Secrets of Success

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." —Franklin.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
LONGFELLOW.

"I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did anything I have come that way. No, I never decide anything without knowing the conditions of the market, and never begin unless satisfied concerning the conclusion.”


“Not everyone could do that,” the reporter said.

“I cannot do everything. Every man can do something, and there is plenty to do.”

“You really believe the latter statement?” asked the reporter.

“There was never more. The problems to be solved are greater now than ever before. Never was there more need of able men. I am looking for trained men all the time. More money is being offered for them everywhere than formerly.”

“Do you consider that happiness consists in labor alone?”

“It consists in doing something for others. If you give the world better material, better measure, better opportunities for living respectably, there is happiness in that. You cannot give the world anything without labor, and there is no satisfaction in anything but labor that looks toward doing this, and does it.”

Never Give Up

Winston Churchill once gave a speech of just 3 words. Never Give Up!

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For many successful people , one key to their success is they never give up. They persevere. Always trying something to move closer to their goals.

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Your habits are vital to your success. Develop the habit of perseverance.

When you fall off your board, when you crash and burn, get back on your board and try again. Learn from your failures and keep moving. One of the Secrets of Success is - "Never Give up"!

Creativity

Stephen Girard is said to have been America's very first Millionaire. He began his illustrious career as a deck-hand! He literally built his fortune the good old fashioned way! He worked hard, invested wisely and made a whole lot of money! The bulk of his fortune was made after the Revolutionary war - when the United States was in its infant years!

Men do not succeed by chance. Chance may toss you into a position of power, but if you do not possess capacity, you can never hold the place.

The first six years that Girard was in Philadelphia he made little headway. But he did not lose courage. He knew that the war must end sometime, and that when it did, there would be a great revival of business.

When others were beaten out and ready to give up, and prices were down, he bought. Merchant ships were practically useless, and so were for sale. He bought one brand-new boat and named it "The Water-Witch," for this was the name he had for his first wife - Pollie.

As soon as the war closed and peace was declared, Girard loaded his two ships with grain and cotton and dispatched them to Bordeaux.

They were back in five months, having sold their cargoes, bringing silks, wines and tea. These were at once sold at a profit of nearly a hundred thousand dollars.

Picture of Esti Ginzburg at Listal

People with a good set of flexible skills will be able to adapt. Creativity and flexibility will continue to be greatly valued. People with a certain specific set of vocational skills are going to have a tougher time without some new training."While technology may replace some workers, it also creates opportunities to use new skills.
"Some types of engineers won't be doing the type of engineering they are doing now if someone comes up with a technology that makes what they do obsolete," Hallock said. "But they are likely to do something related."
To succeed, a worker should "be an active learner

Choose How You Will Live

Dwell in thought upon the grandest, and the grandest you shall see; Fix your mind upon the highest, and the highest you shall be!


The universe is a training school for evolving intelligence - a vast gymnasium for the development of moral fibre. We become mentally clever by playing at the game of life. We match our courage against its adversities and acquire fearlessness. We try our optimism against
its disappointments and learn cheerfulness. We pit our patience against its failures and gain persistence. We are torn from the pinnacle of ambition by opponents and learn toleration of others.

We fall from the heights of vanity and pride, and learn to be modest and humble. We encounter pain and sorrow and learn sympathy with suffering. It is only by such experiences that we can grow to rounded measure. It is only in an environment thus adapted to our spiritual
development that we can evolve the latent powers within us.

Such is the universe in which we find ourselves and from it there is no escape. No man can avoid life--not even the foolish one who, when the difficulties before him appear for the moment overwhelming, tries to escape them by suicide. A man cannot die. He can only choose how he will live. He may either helplessly drift through the world suffering from all the ills and evils that make so many unhappy or he may choose the method of conscious evolution that alone makes life truly successful. We may be either the suffering slaves of nature or the happy masters of her laws.

Focus on Your Purpose

Business" is a very comprehensive word, and may properly embrace every life-calling; but in its narrow acceptance it is applied to trade, commerce and manufactures. It is in these three lines of business that men have shown the greatest energy and enterprise, and in which they have accomplished the greatest material success. As a consequence, eager spirits enter these fields, encouraged by the examples of men who from small beginnings, and in the face of obstacles that would have daunted less resolute men, became merchant princes and the peers of earth's greatest.

In the selection of your calling do not stand hesitating and doubting too long. Enter somewhere, no matter how hard or uncongenial the work, do it with all your might, and the effort will strengthen you and qualify you to find work that is more in accord with your talents.

Bear in mind that the first condition of success in every calling, is earnest devotion to its requirements and duties. This may seem so obvious a remark that it is hardly worth making. And yet, with all its obviousness the thing itself is often forgotten by the young. They are frequently loath to admit the extent and urgency of business claims; and they try to combine with these claims, devotion to some favorite, and even it may be conflicting, pursuit. Such a policy invariably fails. We cannot travel every path. Success must be won along one line. You must make your business the one life purpose to which every other, save religion, must be subordinate.

"Eternal vigilance," it has been said, "is the price of liberty." With equal truth it may be said, "Unceasing effort is the price of success." If we do not work with our might, others will; and they will outstrip us in the race, and pluck the prize from our grasp. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," in the race of business or in the battle of professional life, but usually the swiftest wins the prize, and the strongest gains in the strife

A Success Story

    Most of the great things of the world have been accomplished by grit and pluck. You cannot keep a man down who has these qualities. He will make stepping-stones out of his stumbling-blocks, and lift himself to success.


Grit and pluck are not always practiced only by poor boys who have no chance, for there are many notable examples of pluck, persistence and real grit among youth in good circumstances, who never have to fight their way to their own loaf. Mr. Mifflin, a former CEO of the celebrated publishing firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., is a classic example of persistency, effort and grit. After graduating at Harvard and traveling abroad, he was determined, although not obliged to work for a living, to get a position at the Riverside Press in Cambridge.

He called upon the late Mr. Houghton and asked him for a job. Mr. Houghton told him that he had no opening, and that, even if he had, he did not believe that a graduate from Harvard who had money and who had traveled abroad would ever be willing to begin at the bottom and do the necessary  drudgery, for boy's pay. Mr. Mifflin protested that he was not afraid of hard work, and that he was willing to do anything and take any sort of a position, if he could only learn the business. But Mr. Houghton would not give him any encouragement. Again and again Mr. Mifflin came to the Riverside Press, and pressed his suit, but to no purpose. Mr. Mifflin persuaded his father to intercede for him, but Mr. Houghton succeeded in convincing him that it would be very unwise for his son to attempt it. But young Mifflin was determined not to give up. Finally, Mr. Houghton, out of admiration for his persistence and pluck, made a place for him, which had been occupied by a boy, for $5 a week.

Young Mifflin took hold of the work with such earnestness, and showed so much pluck and determination, that Mr. Houghton soon called him into the office and raised his pay to $9 a week from the time he began. Although the young man lived in Boston, he was always at the Riverside Press in Cambridge early in the morning, and would frequently remain after all the others had gone. Mr. Houghton happened to go in late one night, after everybody had gone, as he supposed, and was surprised to find Mr. Mifflin there, taking one of the presses apart. Of course such a young man would be advanced. These are the boys who become the heads of firms.

 It is victory after victory with the soldier, lesson after lesson with the scholar, blow after blow with the laborer, crop after crop with the farmer, picture after picture with the painter, and mile after mile with the traveler, that secures what all so much desire—Success.

Stick to the pursuit of your goal(s) and carry it through. Believe you were made for the place you fill, and that no one else can fill it as well. Put forth your whole energies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all its completeness and proportion, and you will become a hero. You will think better of yourself; others will think better of you. The world in its very heart admires the stern, determined doer.

"It is the one neck nearer that wins the race and shows the blood; the one pull more of the oar that proves the "beefiness of the fellow," as Oxford men say; it is the one march more that wins the campaign; the five minutes' more persistent courage that wins the fight. Though your force be less than another's, you equal and out-master your opponent if you continue it longer and concentrate it more."  Smiles.

Learn to Adapt

"Observe yon tree in your neighbor's garden," says Zanoni to Viola in Bulwer's novel. "Look how it grows up, crooked and distorted. Some wind scattered the germ, from which it sprung, in the clefts of the rock. Choked up and walled round by crags and buildings, by nature and man, its life has been one struggle for the light. You see how it has writhed and twisted,—how, meeting the barrier in one spot, it has labored and worked, stem and branch, towards the clear skies at last. What has preserved it through each disfavor of birth and circumstances—why are its leaves as green and fair as those of the vine behind you, which, with all its arms, can embrace the open sunshine? My child, because of the very instinct that impelled the struggle,—because the labor for the light won to the light at length. So with a gallant heart, through every adverse accident of sorrow, and of fate, to turn to the sun, to strive for the heaven; this it is that gives knowledge to the strong and happiness to the weak."

If you want success - in any venture - you simply must learn to adapt. Change is inevitable. Obstacles pop up where we least expect them. We must adapt to go around, go over, or forge through the challenges we are sure to encounter!

Radiate Life

The supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous,

powerful, or "good," but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate

health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good will. I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected--ready to say "I do not know," if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality--to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.

I wish others to live their lives, too--up to their highest, fullest and

best. To that end I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate,

give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not

needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example,

inference, and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I desire to be radiant--to radiate life.

What do You Focus On?

Emerson lost the first years of his life trying to be somebody else. He finally came to himself and said: "If a single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the whole world will come round to him in the end." "Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us or we find it not." "The man that stands by himself the universe stands by him also." "Take Michael Angelo's course, 'to confide in one's self and be something of worth and value.'" "None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."

When Napoleon had anything to say he always went straight to his mark. He had a purpose in everything he did; there was no dilly-dallying nor shilly-shallying; he knew what he wanted to say, and said it. It was the same with all his plans; what he wanted to do, he did. He always hit the bull's eye. His great success in war was due largely to his definiteness of aim. He knew what he wanted to do, and did it. He was like a great burning glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a single spot; he burned a hole wherever he went.

The sun's rays scattered do no execution, but concentrated in a burning glass, they melt solid granite; yes, a diamond, even. There are plenty of men who have ability enough, the rays of their faculties taken separately are all right; but they are powerless to collect them, to concentrate them upon a single object. They lack the burning glass of a purpose, to focus upon one  spot the separate rays of their ability. Versatile men, universal geniuses, are usually weak, because they have no power to concentrate the rays of their ability, to focus them upon one point, until they burn a hole in whatever they undertake.

This power to bring all of one's scattered forces into one focal point makes all the difference between success and failure. The sun might blaze out upon the earth forever without burning a hole in it or setting anything on fire; whereas a very few of these rays concentrated in a burning glass would, as stated, transform a diamond into vapor.

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

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.

Change Your Life!

Success is a journey! Why not enjoy the journey and make your success even greater?

How would you like to change your life? If you could have anything, What would you like?

Financial stability - More wealth and riches?

Better Health?  More vitality maybe?

A hot, slim and muscular body or a better love life?

Take time today to write down your wish-list. Anything You really want. Make your list and then give some thought to what needs to happen in order to achieve your goals.

Write down some specific steps you can take in the coming week to put you closer to your goal. Do this for each of your goals.  Then start taking action - immediately!!


Want  to make a ton of money and have financial freedom? Great Wealth  and riches can be yours!
The Peak State of Mind program is being created to support our expedited success and freedom. It is a way for us to measure our progress and ensure that you, I, and others can realize our vision. The program officially launches September 1, 2010 but I am inviting you to sign up now at no cost and begin learning essential lessons  through some high value content and a series of teleseminars.

To learn more and register now, please see the Peak Potentials Site!


Small steps often lead to big results.

Want a trimmer, more muscular body? Keep eating healthy foods, exercise daily and you really can lose weight and keep it off!

Make every day your best day! Take small steps every day. Start getting in shape - fast!

Keys to Success

Knowledge is one of the secret keys which unlock the hidden mysteries of a successful life.

"I do not remember," said Beecher, "a book in all the depths of learning, nor a scrap in literature, nor a work in all the schools of art, from which its author has derived a permanent renown, that is not known to have been long and patiently elaborated."

It is better to deserve success than to merely have it; few deserve it who do not attain it. There is no failure in this country for those whose personal habits are good, and who follow some honest calling industriously, unselfishly, and purely. If you want to succeed - at anything ,  you simply have to pay the price with study and hard work.

"You are a fool to stick so close to your work all the time," said one of Vanderbilt's young friends; "we are having our fun while we are young, for when will we if not now?" But Cornelius was either earning more money by working overtime, or saving what he had earned, or at home asleep, recruiting for the next day's labor and preparing for a large harvest later. Like all successful men, he made finance a study. He saved  his money with earnest and invested wisely.

When Mr Vanderbilt entered the railroad business over 100 years ago,  his fortune was estimated to be around thirty-five or forty million dollars. That is an incredible fortune even today! It's never to early ( or too late ) to start saving your money and investing wisely!

That is done soon enough which is done well. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He that would enjoy the fruit must not gather the flower. He who is impatient to become his own master is more likely to become his own slave. Better believe yourself a dunce and work away than a genius and be idle. One year of trained thinking is worth more than a whole college course of mental absorption of a vast series of undigested facts. The facility with which the world swallows up the ordinary college graduate who thought he was going to dazzle mankind should bid you pause and reflect. But just as certainly as man was created not to crawl on all fours in the depths of primeval forests, but to develop his mental and moral faculties, just so certainly he needs education, and only by means of it will he become what he ought to become - a real success!

Ignorance is not simply the negation of knowledge, it is the misdirection of the mind. "One step in knowledge," says Bulwer, "is one step from sin; one step from sin is one step nearer to Heaven."

If acquiring wealth is a measure of your success - if financial freedom is one of your goals - you might consider the proven benefits of this wealth seminar.

Secrets of Success

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.—DISRAELI.

    Many of the greatest Success stories of the world have not been done by men of large means. Ericsson began the construction of the screw propellers in a bathroom. The cotton-gin was first manufactured in a log cabin. John Harrison, the great inventor of the marine chronometer, began his career in the loft of an old barn. Parts of the first steamboat ever run in America were set up in the vestry of a church in Philadelphia by Fitch. 

McCormick began to make his famous reaper in a grist-mill. The first model dry-dock was made in an attic. Clark, the founder of Clark University of Worcester, Mass., began his great fortune by making toy wagons in a horse shed. Farquhar made umbrellas in his sitting-room, with his daughter's help, until he sold enough to hire a loft. Edison began his experiments in a baggage car on the Grand Trunk Railroad when a newsboy.


Michael Angelo found a piece of discarded marble among waste rubbish beside a street in Florence, which some unskillful workman had cut, hacked, spoiled, and thrown away. No doubt many artists had noticed the fine quality of the marble, and regretted that it should have been spoiled. But Michael Angelo still saw an angel in the ruin, and with his chisel and mallet he called out from it one of the finest pieces of statuary in Italy, the young David!

"The golden opportunity
Is never offered twice; seize then the hour
When Fortune smiles and Duty points the way."

Why thus longing, thus forever sighing,
For the far-off, unattained and dim,
While the beautiful, all around thee lying
Offers up its low, perpetual hymn?
HARRIET WINSLOW.