st think of yourself as actually starting out in
business for yourself, as really working for yourself. Get as much
salary as you can, but remember that that is a very small part of the
consideration. You have actually gotten an opportunity to get right
into the very heart of the great activities of a large concern, to get
close to men who do things; an opportunity to absorb knowledge and
valuable secrets on every hand; an opportunity to drink in, through
your eyes and your ears, knowledge wherever you go in the
establishment, knowledge that will be invaluable to you in the future.

Every hint and every suggestion which you can pick up, every bit of
knowledge you can absorb, you should regard as a part of your future
capital which will be worth more than money capital when you start out
for yourself.

Just make up your mind that you are going to be a sponge in that
institution and absorb every particle of information and knowledge
possible.

Resolve that you will call upon all of your resourcefulness, your
inventiveness, your ingenuity, to devise new and better ways of doing
things; that you will be progressive, up-to-date; that you will enter
into your work with a spirit of enthusiasm and a zest which know no
bounds, and you will be surprised to see how quickly you will attract
the attention of those above you.

This striving for excellence will make you grow. It will call out your
resources, call out the best thing in you. The constant stretching of
the mind over problems which interest you, which are to mean everything
to you in the future, will help you expand into a broader, larger, more
effective man.

If you work with this spirit, you will form a like habit of accuracy,
of close observation; a habit of reading human nature; a habit of
adjusting means to ends; a habit of thoroughness, of system; _a habit
of putting your best into everything you do_, which means the ultimate
attainment of your maximum efficiency. In other words, if you give
your best to your employer, the best possible comes back to you in
skill, training, shrewdness, acumen, and power.

Your employer may pinch you on salary, but he can not close your eyes
and ears; he can not shut off your perceptive faculties; he can not
keep you from absorbing the secrets of his business which may have been
purchased by him at an enormous cost of toil and sacrifice and even of
several failures.

On the other hand, it is impossible for you to rob yo