Hopkins was writing sermons at the age of seven. He often spoke a short sermon in prayer meetings.
But if he failed to come to UNDERSTANDING in the Bible, he did gain it in merchandising and advertising.
So I would like to go through many of his experiences, starting at the beginning, that my readers may see the remarkable parallels — and some contrasts — with my own experience, a generation later.
He inherited from his Scottish mother a conspicuous conservatism — a rare commodity in advertising men. His mother and father were both college graduates, intellectually superior. So he inherited also a good mind. His mother taught him not only thrift, but also industry. He supported himself from age nine. His father died when he was ten.
But Claude Hopkins himself never went to college. He says he spent those four years in the school of experience instead of the school of theory. As in my case, education was not neglected. I have stated that when I was eighteen, there was no worthwhile course in advertising or merchandising in any college or university. Hopkins corroborates that fact. He says "I know nothing of value which an advertising man can be taught in college. I know of many things taught there which he will need to UNLEARN (emphasis mine) before he can steer any practical course."
How much have our readers heard me say about the need and difficulty of unlearning false knowledge and error! Yes, Claude Hopkins and I had much in common, as you will see!
I have said that there was no course, in advertising or merchandising, being taught in any college when I was eighteen. That was in 1911. But the very next year two universities introduced such courses. I never followed up to determine their value. But Mr. Hopkins expresses the answer: "Of course we had no advertising courses in my school days . . . I am sure it would be better if we did not have them now. I have read some of these courses. They were so misleading, so impractical, that they exasperated me."
His forebears, as I said before, had been ministers — Baptists and, in his mother's case, Scottish Presbyterian. They were what we might call traditional Fundamentalist. To Hopkins as a maturing boy, they made religion oppressive. It was the kind of religion that made every joy a sin. People who danced, played cards, or attended the theatre, they said, were sinning.
It is, then, easy to understand how he was turned from religion and the Bible. Not understanding what the Bible did say, and supposing it said what this brand of traditional Protestantism teaches, he soon lost faith, threw up his hands in disgust, and devoted himself to business. He did not realize that the Bible reveals a God of LOVE, who desires our greatest happiness. A God who set in motion inexorable and invisible laws to CAUSE happiness and joys. A God who denies us NO pleasure or joy that is not harmful to us or to others. It is man's rebellion against those right laws which have caused every trouble, every wail of human woe.
In Ambassador College we teach one course which takes students through the biographical account of the life and teaching of Jesus. It occupies the first four books of the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Students are usually amazed to see, with their own eyes, in their own Bibles, how utterly opposite are the teachings of this traditional "Christianity" today from those that Jesus taught — how He observed customs, setting us an example, which "Christianity" today condemns, and how the Bible condemns the customs they now follow! We get bitter criticism for this from some "religious" sources — but WE didn't write the Bible, and we only wish they, too, believed what it says!
Hopkins had to work hard, with little time for play. He made his WORK a game. He had a logic that will sound strange today.
"Which," he asks, "is work, and which play? If a thing is useful, they call it work. If useless they call it play. One is as hard as the other. One can be just as much a game as the other. In both there is rivalry. There's a struggle to excel the rest. All the difference I see lies in attitude of mind . . ."
So, he reasoned, the love of work can be cultivated, just like the love of play.
"So," he concludes, "it means a great deal when a young man can come to regard his life work as the most fascinating game he knows. . . The applause of athletics dies in a moment. The applause of success gives one cheers to the grave."
I give you this, because I personally regard THE WORK to which I have been called in precisely that light. It is far more fascinating than any sport or game. And transcendently MORE IMPORTANT! It is my life, and nothing else counts, beside it! And I wish all our Co-Workers could feel the same — for then it is exciting, satisfying, rewarding, above every joy we humans can experience!
I have always said that a thing worth doing is worth doing RIGHT — the very best you can do it. Claude Hopkins' father owned a newspaper. They often printed handbills. Often young Claude went to the advertiser and solicited the job of distributing — to the 1,000 homes in their city. He was paid $2 for placing bills in each home. Other boys offered to do the job for $1.50. But they placed several bills in some homes, and skipped all those farther out. Claude asked advertisers to COMPARE RESULTS.
His were far greater on test, so he gained a monopoly. DOING THE JOB HONESTLY, and THOROUGHLY, always PAYS! In these bills, as a boy, he gained his first experience in tracing results!
He records another experience, and comments, "That taught me the rudiments of another lesson I never have forgotten." My autobiography shows I, too, was always learning lessons I retained and applied, in principle, to many problems.
In my own autobiography I told of the pioneering survey I made of consumer attitude in 1914. It was in Richmond, Kentucky. Always I made surveys to learn the attitude of those to whom I would write, before writing advertising copy. For success, you must address others from knowledge of their viewpoint.
Here again, Claude Hopkins and I, neither knowing the other did it, shared something vital in common.
Hopkins mentions how hundreds of executives had talked to him about their projects — nearly always seeing the problem solely from their own point of view. He says: "I have urged them to make tests, to feel the public pulse." Some, he says, did listen and profit. Others scorned the idea of learning the customers' mind. "Four times in five they failed," he said.
You may begin to see why I was thrilled with Hopkins' book. I had never known about him, as a man. I had never known his methods — I had merely read his ads, unknowing what led to them. And I hope some of these lessons both he and I learned may prove interesting and profitable to you.
Continually, I kept reading time after time, in this story of Claude Hopkins' experiences, statements like: "This taught me another lesson." You who have read my own autobiography repeatedly encountered like expressions. Hopkins didn't go to college. Yet he was forever LEARNING! Yes, we seem to have had a deal in common!
He said much about questioning people to learn customer attitudes toward any product or service. "We must submit all things in advertising," he wrote, "to the court of public opinion. This, you will see, is the main theme of this book. I own an ocean-going yacht, but do you suppose I would venture across an ocean without a chart or compass? If I have no such records, I take soundings all the way."
There's an old saying in business: "Jones pays the freight; give Jones what he wants." That's "business!" But I, myself, am no longer in business. I know that "business" seldom gives Jones what he ought to have! Or what is BEST for him. Business — and especially the advertising phase of business — takes advantage of human nature. And human nature is a downward pull — the innate tendency toward VANITY, envy, lust and greed. Human nature is SELF, and it is self-centered. God's Law is LOVE toward God and loving one's neighbor as himself. That's a law against human nature — and human nature always violates that Law. Yet that is the Law which alone can be the CAUSE of happiness, success and joy.
And I could go on and on, commenting on Mr. Hopkins' story of his advertising life (it does not cover his personal life). Continually, I found his experiences, his principles used, paralleled mine.
He had, and used, all six of the first six of the seven laws of success. All successful men must.
1) He had a definite goal. Of course the first law of success is the right goal, and this can come only by application of the seventh. But his goal did, as a goal must to launch a success, inspire ambition — the burning DESIRE and incentive — the motivation.
2) The second law is EDUCATION — preparation for achievement — gaining the know-how to accomplish the purpose. He did not go to college. Probably he would never have gained the right knowledge for his goal there. But he did study. He did THINK. He did use his mind. He did constantly LEARN!
3) Third I place physical HEALTH. Claude Hopkins appears to have had enough of it to reach the pinnacle in his profession — yet at one point, he records, his health virtually broke down. Many an otherwise successful man finds his success retarded, interrupted, or prevented because of the lack of good health. Success in life requires vigorous action. I have observed that the man at the helm of most large enterprises is the most alert, clear and sharp-minded, highly animated and energetic man in his entire organization. This necessitates good physical health.
4) Next I place DRIVE. Call it "push," "industry," or whatever — it is that constant self-prod, driving one's self to continuous energetic action. The "boss" must have it, for those under him usually must be prodded and pushed. He is like the mainspring of a watch. This man Hopkins was always driving himself on into new merchandising and advertising problems. He was forever at it. I have had to be, too.
5) The fifth law of success is RESOURCEFULNESS. The ability to size up and analyze problems — to see one's way clearly through to solutions — to hurdle obstacles and roadblocks that frustrate and stop lesser people. This man Claude Hopkins had this in superabundance, in solving advertising and merchandising problems.
6) Sixth comes ENDURANCE — Stick-to-it-iveness. That rare quality of the captain who will never give up his ship — that determination and courage to stay with it after all others have lain down and given up. Many a person, with all other ingredients for success, has thrown up his hands and quit, when just a little more patience and determined staying with it would have turned apparently hopeless failure into overwhelming success. Hopkins had this quality, too. He records many times when he made mistakes — virtually always in small ways because his characteristic caution refused to plunge big until ideas and plans had been tested in small areas. But these failures never discouraged. His clients were willing to quit, but not Claude Hopkins. He discerned the causes of temporary failures, and through that knowledge reasoned the way to succeed.
7) But the one place where Claude C. Hopkins violated success laws was in this most important seventh Law — contact with, reliance on, and the guidance and help of one's Creator. This is the basic Law all otherwise "successful" people have overlooked.
I have known hundreds of men counted as successful in the world. They made money. They achieved recognition. They rose above others. Yet all this left them EMPTY — for it was all VANITY. And the wisest man who ever lived described this as a "striving after wind." It NEVER PERMANENTLY SATISFIES. And the Creator says through the prophet Isaiah, "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread" — that is, for those things that are false values — "and your labor for that which does not satisfy?"
Nearly everyone strives, works, and spends money for that which leaves them empty — UNSATISFIED. Even those looked on as SUCCESSFUL in the world usually find, in the end, they had a false idea of success. They started out with the WRONG GOAL. The first Law of Success is to set the RIGHT Goal — not just any goal.
How, then, can one know what really IS success? REAL success is the achieving of the TRUE VALUES. And few in this world know what they are. That's where this all-important 7th Law of Success comes in. Read it again. "Contact with, reliance on, and seeking the guidance and help of one's Creator!" This entails UNDERSTANDING OF, and actually living by that Creator's INSTRUCTION BOOK! There you find the TRUE VALUES revealed, as well as the WAY OF LIFE that will lead you to them, and make them YOURS to enjoy! That's the kind of Success that truly SATISFIES!