The Ghetto

Children know nothing of social caste. Caste is a disease of grown-ups. It is caused by uric acid in the ego.

Children meet as equals—they respond naturally without so much as a thought as to whether they ought to love one another or not. 


William got acquainted with Mayer by holding up a big speckled marble, and then in a burst of good-fellowship giving the marble to the little stranger boy, all before a word had been said. Then while the Landgrave was showing his treasures to Anselm who himself was a collector in a small way, the boys slipped out of the door, and William took Mayer to see the stables. "What's it for?" asked William, pointing to the yellow patch sewed tight to the breast of Mayer's jacket. "That?" answered Mayer proudly, "why, that means that I am a Jew, and I live in the Ghetto!" William gave a little start of alarm. He looked at the other lad, so brown and sturdy and frankly open-eyed, and said slowly, "You can't be a Jew, because—because Jews eat children!"

"I'm a Jew—my father is a Jew—all our folks are Jews—the Jews are the Chosen People of God!" Little Mayer spoke slowly and with feeling.

"The Chosen People of God?" echoed William.

"Yes!"

They saw the horses, and Mayer looked at them with wondering eyes. There were no horses in the Ghetto—just pushcarts and wheelbarrows. William had been lame—hip disease, or something, and so had never been away down to the city, except with a nurse, or in a carriage with his tutor. The boys entered the house and the Landgrave was still explaining to Anselm Moses how all coins made by the[Pg 141] Assyrians were modeled by hand, not stamped out with a die, as was done by the Greeks.

The boys hadn't been missed. "Can't I have one of those to wear on my coat, too?" asked William, pulling at his father's sleeve, and pointing to the yellow patch on Mayer's jacket.

"One of what, my son?" asked the Landgrave seriously.

"One of those yellow medals!"

The Landgrave looked at Mayer's yellow patch, and then involuntarily at the badge worn by the boy's father.

The Landgrave's fine face flushed scarlet. His gaze met the steady, manly look of Anselm Moses.

They understood each other. No one was near, save the two boys. They met as equals, as men meet on the plain or desert. "It's all a mistake—a foolish mistake, Anselm, and some day we will outgrow it. A man's a man!"

He held out his hand. The Jew grasped it firmly and both men smiled—the smile of friendship and understanding.

Forget Failure - Keep Learning and Find Success

One of the greatest basketball players ever to grace the hardwood was Michael Jordan. An old story has it that his Mother had to drag him into the house at bedtime. If she hadn't he surely would have stayed out at the basketball court - learning and practicing his chosen sport! 

One of the Secrets of Success appears to be a never ending taste for learning. It has been noted time and again that Thomas Edison tried over 1,000 different ways to create his light bulb. Were those attempts failures?  Not in his mind. They represented learning.  Learning numerous ways his idea did not quite work yet.

Still, he persisted and kept trying!

A few thoughts from Thomas Edison's Mother:

"It is true I was a Canadian schoolteacher, and this at a time when very few women taught, but I am the mother of him you call Thomas A. Edison. I studied and read and wrote and in degree I educated myself. I had great ambition—I thirsted to know, to do, to become. But I was hampered and chained in an uncongenial atmosphere.

My body struggled with its bonds, so that I grew weak, worried, sick, and died, leaving my boy to struggle his way alone. My only regret at death was the thought that I was leaving my boy. I thought that through my marriage I had killed my career—sacrificed myself. But my boy became heir to all my hunger for knowledge, and he has accomplished what I dimly dreamed. He has made plain what I only guessed. From my position here I have whispered secrets to him that only the freed spirits knew. I once thought my life was a failure, but now I know that the word 'failure' is a term used only by foolish mortals. In the universal sense there is no such thing as failure." 

There was a public library at Detroit where any one could read, but books could not be taken away.
All Edison's spare time was spent at the library, which to him was a gold-mine. All his mother's books had been sold, stolen or given away.  Books to a boy like young Edison are treasures-trove, in which is stored the learning of all great and good and wise who have ever lived.  When Edison saw the inside of that library and was told he could read any or all of the books, he said, "If you please, Mister, I'll begin here." And he tackled the first shelf, mentally deciding that he would go through the books ten feet at a time.

A little later he bought at an auction fifty volumes of the "North American Review," and moving the books up to his home at Port Huron proceeded to read them.

The war was on—papers sold for ten cents each and business was good. (Young Mr Edison sold newspapers.) Edison was making money—and saving it. He only splurged on books.

Keep saving your money. Keep learning. You can achieve amazing success surpassing even your wildest dreams.

  Learn more about reaching your peak potential!

The mind can not conceive what man will do in the
Twentieth Century with his chained lightning.
—Thomas A. Edison

Obey and Serve

The very first item in the creed of common sense is Obedience.

Perform your work with a whole heart.

Revolt may be sometimes necessary, but the man who tries to mix revolt and obedience is doomed to disappoint himself and everybody with whom he has dealings. To flavor work with protest is to fail absolutely.

When you revolt, why revolt—climb, hike, get out, defy—tell everybody and everything to go to hades! That disposes of the case. You thus separate yourself entirely from those you have served—no one misunderstands you—you have declared yourself.

The man who quits in disgust when ordered to perform a task which he considers menial or unjust may be a pretty good fellow, but in the wrong environment, but the malcontent who takes your order with a smile and then secretly disobeys, is a dangerous proposition. To pretend to obey, and yet carry in your heart the spirit of revolt is to do half-hearted, slipshod work. If revolt and obedience are equal in power, your engine will then stop on the center and you benefit no one, not even yourself.

The spirit of obedience is the controlling impulse that dominates the receptive mind and the hospitable heart. There are boats that mind the helm and there are boats that do not. Those that do not, get holes knocked in them sooner or later.

To keep off the rocks, obey the rudder.

Obedience is not to slavishly obey this man or that, but it is that cheerful mental state which responds to the necessity of the case, and does the thing without any back talk—unuttered or expressed.

Obedience to the institution—loyalty! The man who has not learned to obey has trouble ahead of him every step of the way. The world has it in for him continually, because he has it in for the world.

The man who does not know how to receive orders is not fit to issue them to others. But the individual who knows how to execute the orders given him is preparing the way to issue orders, and better still—to have them obeyed. 

If we are to succeed - we must learn to obey and serve others.

Reach Your Goals

Countless books on goals and success appear to have a few common threads.

    Many suggest  four basic principles stated in many different ways:

1) Decide precisely what you are want to achieve and accept no substitute. Visualize yourself reaching your target.

 2) Choose to take action define the steps needed to reach your goal. Then take massive action. Keep your eyes on your goal and act vigorously and relentlessly to make your goal a reality;

3) Take time to recognize progress and lack of progress so you can repeat, add to, or alter your action steps accordingly;

4) Realize that you may ( in fact most will ) make mistakes along the way. Don't despair - instead abandon preconceived notions of what should or will ultimately work. Be willing to change your plans and actions as needed.

Here’s one healthy habit for reaching your goals you can start tonight -

Set aside 30 minutes each night to review your plan for the following day.

     Once your day begins, take a few minutes if you can to review your plan for the day and decide which actions will deliver the most results.  Many find it difficult to take time for planning their day on the run. It is much easier to develop an action plan - realizing that plans can be altered in mid-stream. Be flexible. Keep your momentum. Some famous motivational speaker used to say "Plan your work and work your plan".

    You have the ability to store a thousand ideas and details associated with your day. However, you can work on only one thing at a time. Planning your day the night before acts as a sorting-out process and calms the nervous system, which has been in hyper mode all day. Think of it like cleaning up your pots and pans after you make that delicious meal. If you don't do it now - they will be all that much harder to clean when you need them tomorrow! 

    The  benefit is the feeling of being more in control and less overwhelmed by the nearly inevitable onslaught of daily interruptions. Having some handle on what you want to accomplish tomorrow might even help you sleep a little better!

Getting Things Done - Reach Your Goals

"Just Do It" the old Nike ad urged us all. Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. 


"How," asked a man of Sir Walter Raleigh, "do you accomplish so much and in so short a time?" "When I have anything do, I go and do it," was the reply. The man who always acts promptly, even if he makes occasional mistakes, will succeed  when a procrastinator will fail even if he have the better judgment.

When asked how he managed to get so much done, Lord Chesterfield replied: "Because I never put off till morrow what I can do to-day."

Dewitt, pensionary of Holland, answered the same question: "Nothing is more easy; never do but one thing at a time, and never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day."

Walter Scott was a very punctual man. This was the secret of his enormous achievements. He made it a rule to answer all letters the day they were received. He rose at five. By breakfast time he had broken the neck of the day's work, as he used to say. Writing to a youth who had obtained a situation and asked him for advice, he gave this counsel: "Beware of stumbling over a propensity which easily besets you from not having your time fully employed—I mean what the women call dawdling. Do instantly whatever is to be done, and take the hours of recreation after business, never before it."

The world knows that the prompt man's bills and notes will be paid on the day they are due, and will trust him. People will give him credit, for they know they can depend upon him. But lack of promptness will shake confidence almost as quickly as downright dishonesty. The man who has a habit of dawdling or procrastination will reveal it in everything he does. He is late at meals, late at work, dawdles on the street, loses his train, misses his appointments, and dawdles at his store until the banks are  closed. Everybody he meets suffers from his procrastination, for dawdling becomes practically a disease.

"You will never find time for anything," said Charles Buxton; "if you want time you must make it."

The best work we ever do is that which we do now, and can never repeat. "Too late," is the curse of the unsuccessful, who forget that "one today is worth two tomorrows."

Time accepts no sacrifice; it admits of neither redemption nor atonement. It is the true avenger. Your enemy may become your friend, your injurer may do you justice, but time is inexorable, and has no mercy.

If you want to reach your goals, Act Now. Just get started and get some momentum going!

Health , Wealth , and Happiness

HAPPINESS consists in being consciously harmonized with the true, the good and the beautiful. It is not necessary, however, although it is, of course, better, to know these words. The child vibrates with goodness without understanding the name "goodness." 

            "Let my soul walk softly in me,
Like a saint in heaven unshod,
For to be alone with Silence
Is to be alone with God."


May your every waking thought be in tune with reality, truth, beauty and goodness!

 The sea, the pine, the stars, the forest deep,
Bequeath to me at will their subtle wealth.
Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep,
Mine is the buoyant earth-man's vibrant health:
All things for love of me their vigils keep—
I am the soul of health, of wealth.

          Run, sea, in my heart!
Pine, sing in my heart!
Stars, glow in my heart!
For ye are mine, and my soul,
Like ye, is a part
Of the Marvelous Whole.

There's no thing dear to me is not my wealth,
And none that sees me I would distant keep;
For swift possession is my earth-man's health,
Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep:
All things for love of me their vigils keep—
I am the soul of health, of wealth.

The Journey to Greater Success

"A careful preparation is half the battle." Everything depends on a good start and the right road. To retrace one's steps is to lose not only time but confidence. "Be sure you are right then go ahead" was the motto of the famous frontiersman, Davy Crockett, and it is one that every young man can adopt with safety.

Bear in mind there is often a great distinction between character and reputation. Reputation is what the world believes us for the time; character is what we truly are. Reputation and character may be in harmony, but they frequently are as opposite as light and darkness. Many a scoundrel has had a reputation for nobility, and men of the noblest characters have had reputations that relegated them to the ranks of the depraved, in their day and generation.

It is most desirable to have a good reputation. The good opinion of our associates and acquaintances is not to be despised, but every man should see to it that the reputation is deserved, otherwise his life is false, and sooner or later he will stand discovered before the world.

Sudden success makes reputation, as it is said to make friends; but very often adversity is the best test of character as it is of friendship.

Our habits form the basis of our character. Habit is the persistent repetition of acts physical, mental, and moral. No matter how much thought and ability a young man may have, failure is sure to follow bad habits. While correct habits depend largely on self- discipline, and often on self-denial, bad habits, like pernicious weeds, spring up unaided and untrained to choke out the plants of virtue. It is easy to destroy the seed at the beginning, but its growth is so rapid, that its evil effects may not be perceptible till the roots have sapped every desirable plant about it. 

No sane youth ever started out with the resolve to be a thief, a tramp, or a drunkard. Yet it is the slightest deviation from honesty that makes the first. It is the first neglect of a duty that makes the second. And it is the first intoxicating glass that makes the third. It is so easy not to begin, but the habit once formed and the man is a slave, bound with galling, cankering chains, and the strength of will having been destroyed, only God's mercy can cast them off.

Next to the moral habits that are the cornerstone of every worthy character, the habit of industry should be ranked. In "this day and generation," there is a wild desire on the part of young men to leap into fortune at a bound, to reach the top of the ladder of success without carefully climbing the rounds, but no permanent prosperity was ever gained in this way.

There have been men, who through chance, or that form of speculation, that is legalized gambling, have made sudden fortunes; but as a rule these fortunes have been lost in the effort to double them by the quick and speculative process.

Betters and gamblers usually die poor. But even where young men have made a lucky stroke, the result is too often a misfortune. They neglect the necessary, persistent effort. The habit of industry is ignored. Work becomes distasteful, and the life is wrecked, looking for chances that never come.

There have been exceptional cases, where men of immoral habits, but with mental force and unusual opportunities have won fortunes. Some of these will come to the reader's mind at once, but he will be forced to confess that he would not give up his manhood and comparative poverty, in exchange for such material success.

If you want lasting success - Work Hard and Start Saving Your Money. Save as much as you can and invest in sound, time-honored investments.

The best equipment a young man can have for the battle of life is a conscience void of offense, sound common sense, and good health. Enjoy your journey to greater success.

Searching for a Better Way

Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge. Proverbs 23:12

Never believe that success cannot come your way because you have not been educated in the orthodox and regular fashion. Success is partly a matter of predestination and partly of free will. You cannot make the genius, but you can either improve or destroy it, and most men and women possess the assets which can be turned into success.

    History has made a god of education, and its eminent men placed learning as the foremost influence in life.

I am bold enough to dissent, if by education is meant a course of study imposed from without. Indeed, such a course may be a hindrance rather than a help to a man entering on a business career. No young man on the verge of life ought to be in the least discouraged by the fact that he is not stamped with the hall mark of Yale or Berkeley or Cambridge.

Possibly, indeed, he has escaped a grave danger; for if, in the impressionable period of youth, attention is given to one kind of knowledge, it may very likely be withdrawn from another. A life of sheltered study does not allow a boy to learn the hard facts of the world—and business is based on reality. The truth is that education is the fruit of temperament, not success the fruit of education. What a man draws into himself by his own natural volition is what counts, because it becomes a living part of himself.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, the real education is the market-place of the street.

Are you searching for a better way? So you want financial freedom and a more secure future? Check out Peak Potentials.