Beyond the Rhetoric

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”

You might think that a quote like the one above would come from someone who is a well-noted philanthropist. You might think that the quote comes from a children’s author, more than enthusiastic about sharing treasured stories with young ones. Well, it’s not. It’s from a direct marketer and a successful entrepreneur.

E. Joseph Cossman made a name for himself as a direct response marketer. He’d typically source products that had not yet been very successful, but held a great deal of potential. He’d then devise an impressive campaign with direct response techniques and mail order strategies. He is a self-made millionaire, creating very little in terms of his own products; he just knew how to market things.

There are far too many people out there who lose sight of the true meaning of life. They chase happiness only to discover emptiness. They may find a tradeoff between happiness and meaning, but that’s not necessarily true. When you find meaning, by giving to others and working to provide the best for those around you, it’s very possible that you’ll find a few “drops” of happiness getting on you too.

After all, satisfying work needs meaning. It needs purpose. Some people assume that you giving to others means that you have to sacrifice something from yourself. That’s not true either. If we all work together, we can all be happy together.

Yes, Cossman may have been the author of How I Made $1,000,000 in Mail Order-and You Can Too!, but he is also the kind of man who was willing to give of himself. It’s said that Cossman adhered to the old idiom, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

What he learned is that by teaching a man to fish can be richly rewarding for the teacher too.

Tags: charity, happiness, memorable quotes

Filed under Personal Development.