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Those Grand Resolutions

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Along with the rest of the world, on New Year’s Day I made a lot of new resolutions. I felt good after making them—kind of satisfied with myself. But here it is the last of January and some of these grand resolutions are beginning to crack, and I’m looking for the reason. I think I have found it. You can’t create habits simply by resolving. Only indomitable persistence, trying and failing, and trying again and failing not so soon, will make those resolutions a reality.

I have a task to accomplish. I will eat moderately, play moderately, save moderately, but more than these, I will have a passion to overcome every influence that keeps me from being my best. I won’t be a flower that blooms only from January 1st January 15th. Not for a few days but all through the year I’ll make my life count.

Get out your resolutions, your aims, your quota, or whatever has been your goal. Then say, “I’ll make the flame of my resolve just as hot today, and in February, and throughout the year as on January 1st; and, by the Eternal, I’ll do it!”
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If You Won’t Be, You Can’t Be

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

A sign hangs in the Club House of Bill Roper’s Princeton football squad:

“A team that won’t be beaten, can’t be beaten.”

You men who are putting your life behind Purina Checkerboard Chows just won’t be beaten—you can’t be beaten.

Hang up this motto.
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It’s Knowing How That Counts

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

“Give some men a thousand years in the very center of the most fertile valley in all America and they would come out of this garden spot with a handful of worthless weeds and a spray of poison ivy.”
—The Silent Partner.

Many men buy expensive fishing tackle and appetizing bait, but they catch few fish. Many men carry much ammunition, but they get no birds. A salesman can go into a territory rich in possibilities and get little tonnage.

You may have ambition to win. You may have resources and boundless energy. But you fail because you are lacking in the “Know How.”

If you have some specific problem that you must solve this week, write it down on a blank sheet of paper. Then opposite it write down every possible “Know How” that will hasten its solution. Then set yourself the task of mastering each “Know How.”
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Idle Chatter or Worthwhile Talk?

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Before you read this message glance around and see how many conversations are taking place on your office floor.

How much of it is idle chatter and how much is worth while talk?

You wouldn’t dare — twice — to come into my office and tell me about the vaudeville show you saw last night. But some people impose on the good nature and courtesy of others by wasting their own time, and the other fellow’s time, with social visits during office hours.

Show me the man or woman that avoids useless explanations and gets right to the point.
Show me the man or woman who saves golden minutes by frankly telling the chatterer to be gone—

Show me these, I say, and I will show you the Purina Leaders of today and tomorrow.

This type of Monday Morning Message makes me uncomfortable because I must check up myself. Maybe it will make you uncomfortable too, and we will all have a better week.

Good-bye — Idle Chatter
Enter—Worth While Talk

Although William Danforth wrote this message decades before the Internet became a part of our lives, his words apply to the Internet, too.
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The Plan for a New Year

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Nobody loves an adventure any more than I, but you wouldn’t catch me setting sail over an uncharted sea with no maps to guide and a captain who didn’t know the way. Before I get on a ship I want to know what port it makes.

January 1st we all launch out into another year. Although we cannot tell what lies ahead, we can plan to avoid the shoals and danger points of other years. We can at least know what port we want to make. If you don’t know your destination, how can you ever hope to get there?

I’ve sailed across more years than many of you, and my navigation chart shows the shoals and cross currents and ice fields that must be avoided. My experience tells me that we are bound to meet with fogs and storms as well as sunshine and fair weather.

Take some time this week to chart your courses so as to avoid known dangers and difficulties and plan to reach port.
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