IF you are a business man， you are probably saying to yourselfright now： “The title of this is ridiculous. I have beenrunning my business for nineteen years； and I certainly knowthe answers if anybody does. The idea of anybody trying to tellme how I can eliminate fifty per cent of my business worries—it’sabsurd！”
Fair enough—I would have felt exactly the same way myselfa few years ago if I had seen this title on a chapter. It promises alot—and promises are cheap.
Let’s be very frank about it： maybe I won’t be able to help youeliminate fifty per cent of your business worries. In the last analysis，no one can do that， except yourself. But what I can do is to showyou how other people have done it—and leave the rest to you！
You may recall that I quoted the world-famous Dr. AlexisCarrel as saying： “Business men who do not know how to fightworry die young.”
Since worry is that serious， wouldn’t you be satisfied if I couldhelp you eliminate even ten percent of your worries？... Yes？...
Good！ Well， I am going to show you how one business executiveeliminated not fifty percent of his worries， but seventy-fivepercent of all the time he formerly spent in conferences， trying tosolve business problems.
Furthermore， I am not going to tell you this story about a “Mr. Jones” or a “Mr. X” or “or a man I know in Ohio”—vague stories that you can’t check up on. It concerns a very real person-LeonShimkin， a partner and general manager of one of the foremostpublishing houses in the United States： Simon and Schuster，Rockefeller Centre， New York 20， New York. Here is LeonShimkin’s experience in his own words：
For fifteen years I spent almost half of every business dayholding conferences， discussing problems. Should we do this orthat—do nothing at all？ We would get tense； twist in our chairs；walk the floor； argue and go around in circles. When night came， Iwould be utterly exhausted. I fully expected to go on doing this sortof thing for the rest of my life. I had been doing it for fifteen years，and it never occurred to me that there was a better way of doingit. If anyone had told me that I could eliminate three-fourths of allthe time I spent in those worried conferences， and three-fourths ofmy nervous strain—I would have thought he was a wild-eyed， slaphappy，armchair optimist. Yet I devised a plan that did just that. Ihave been using this plan for eight years. It has performed wondersfor my efficiency， my health， and my happiness.
It sounds like magic—but like all magic tricks， it is extremelysimple when you see how it is done.
Here is the secret： First， I immediately stopped the procedureI had been using in my conferences for fifteen years—a procedurethat began with my troubled associates reciting all the details ofwhat had gone wrong， and ending up by asking： ‘What shall wedo？’ Second， I made a new rule—a rule that everyone who wishesto present a problem to me must first prepare and submit amemorandum answering these four questions：
Question 1： What is the problem？
（“In the old days we used to spend an hour or two in a worriedconference without anyone’s knowing specifically and concretelywhat the real problem was. We used to work ourselves into a210 ·
lather discussing our troubles without ever troubling to write outspecifically what our problem was.）
Question 2： What is the cause of the problem？
（“As I look back over my career， I am appalled at the wastedhours I have spent in worried conferences without ever tryingto find out clearly the conditions which lay at the root of theproblem.）
Question 3： What are all possible solutions of the problem？