ContentsSixteen Ways in Which This Book Will Help YouPreface -How This Book Was Written-and WhyPart One -Fundamental Facts You Should Know About Worry1 -Live in "Day-tight Compartments"2 -A Magic Formula for Solving Worry Situations3 - What Worry May Do to YouPart Two - Basic Techniques In Analysing Worry4 -How to Analyse and Solve Worry Problems5 -How to Eliminate Fifty Per Cent of Your Business WorriesNine Suggestions on How to Get the Most Out of This BookPart Three -How To Break The Worry Habit Before It Breaks You6 -How to Crowd Worry out of Your Mind7 -Don't Let the Beetles Get You Down8 -A Law That Will Outlaw Many of Your Worries9 -Co-operate with the Inevitable10 -Put a "Stop-Loss" Order on Your Worries11 -Don't Try to Saw SawdustPart Four -Seven Ways To Cultivate A Mental Attitude That Will Bring You Peace AndHappiness12 -Eight Words that Can Transform Your Life13 -The High, Cost of Getting Even14 - If You Do This, You Will Never Worry About Ingratitude15 - Would You Take a Million Dollars for What You Have?16 - Find Yourself and Be Yourself: Remember There Is No One Else on Earth Like You17 - If You Have a Lemon, Make a Lemonade18 -How to Cure Melancholy in Fourteen DaysPart Five -The Golden Rule For Conquering Worry19 -How My Mother and Father Conquered WorryPart Six -How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism20 -Remember That No One Ever Kicks a Dead Dog21 -Do This-and Criticism Can't Hurt You22 - Fool Things I Have DonePart Seven -Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue And Worry And Keep Your Energy And SpiritsHigh23 -How to Add One Hour a Day to Your Waking Life24 - What Makes You Tired-and What You Can Do About It25 -How the Housewife Can Avoid Fatigue-and Keep Looking Young26 - Four Good Working Habits That Will Help Prevent Fatigue and Worry27 -How to Banish the Boredom That Produces Fatigue, Worry, and Resentment28 -How to Keep from Worrying About InsomniaPart Eight -How To Find The Kind Of Work In Which You May Be Happy And Successful29 -The Major Decision of Your LifePart Nine -How To Lessen Your Financial Worries30 -"Seventy Per Cent of All Our Worries ..."Part Ten -"How I Conquered Worry" (32 True Stories). "Six Major Troubles Hit Me All At Once" By C.I. Blackwood. "I Can Turn Myself into a Shouting Optimist Within an Hour" By Roger W. Babson. "How I Got Rid of an Inferiority Complex" By Elmer Thomas. "I Lived in the Garden of Allah" BY R.V.C. Bodley. "Five Methods I Use to Banish Worry" By Professor William Lyon Phelps. "I Stood Yesterday. I Can Stand Today" By Dorothy Dix. "I Did Not Expect to Live to See the Dawn" BY J.C. Penney. "I Go to the Gym to Punch the Bag or Take a Hike Outdoors" By Colonel Eddie Eagan. "I Was 'The Worrying Wreck from Virginia Tech'" By Jim Birdsall. "I Have Lived by This Sentence" By Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo. "I Hit Bottom and Survived" By Ted Ericksen. "I Used to Be One of the World's Biggest Jackasses" By Percy H. Whiting. "I Have Always Tried to Keep My Line of Supplies Open" By Gene Autry. "I Heard a Voice in India" BY E. Stanley Jones. "When the Sheriff Came in My Front Door" By Homer Croy. "The Toughest Opponent I Ever Fought Was Worry" By Jack Dempsey. "I Prayed to God to Keep Me Out of an Orphan's Home" By Kathleen Halter. "I Was Acting Like an Hysterical Woman" By Cameron Shipp. "I Learned to Stop Worrying by Watching My Wife Wash Dishes" By Rev. William Wood. "I Found the Answer-Keep Busy!" By Del Hughes. "Time Solves a Lot of Things" By Louis T. Montant, Jr.. "I Was Warned Not to Try to Speak or to Move Even a Finger" By Joseph L. Ryan. "I Am a Great Dismisser" By Ordway Tead. "If I Had Not Stopped Worrying, I Would Have Been in My Grave Long Ago" By ConnieMack. "One at a Time, Gentlemen, One at a Time" By John Homer Miller. "I Now Look for the Green Light" By Joseph M. Cotter. How John D. Rockefeller Lived on Borrowed Time for Forty-five Years. "Reading a Book on Sex Prevented My Marriage from Going on the Rocks" BY B.R.W.. "I Was Committing Slow Suicide Because I Didn't Know How to Relax" By Paul Sampson. "A Real Miracle Happened to Me" By Mrs. John Burger. "Setbacks" BY Ferenc Molnar. "I Was So Worried I Didn't Eat a Bite of Solid Food for Eighteen Days" By KathryneHolcombe FarmerSixteen Ways in Which This Book Will Help You1. Gives you a number of practical, tested formulas for solving worry situations.2. Shows you how to eliminate fifty per cent of your business worries immediately.3. Brings you seven ways to cultivate a mental attitude that will bring you peace andhappiness.4. Shows you how to lessen financial worries.5. Explains a law that will outlaw many of your worries.6. Tells you how to turn criticism to your advantage.7. Shows how the housewife can avoid fatigue-and keep looking young.8. Gives four working habits that will help prevent fatigue and worry.9. Tells you how to add one hour a day to your working life.10. Shows you how to avoid emotional upsets.11. Gives you the stories of scores of everyday men and women, who tell you in theirown words how they stopped worrying and started living.12. Gives you Alfred Adler's prescription for curing melancholia in fourteen days.13. Gives you the 21 words that enabled the world-famous physician, Sir William Osier,to banish worry.14. Explains the three magic steps that Willis H. Carrier, founder of the air-conditioningindustry, uses to conquer worry.15. Shows you how to use what William James called "the sovereign cure for worry".16. Gives you details of how many famous men conquered worry-men like Arthur HaysSulzberger, publisher of the New York Times; Herbert E. Hawkes, former Dean ofColumbia University; Ordway Tead, Chairman of the Board of Higher Education, NewYork City; Jack Dempsey; Connie Mack; Roger W. Babson; Admiral Byrd; Henry Ford;Gene Autry; J.C. Penney; and John D. Rockefeller.PrefaceHow This Book Was Written-and WhyThirty-Five years ago, I was one of the unhappiest lads in New York. I was selling motortrucksfor a living. I didn't know what made a motor-truck run. That wasn't all: I didn'twant to know. I despised my job. I despised living in a cheap furnished room on WestFifty-sixth Street-a room infested with cockroaches. I still remember that I had a bunchof neckties hanging on the walls; and when I reached out of a morning to get a freshnecktie, the cockroaches scattered in all directions. I despised having to eat in cheap,dirty restaurants that were also probably infested with cockroaches.I came home to my lonely room each night with a sick headache-a headache bred andfed by disappointment, worry, bitterness, and rebellion. I was rebelling because thedreams I had nourished back in my college days had turned into nightmares. Was thislife? Was this the vital adventure to which I had looked forward so eagerly? Was this alllife would ever mean to me-working at a job I despised, living with cockroaches, eatingvile food-and with no hope for the future? ... I longed for leisure to read, and to writethe books I had dreamed of writing back in my college days.I knew I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by giving up the job I despised. Iwasn't interested in making a lot of money, but I was interested in making a lot ofliving. In short, I had come to the Rubicon-to that moment of decision which faces mostyoung people when they start out in life. So I made my decision-and that decisioncompletely altered my future. It has made the last thirty-five years happy andrewarding beyond my most Utopian aspirations.My decision was this: I would give up the work I loathed; and, since I had spent fouryears studying in the State Teachers' College at Warrensburg, Missouri, preparing toteach, I would make my living teaching adult classes in night schools. Then I would havemy days free to read books, prepare lectures, write novels and short stories. I wanted"to live to write and write to live".What subject should I teach to adults at night? As I looked back and evaluated my owncollege training, I saw that the training and experience I had had in public speaking hadbeen of more practical value to me in business-and in life-than everything else I hadstudied in college all put together. Why? Because it had wiped out my timidity and lackof confidence and given me the courage and assurance to deal with people. It had alsomade clear that leadership usually gravitates to the man who can get up and say whathe thinksI applied for a position teaching public speaking in the night extension courses both atColumbia University and New York University, but these universities decided they couldstruggle along somehow without my help.I was disappointed then-but I now thank God that they did turn me down, because Istarted teaching in Y.M.C.A. night schools, where I had to show concrete results andshow them quickly. What a challenge that was! These adults didn't come to my classesbecause they wanted college credits or social prestige. They came for one reason only:they wanted to solve their problems. They wanted to be able to stand up on their ownfeet and say a few words at a business meeting without fainting from fright. Salesmenwanted to be able to call on a tough customer without having to walk around the blockthree times to get up courage. They wanted to develop poise and self-confidence. Theywanted to get ahead in business. They wanted to have more money for their families.And since they were paying their tuition on an installment basis-and they stopped payingif they didn't get results-and since I was being paid, not a salary, but a percentage ofthe profits, I had to be practical if I wanted to eat.I felt at the time that I was teaching under a handicap, but I realise now that I wasgetting priceless training. I had to motivate my students. I had to help them solve theirproblems.I had to make each session so inspiring that they wanted to continue coming.It was exciting work. I loved it. I was astounded at how quickly these business mendeveloped self-confidence and how quickly many of them secured promotions andincreased pay. The classes were succeeding far beyond my most optimistic hopes.Within three seasons, the Y.M.C.A.s, which had refused to pay me five dollars a night insalary, were paying me thirty dollars a night on a percentage basis. At first, I taughtonly public speaking, but, as the years went by, I saw that these adults also needed theability to win friends and influence people. Since I couldn't find an adequate textbookon human relations, I wrote one myself. It was written-no, it wasn't written in the usualway. It grew and evolved out of the experiences of the adults in these classes. I called itHow to Win Friends and Influence People.Since it was written solely as a textbook for my own adult classes, and since I hadwritten four other books that no one had ever heard of, I never dreamed that it wouldhave a large sale: I am probably one of the most astonished authors now living.As the years went by, I realised that another one of the biggest problems of these adultswas worry. A large majority of my students were business men-executives, salesmen,engineers, accountants: a cross section of all the trades and professions-and most ofthem had problems! There were women in the classes-business women and housewives.They, too, had problems! Clearly, what I needed was a textbook on how to conquerworry-so again I tried to find one. I went to New York's great public library at FifthAvenue and Forty-second Street and discovered to my astonishment that this library hadonly twenty-two books listed under the title WORRY. I also noticed, to my amusement,that it had one hundred and eighty-nine books listed under WORMS. Almost nine timesas many books about worms as about worry! Astounding, isn't it? Since worry is one ofthe biggest problems facing mankind, you would think, wouldn't you, that every highschool and college in the land would give a course on "How to Stop Worrying"?Yet, if there is even one course on that subject in any college in the land, I have neverheard of it. No wonder David Seabury said in his book How to Worry Successfully: "Wecome to maturity with as little preparation for the pressures of experience as abookworm asked to do a ballet."The result? More than half of our hospital beds are occupied by people with nervous andemotional troubles.I looked over those twenty-two books on worry reposing on the shelves of the New YorkPublic Library. In addition, I purchased all the books on worry I could find; yet I couldn'tdiscover even one that I could use as a text in my course for adults. So I resolved towrite one myself.I began preparing myself to write this book seven years ago. How? By reading what thephilosophers of all ages have said about worry. I also read hundreds of biographies, allthe way from Confucius to Churchill. I also interviewed scores of prominent people inmany walks of life, such as Jack Dempsey, General Omar Bradley, General Mark Clark,Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Dorothy Dix. But that was only a beginning.I also did something else that was far more important than the interviews and thereading. I worked for five years in a laboratory for conquering worry-a laboratoryconducted in our own adult classes. As far as I know, it is the first and only laboratory ofits kind in the world. This is what we did. We gave students a set of rules on how to stopworrying and asked them to apply these rules in their own lives and then talk to theclass on the results they had obtained. Others reported on techniques they had used inthe past.As a result of this experience, I presume I have listened to more talks on "How IConquered Worry" than has any other individual who ever walked this earth. In addition,I read hundreds of other talks on "How I Conquered Worry" talks that were sent to me bymail-talks that had won prizes in our classes that are held in more than a hundred andseventy cities throughout the United States and Canada. So this book didn't come out ofan ivory tower. Neither is it an academic preachment on how worry might beconquered. Instead, I have tried to write a fast-moving, concise, documented report onhow worry has been conquered by thousands of adults. One thing is certain: this book ispractical. You can set your teeth in it.I am happy to say that you won't find in this book stories about an imaginary "Mr. B--" ora vague "Mary and John|' whom no one can identify. Except in a few rare cases, thisbook names names and gives street addresses. It is authentic. It is documented. It isvouched for-and certified."Science," said the French philosopher Valery, "is a collection of successful recipes."That is what this book is, a collection of successful and time-tested recipes to rid ourlives of worry. However, let me warn you: you won't find anything new in it, but you willfind much that is not generally applied. And when it comes to that, you and I don't needto be told anything new. We already know enough to lead perfect lives. We have allread the golden rule and the Sermon on the Mount. Our trouble is not ignorance, butinaction. The purpose of this book is to restate, illustrate, streamline, air-condition, andglorify a lot of ancient and basic truths-and kick you in the shins and make you dosomething about applying them.You didn't pick up this book to read about how it was written. You are looking foraction. All right, let's go. Please read the first forty-four pages of this book-and if bythat time you don't feel that you have acquired a new power and a new inspiration tostop worry and enjoy life-then toss this book into the dust-bin. It is no good for you.DALE CARNEGIEPart One -Fundamental Facts You Should Know About WorryChapter 1 -Live in "Day-tight Compartments"In the spring of 1871, a young man picked up a book and read twenty-one words thathad a profound effect on his future. A medical student at the Montreal GeneralHospital, he was worried about passing the final examination, worried about what to do,where to go, how to build up a practice, how to make a living.The twenty-one words that this young medical student read in 1871 helped him tobecome the most famous physician of his generation. He organised the world-famousJohns Hopkins School of Medicine. He became Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxfordthehighest honour that can be bestowed upon any medical man in the British Empire.He was knighted by the King of England. When he died, two huge volumes containing1,466 pages were required to tell the story of his life.His name was Sir William Osier. Here are the twenty-one words that he read in thespring of 1871-twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life freefrom worry: "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to dowhat lies clearly at hand."Forty-two years later, on a soft spring night when the tulips were blooming on thecampus, this man, Sir William Osier, addressed the students of Yale University. He toldthose Yale students that a man like himself who had been a professor in four universitiesand had written a popular book was supposed to have "brains of a special quality". Hedeclared that that was untrue. He said that his intimate friends knew that his brainswere "of the most mediocre character".What, then, was the secret of his success? He stated that it was owing to what he calledliving in "day-tight compartments." What did he mean by that? A few months before hespoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner wherethe captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and-presto!-there was aclanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from oneanother-shut off into watertight compartments. "Now each one of you," Dr. Osier said tothose Yale students, "is a much more marvelous organisation than the great liner, andbound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery asto live with 'day-tight compartments' as the most certain way to ensure safety on thevoyage. Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in workingorder. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the iron doors shutting outthe Past-the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, theFuture -the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe-safe for today! ... Shut off the past!Let the dead past bury its dead. ... Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools theway to dusty death. ... The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carriedtoday, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. ... Thefuture is today. ... There is no tomorrow. The day of man's salvation is now. Waste ofenergy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious aboutthe future. ... Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare tocultivate the habit of life of 'day-tight compartments'."Did Dr. Osier mean to say that we should not make any effort to prepare for tomorrow?No. Not at all. But he did go on in that address to say that the best possible way toprepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm,on doing today's work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare forthe future.Sir William Osier urged the students at Yale to begin the day with Christ's prayer: "Giveus this day our daily bread."Remember that that prayer asks only for today's bread. It doesn't complain about thestale bread we had to eat yesterday; and it doesn't say: "Oh, God, it has been pretty dryout in the wheat belt lately and we may have another drought-and then how will I getbread to eat next autumn-or suppose I lose my job-oh, God, how could I get breadthen?"No, this prayer teaches us to ask for today's bread only. Today's bread is the only kind ofbread you can possibly eat.Years ago, a penniless philosopher was wandering through a stony country where thepeople had a hard time making a living. One day a crowd gathered about him on a hill,and he gave what is probably the most-quoted speech ever delivered anywhere at anytime. This speech contains twenty-six words that have gone ringing down across thecenturies: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall takethought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."Many men have rejected those words of Jesus: "Take no thought for the morrow." Theyhave rejected those words as a counsel of perfection, as a bit of Oriental mysticism. "Imust take thought for the morrow," they say. "I must take out insurance to protect myfamily. I must lay aside money for my old age. I must plan and prepare to get ahead."Right! Of course you must. The truth is that those words of Jesus, translated over threehundred years ago, don't mean today what they meant during the reign of King James.Three hundred years ago the word thought frequently meant anxiety. Modern versions ofthe Bible quote Jesus more accurately as saying: "Have no anxiety for the tomorrow."By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning andpreparation. But have no anxiety.During the war, our military leaders planned for the morrow, but they could not affordto have any anxiety. "I have supplied the best men with the best equipment we have,"said Admiral Ernest J. King, who directed the United States Navy, "and have given themwhat seems to be the wisest mission. That is all I can do.""If a ship has been sunk," Admiral King went on, "I can't bring it up. If it is going to besunk, I can't stop it. I can use my time much better working on tomorrow's problem thanby fretting about yesterday's. Besides, if I let those things get me, I wouldn't last long."Whether in war or peace, the chief difference between good thinking and bad thinkingis this: good thinking deals with causes and effects and leads to logical, constructiveplanning; bad thinking frequently leads to tension and nervous breakdowns.I recently had the privilege of interviewing Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of one ofthe most famous newspapers in the world, The New York Times. Mr. Sulzberger told methat when the Second World War flamed across Europe, he was so stunned, so worriedabout the future, that he found it almost impossible to sleep. He would frequently getout of bed in the middle of the night, take some canvas and tubes of paint, look in themirror, and try to paint a portrait of himself. He didn't know anything about painting,but he painted anyway, to get his mind off his worries. Mr. Sulzberger told me that hewas never able to banish his worries and find peace until he had adopted as his mottofive words from a church hymn: One step enough for me.