Who Are the Successful in Life, and How Do We Achieve Success?

Twenty clerks in a store. Twenty workers in a printing press. Twenty men working in a ship-repair dock, and twenty young men in a village.. Every one of them would like to succeed and hopes to succeed.. But one of the store clerks becomes a partner in it, one of those in the press becomes the owner of a newspaper and a citizen of influence.. one of the dock workers becomes a master shipbuilder, and one of those in the village buys a fine farm — why? Is it luck, as people say in such a case..?

The certain thing is that the young man who outruns his rival is the one who beats him: the one who lives clean and upright, who fills his hours with acquiring knowledge, who never borrows, who wins friends by merit, and who puts by his spare piasters — that is the one who succeeds.

There are faster roads than this one, but the men of solid firms, the men who possess things worth possessing — success, wealth, and a long, calm, steady life — all of them walk this road..

Wealth may be gained in a day, that is true, but it may also be lost in a day; it is the hand of work and perseverance that makes a man successful. Ticknor, the owner of publishing and trading houses in Boston, said in his last hours the following:

The adventurers who go hunting for gold are madmen; every foothold there is kneaded with the ruin of men and the ruin of their fortunes; but men who work with honor and patience seldom fail.

Who are the successful men..? They are those who were forced at the dawn of their youth to work to support themselves or to support their parents, and when they grew up, harsh need compelled them to work more than was required of them.. those who lived in unusual circumstances that made their senses alert and springing, searching for ways to turn every minute of their time to account — and the first thing they did was to read the lives of famous men.. those who denied themselves in youth, denied themselves food and sleep and rest and holidays.. they stayed up late and rose early; by night they did one man's work and by day another man's. The owner of a famous bank, who began his work without a riyal in his hand, said: "For long years I kept arriving at my place of business with the sunrise, and I would not leave it before fifteen or eighteen hours had passed."

So do not despair if you must look after yourself, or your widowed mother, or your sick sister, for this is the road walked by people whose names have shone. It is a thorny road at times, hard to endure, but after a little it appears clear, then the sun rises upon it, and then come glory and a good name.

Leave every man his own work and attend to yours. Study until you make the hours full of profit. Think twice before you throw away a piaster, and remember that you will have to work to get it back. Search out the purpose in your work. Meet difficulties with constant struggle and they will vanish. Concentrate your attention on one thing, for the concentrated mind glimpses every way of improvement, while the mind scattered over a dozen occupations will not see a single way to improve.

A famous judge in England was asked to what he attributed the success of the successful, and he said: some possess great talents, some rose by the influence of friends, but the majority succeeded because they started without a shilling to their name.

I once saw a mighty oak that had needed twenty years of growth above the ground; beneath it, its roots kept turning until they had wound themselves mightily around a great rock, which became an anchor for it, by which it withstood the storms for generations..

Do not trust too much. Ask those who have failed and you will find that in most cases the trust was misplaced: one man stood surety for another, one lent to another, one acted as agent for another — all things you can avoid with a little foresight and a little doubt.

Be thrifty so that you may become a benefactor, for work and victory spin gold. Do not wait for an inheritance: he who waits to wear another man's shoes walks barefoot a long time.

I have seen people bewailing their luck, telling you the history of their lives, which is one long story of failure and ill fortune. Perhaps they were born poor and so came to hate the rich; in this resentment of theirs they deny themselves all rest.. They were not born at the top of the wheel, and then they refuse to grasp its rims when it passes by them, but stay lying on the ground beside it, weeping like children.

And finally: heaven itself helps only those who help themselves.