Originally broadcast on CHED radio - Date unknown

 Pick up the newspaper any night, and you'll read where this young executive, or that young executive has died of a heart attack at 46. 

Go to any gathering and watch your friends drink milk instead of a martini because of that ulcerated stomach. 

Knock on any door these days and you'll find men suffering from these ailments, plus the nervous tummy, tension headache, premature graying of the hair, etc., and so on.

These are the manifestation of the greatest curse we have in our business world today. That curse is the great theory of FIRSTISM. FIRSTISM for my money is the most insidious disease young career men have to battle. Today a good job is not enough. A sizable profit at the end of the year is not enough. A fair percentage on the investment is not enough. A quality product with good acceptance is not enough. No, you must be "the first to do it – the first to get it on the market - the first to sell it - the first in production - the first in sales, and once you are NUMBER ONE, you must do everything in your power to stay there. And everyone competing with you does everything in their power to knock you off your perch so that they can be FIRST. And what effect has this on your husband? It's making an old man of him at 40. To keep up to business today, a man has to burn himself right down to the ashes to satisfy the exponents of FIRSTISM. And what can you do about it? Not one single thing, because if you don't fall in line with FIRSTISM, there are 100 men behind you waiting to get on the merry-go-round and give it a try. 

Today quality means nothing. Just be the BIGGEST, the STRONGEST, the MOST, the FIRST, and you're automatically branded a success. But between the start and the finish lines, you will find the broken bodies, the worn out minds of millions of good men who tried the impossible and failed. Today, your share is not enough. You must have your share and the other fellows too. Today the smartest men in the world are the men who have the guts to say… "this is ridiculous. I'm getting out. Sure I'll be branded a failure, but I'd rather be a 75-year-old failure than a 40-year-old dead success”.