, so he sent for this man.

He said, Bring him to me. Halpin went sat down with Andrews, who was the chairman of the board. And when the meeting was over, helping was his sales manager.

Then to test Help and to see just how good this guy is, andrews went away for three months to Florida on a vacation and he left the guy to sink or swim. Helping did not sink. He had some great training.

You see, Newt Rockney's, spirit of all the world loves a winner and there's no time for a loser was burned right into Halpin's mind. He eventually became very successful. He became the vice president of the company, then the general manager of the Acousticon and Silent Radio division.

This is a job that most men would be proud to earn after ten years employment with Andrews, help him turn the trick in just six months. Now think it was Helping's relationship with Rockney that really made the difference, and it made a big difference. You see, Rockney was one of the world's greatest leaders.

Napoleon Hill went on to explain. He said, I believe that close association with one who refuses to compromise with circumstances that he does not like is an asset that can never be measured in terms of money. Pay close attention to who you're associating with.

If you're with people that they bend, they say, well, I can't because of this. Get away from those people. You have the ability to change anything.

Now, you may not be able to change conditions or circumstances, but I'll tell you, Kenzie Edge, you can change your perception of the situation. And that's what successful people do. That's what these principles are all about.

You change your perception, you change your life. Specialized knowledge. If you haven't got it, get it.

It's changed my life like night and day, no question about it. It's helped me create a business, because that's what our business is all about. It's about specialized knowledge.

How to take Hill stuff, narrow it right down into easily understood principles that you can take and use to change your business, to change your life. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and intelligently directed through practical plans of action to the definite end of accumulation of money. Get out your notebook, write specialized knowledge in capitals at the top of the page, and then I'm going to use this principle of specialized knowledge in the following way and then finish that sentence in your notebook.

Don't overthink it. Just tune into your own powerful intuition and record on paper what comes to you. Do it now you.