Boron - Chapter 23

Does all this have anything to do with direct mail and mail
order? You bet it does. Mail order (and all other) fortunes
are made by men and women who know what's going on in their
fields. These are the people who stay up to date. They read
the trade journals, they make sure they are on everybody
else's mailing list so they know what the competition is
doing, they read all the "HOT" mail order publications, they
keep their "SWIPE FILE" up to date, they read and reread the
classic books written by the best people in the field, they
have idea files that contain newspaper articles, notes of
unusual info, hot new ideas, good layouts, unusual
propositions, and so forth. They also know who the leaders
are in their respective fields and they communicate with
these people on a regular basis.

You know, kiddo, quite often I am referred to as an
advertising genius, the "best copywriter in the world" and
so forth. Now, as you know, I would be the 1st person in the
world to deny these claims but if I really am so good, there
is at lest one reason for it that everybody misses. It is
this:

I Work Like Crazy!

I just came back from the TV area and there is a guy out
there who lives across the hall from me. At first, I didn't
recognize him. He's a white guy, a body builder, and he has
long flowing shoulder-length hair. He's been down for a long
time and the reason I had a hard time recognizing him is his
hair is now very short and neat. And, I'm telling you, with
his short, neat hair and his no-nonsense glasses, he looks
like Clark Kent. Well, anyway, I heard him explaining to
another inmate that he is getting ready to go before the
parole board and he is going to make sure he doesn't give
them any reason to not turn him loose.

This, my man, is the attitude to have. Always be ready to
catch a break. You know, if you play enough poker, sooner or
later, after thousands of hands, everybody in the game will
more or less have been dealt the same amount of good hands,
bad hands and mediocre hands.

What determines the winners? It's how they play the cards
that were dealt them. Were they alert and ready to exploit
the good ones? Did they perceive that the bad ones were in
fact bad in time enough to dump them without huge losses?
Were they ready to exploit or abandon their mediocre hands
as the different situations dictated?