William James said this： “When once a decision is reachedand execution is the order of the day， dismiss absolutely allresponsibility and care about the outcome.” In this case， WilliamJames undoubtedly used the word “care” as a synonym for“anxiety”。） He meant—once you have made a careful decisionbased on facts， go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’tbegin to hesitate worry and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourselfin self-doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep lookingback over your shoulder.
I once asked Waite Phillips， one of Oklahoma’s most prominentoil men， how he carried out decisions. He replied： “I find thatto keep thinking about our problems beyond a certain point isbound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time whenany more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes atime when we must decide and act and never look back.”
Why don’t you employ Galen Litchfield’s technique to one ofyour worries right now?
Here is：
Question No. 1—What am I worrying about? （Please pencil theanswer to that question in the space below.）
Question No. 2—What can I do about it? （Please write youranswer to that question in the space below.）
Basic Techniques In Analysing Worry Question No. 3—Here is what I am going to do about it.
Question No. 4—When am I going to start doing it?
Chapter 35
How to Eliminate Fifty Percentof Your Business Worries
IF you are a business man， you are probably saying to yourselfright now： “The title of this chapter is ridiculous. I have beenrunning my business for nineteen years; and I certainly knowthe answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tellme how I can eliminate fifty per cent of my business worries—it’sabsurd！”
Fair enough—I would have felt exactly the same way myselfa few years ago if I had seen this title on a chapter. It promises alot—and promises are cheap.
Let’s be very frank about it： maybe I won’t be able to help youeliminate fifty per cent of your business worries. In the last analysis，no one can do that， except yourself. But what I can do is to showyou how other people have done it—and leave the rest to you！
You may recall that I quoted the world-famous Dr. AlexisCarrel as saying： “Business men who do not know how to fightworry die young.”
Since worry is that serious， wouldn’t you be satisfied if I couldhelp you eliminate even ten percent of your worries?… Yes?…
Good！ Well， I am going to show you how one business executiveeliminated not fifty percent of his worries， but seventy-fivepercent of all the time he formerly spent in conferences， trying tosolve business problems.
Furthermore， I am not going to tell you this story about a “Mr.
Jones” or a “Mr. X” or “or a man I know in Ohio”—vague stories.
Basic Techniques In Analysing Worry that you can’t check up on. It concerns a very real person-LeonShimkin， a partner and general manager of one of the foremostpublishing houses in the United States： Simon and Schuster，Rockefeller Centre， New York 20， New York. Here is LeonShimkin’s experience in his own words：For fifteen years I spent almost half of every business dayholding conferences， discussing problems. Should we do this orthat—do nothing at all? We would get tense; twist in our chairs;walk the floor; argue and go around in circles. When night came， Iwould be utterly exhausted. I fully expected to go on doing this sortof thing for the rest of my life. I had been doing it for fifteen years，and it never occurred to me that there was a better way of doingit. If anyone had told me that I could eliminate three-fourths of allthe time I spent in those worried conferences， and three-fourths ofmy nervous strain—I would have thought he was a wild-eyed， slaphappy， armchair optimist. Yet I devised a plan that did just that. Ihave been using this plan for eight years. It has performed wondersfor my efficiency， my health， and my happiness.
It sounds like magic—but like all magic tricks， it is extremelysimple when you see how it is done.
Here is the secret： First， I immediately stopped the procedureI had been using in my conferences for fifteen years—a procedurethat began with my troubled associates reciting all the details ofwhat had gone wrong， and ending up by asking： ‘What shall wedo?’ Second， I made a new rule—a rule that everyone who wishesto present a problem to me must first prepare and submit amemorandum answering these four questions：Question 1： What is the problem?