people who praise you will always seem to you to be talk- ing about something very trivial in comparison with what you are really trying to do. It is better to have a job too big for popular praise – so big that you can get a good start on it before the cheer squad can get its first intelligent glimmering of your plans. Then you will be free to work and continue your journey towards even greater success.”
6) Develop persistence
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
– Abraham Lincoln (in a telegram to General Grant)
Robert Orben was a nationally-known comedy writer and publisher of a highly successful comedy newsletter who quipped, “If you’re ever tempted to give up, just think of Brahms – who took seven years to compose his famous lullaby. He kept falling asleep at the piano.” The most important threat to inner persistence is outer
resistance. People who learn how to deal with adversity, failure, and disappointment early in life are best equipped to manage persistence problems later in life. Don B. Owens, Jr., a passionate student of success, wrote, “Many people fail in life because they believe in the adage: If you don’t succeed, try something else. But success eludes those who follow such advice. Virtually everyone has had dreams at one time or another – especially in youth. The dreams that have come true did so because people stuck to their ambitions. They refused to get discouraged. They never let disappointment get the upper hand. Adversity only spurred them on to greater effort.” Throughout history, writers have encouraged people to persistently overcome adversity on the road to success. Ovid, the Greek philosopher, wrote, “The road to valor is built by adversity.” William Shakespeare crafted these immortal words, “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad – ugly and venomous – wears yet a precious jewel in his head. Henry Ford added to the list of life’s wisdom, “Never forget that the price of success in any time is persistent effort!” There is no shortage of advice for success in this world – only a shortage of persistent application.
7) Pursue meaning The ultimate value of life depends upon
awareness and the power of contemplation. – Aristotle
Dr. Victor Frankl, the father of logotherapy, a major school of psychology, said in his international bestseller, Man’s Search for Meaning, that people who are unable to find meaning in their lives tend to suffer psychological stress – and often become victims of psychosomatic illnesses. Dr. Frankl asserts we all can find meaning in even the most difficult life situations. His extensive research includes his own observations as a young psychiatrist held captive in a Nazi concentration camp. Dr. Frankl’s work confirms that our psychological growth and our success ultimately depend on our ability to find meaning in life. Extensive historical evidence suggests that
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successful people habitually place meaning before money. For example, Thomas Edison once summed up the mean- ing of his life with, “My philosophy of life is work – bring- ing out the secrets of nature and applying them for the happiness of man. I know of no better service to render during the short time we are in this world.” Edison’s commitment to accepting meaning as the ultimate
payoff helped him through the many frustrations and disap- pointments he suffered as an inventor. In 1913, The Wall Street Journal described Edison’s litiga- tions and poor financial rewards for his world-famous inven- tion of the incandescent lamp. “The incandescent lamp was brought out in 1879 – and perhaps the costliest patent litiga- tions in the history of electrical companies followed. When Edison began his experiments, lighting of homes by incandes- cence was said to be impossible. Yet, after he brought out the incandescent lamp, a host of inventors came forward stating that they made a practical filament lamp before he did.” Years later a Saturday Evening Post interview featured Edison’s reflections on these litigations. “I fought in the courts for 14 years to establish my rights as an inventor – even after I had the patents. My associates and I had to spend more than $1 million to prove our rights to the incandescent light, even though our claims had been duly vouched by the U.S. Patent Office. Everywhere around the Earth, the pirates kept picking on that little lamp, and they were able to keep me out of the profits of my patents until there were but three years left out of the 17 years. So, while the light was a boon to the world at large, to the inventor the patent was well-nigh useless.” Thomas Edison did not grow bitter from these disap- pointments. He always pursued meaning first and, as a consequence, he always found a deep sense of satisfac- tion in his heart.
Even in old age, the pursuit of meaning helped brighten his life. He told one of his last visitors about the spine-tingling sen- sation of seeing one of his ideas serving mankind. “I don’t get up to New York City often,” he said. “I am an old man now, but the few times I have been there in late years and witnessed the great spectacle of skyscrapers all aglow with millions of light- bulbs, there naturally comes to a man of my age a very fond memory of the first little lamp we turned on in our laboratory.” Although the question of life’s meaning is universal, each individual must find his own, personal answer in order to find inner peace as well as outer success. Albert Einstein was once asked by a reporter: “What would you answer if a child asked you, ‘Why was I born?’” Einstein replied, “The question ‘why’ in the sense of ‘to what purpose’ has, in my opinion, meaning only in the do- main of human activities. In this sense the life of a person has meaning if it enriches the lives of other people materi- ally, intellectually, and (or) morally.” Einstein, like Edison, placed meaning before money. It appears that money is merely a reflection of our contribu- tions in life, but meaning is the shining light without which there would be only more darkness in our human world. There is plenty of room at the top without pushing anyone off.
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