[Sidenote:  Change and Growth Necessary]

Reference has been made repeatedly in these pages to the necessity for change and growth in your man character before you can become a master salesman of your full capability for success.  Of course you cannot change your nature into a different nature; any more than one form of life can be transformed into an entirely distinct form of life.  It is impossible to develop a carrot into a calla, or to make a dog of a pig.  But the elements of any particular form of life may be altered, most radically.

[Sidenote:  Develop Use, Activity and Quality Of Elements]

So you can develop:  (1) the use; (2) the degree of activity; (3) the quality, of any element in your present salesman equipment.

For example, it is generally recognized that suitable clothes help to create a good impression.  Therefore you should use to the highest degree of activity and of quality what you know about the effect of dress in helping to create a good impression.  But, to particularize, do you (use your knowledge) polish your shoes, even if it is no more than flicking off the dust with your handkerchief, every chance (highest degree of activity) you get when they need it?  And when you polish your shoes in the morning preparatory to starting your day’s work, do you just give them “a lick and a promise,” or do you “make ’em shine?” (Highest degree of quality.)

[Sidenote:  Animal Training]

The “stupid” pig can be taught to do as phenomenal tricks as the “intelligent” dog.  It is possible to train a pig so that he will appear to be able to discriminate among colors, to tell time, even to perform simple operations in arithmetic.  At the circus or vaudeville we sit in wonder while the “educated” stupid pig, alertly afraid of the trainer’s whip, performs stunts of seeming intelligence.  Under the stimulus of fear he acts like a quick-thinking dog.  In truth he has been changed by training, from the pig characteristic of utter stupidity to the dog characteristic of rudimentary intelligence.  But in nature and form he remains just a pig.  If you should see him among other pigs in a pen, you never would mistake the “educated” pig for a fat puppy.

In the trained pig the use of his pig mind is developed to an unusual degree of activity and of quality to save himself from punishment and to gain the tidbits that reward his performance of tricks.  The purpose of the trainer is accomplished by changing and developing the mind functioning of the pig.  No trainer would attempt to change the nature of a pig—­to develop a pig into an elephant, a different creature.  Only characteristics can be changed or developed.

[Sidenote:  Plant Development]