Back in the days when I was selling Earl Nightingale’s attitude motivation programs for a living, I was often invited to come to various companies and teach their people how to be more effective in planning their days and increasing their sales. It did not take me long to realize that one-time motivational talks do serve a useful purpose, but unfortunately, they also wear off very quickly. This is kind of like taking a bath once a month, and we know how that will turn out.

            On the other hand, what most of us need, in addition to a motivational talk, is “how-to” knowledge. The nuts and bolts of how to get a job done well is much more effective if you can walk a person through the steps and let them see how it will feel to experience the thing or job they will be doing. To some degree, this removes the fear of the unknown and it certainly begins to build habit patterns that can be reinforced repeatedly. I am not suggesting that in a seminar or in a classroom setting you can walk a person through the steps of a live experience, but you can walk them through mentally, and even role play the experience with another person.

            Here is what I believe the greatest long-range benefits for this company, or any company, will be. Together with their top management people, we soon learned that we also needed to record each session and give each key person a set of tapes. This way, as the days, weeks and months went by, they could listen to the tapes repeatedly. To be sure, this way the concepts would get clearer each time they listened, and it could also give them a tool to evaluate their activity and sales presentations. Then, if they were not happy with the results, the tapes may help them figure out why. There is an old saying that is so true, “We only look up when we are lying flat on our back.”

            As I conclude this column, here is something for each of us to think about. See if you don’t agree that a steady diet of “how-to” knowledge can, over time, also help us develop a better self-image, develop the right mental attitude, set and reach goals, develop good communication skills, develop good listening skills, manage our time more effectively, form success habits, achieve financial security, and develop our own plan for success.

Granted, this is a lot of information, and it takes time to get it across, but recorded tapes can provide a way to make another person’s “how-to” knowledge their own. While I did not realize it at the time, when I started selling attitude motivation tapes back in the early 1970s, and started listening to them day after day, I was making up for what I had missed out on in high school and college.

Here is something I hope you will really think about. A lot of people go back to college and that is great if they can work it out, but for those who can’t, we can bridge the gap over time by listening to educational tapes and listening repetitively. Who knows, we may advance to the point where we say, “Don’t just tell me – show me.” To be sure, WINNERS ARE READERS.

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(Jim Davidson is an author, public speaker, syndicated columnist, and Founder of the Bookcase for Every Child project. Since its inception in the Log Cabin Democrat in 1995, Jim’s column has been self-syndicated in over 375 newspapers in 35 states. For a personalized copy of “Your Future Begins Today” send $20, which includes postage and handling, to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)