The Road To Success!

By Author: allan
Total Articles: 365
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It is well that young men should begin at the beginning and occupy the most subordinate^ positions. Many of the leading businessmen of Pittsburgh had a serious responsibility thrust upon them at the very threshold^ of their career. They were introduced to the broom, and spent the first hours of their business lives sweeping out the office. I notice we have and janitresses now in offices, and our young men unfortunately miss that salutary^ branch of a business education. But if by chance the professional sweeper is absent any morning, the boy who has the genius of the future partner in him will not hesitate to try his hand at the broom. It does not hurt the newest comer to sweep out the office if necessary. I was one of those sweepers myself.Assuming that you have all obtained employment and are fairly started, my advice to you is "aim high". I would not give a fig for the young man who does not already see himself the partner or the head of an important firm. Do not rest content for a moment in your thoughts as head clerk, or foreman, or general manager in any concern, no matter how extensive. Say to yourself, "My place is at ...
... the top." Be king in your dreams.And here is the prime condition of success, the great secret: concentrate your energy, thought, and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun in one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their capital, which means that they have scattered their brains also. They have investments in this, or that, or the other, here, there, and everywhere. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." is all wrong. I tell you to "put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket." Look round you and take notice, men who do that not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that break most eggs in this country. He who carries three baskets must put one on his head, which is apt to tumble and trip him up. One fault of the American businessman is lack of concentration.To summarize what I have said: aim for the highest; never enter a bar room; do not touch liquor, or if at all only at meals; never speculate^; never indorse10"1 be-yond your surplus cash fund; make the firm's interest yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket; expenditure1" always within revenue; lastly, be not impatient, for as Emerson says, "No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves." Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young. An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity,of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty.Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin,but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver^ in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.But if, in your fear, you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the season less world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must have desires, let these be your desires:To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.To know the pain of too much tenderness.