Courage and intelligence are the two qualities best worth a good man’s cultivation. So it is the first part of intelligence to recognize our precarious estate in life, and the first part of courage to be not at all abashed by the fact. A frank and somewhat headlong carriage, not looking too anxiously before, not dallying in maudlin regret over the past, stamps the man who is well-armored for this world. And not only well-armored for himself, but a good friend and a good citizen, to boot. We do not go to cowards for tender dealings. There is nothing so cruel as panic. The man who has least fear for his own carcass has most time to consider others. So soon as prudence has begun to show up in the brain like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in the paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink spiritually. He develops a fancy for parlors with a regulated temperature. The care of one important body and soul becomes so engrossing that all the noises of the outer world begin to come thin and faint into the parlor with the regulated temperature.
Stevenson makes some important points in those few words, don’t you think? The first and most important being that the two qualities best worth a good man or woman’s cultivation are courage and intelligence, and that it’s the first part of intelligence to recognize our very precarious estate in life, and thus not play it too safely. There’s no way to win that game. Tiptoeing through life won’t change the final outcome. As soon as too much prudence begins to show up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts. The victim begins to shrink, and so on. Some people worry so much about the future that they fail entirely to enjoy today.
LET GO OF FEAR
The fear of life is the favorite disease of the 20th century. Too many people are afraid of tomorrow. Their happiness is poisoned by a phantom. Many are afraid of old age, forgetting that even if they should lose their bodily vigor, weakness itself may minister to the development of the mind and spirit. Instead of chagrin over the past and alarm over the future, suppose we consider our opportunity? As Emerson put it, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has earned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday.”
A small lesson from three great minds: Stevenson, Phelps, and Emerson. Courage and intelligence are the two qualities best worth our cultivation, and don’t play it too safe. The man who has the least fear for his own carcass has more time to consider others. There’s a little green paperback book entitled The Gospel of Emerson. It’s a book which, if you’ll read it quietly and thoughtfully, will bring a marvelous new peace and understanding. Emerson was one of the truly gifted intellectual giants of all time. He saw things with a wonderful clarity, through layers of the obvious and commonplace, to the kernel of truth that lay within.
In reading the little book on Emerson, I came across this line hidden down at the end of a paragraph: “People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” You know, that takes some thinking to understand, but it’s one of those statements we know intuitively to be true. Even though we strive to become settled and seek the mirage of security, we know that we do our best, think our best, accomplish most, and will certainly live more fully when we’re unsettled. As Emerson put it: “Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.” In other words, few of us know what’s good for us. There’s a security of a kind available to each of us, more than we require, really, but it’s inside, not outside. It’s to be found in the development of ourselves as creative, productive beings, loving and thinking persons, that real security is to be found. It cannot be outside of us. If we’re not secure as persons, we will only stew and worry about any other sort of security, or being settled. And so we usually strive hardest for chimera, and that’s what often brings so much disillusionment in later life, when people begin to sit around and stare at each other and wonder what they’ve been up to. Being settled is all right for cows and goldfish, I suppose, although I’m not at all sure about that, but being settled doesn’t seem to work at all with human beings. They get nervous and querulous, start snapping at each other. They also get fat and sloppy and turn inward upon themselves and get unhappy expressions on their faces when they’ve been settled for very long. They find that the very thing for which they’ve striven for so long is not what they want at all. It’s the fun of the journey, but usually in belated retrospect, that really matters. It’s while they’re striving that they reach their heights. Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.
ENTREPRENEUR TIP
What’s getting in the way of feeling “settled” with yourself and your success journey? It just might be imposter syndrome, the belief that you are somehow not worthy of your success or that you are fooling everyone. How do you get past it? Start by incorporating some affirmative habits into your daily routine. Do some positive self-talk in the mirror each morning. Or you can list two to three things that you have accomplished each day (or month, or year) so you can see the results of your efforts. Give yourself room to fail and recognize that you are where you’re meant to be.
BE SERVICE-MINDED
Living on the edge, striving toward goals still fairly distant, brings out the best or the very worst in people. If they’re wise, it brings out the best, if they’re ignorant, it can bring out the worst. But being settled, having it made, as we say, seldom brings with it much enthusiasm. Emerson also said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm, and we are most enthusiastic when we are as yet unsettled.” There are many paradoxes in life, and one is that while people wish to be settled, it is only as far as they are unsettled that there’s any hope for them.
Attached to the telephone of a young executive of my acquaintance is a small sign that reads, “God give me the wisdom to be as smart as my customers.” There is a ton of good sense and worlds of growth opportunity lurking in that small, pithy comment. If there’s one attitude common among those who serve the buying public, it’s often an attitude which says, “OK, dummy, what’ll it be?” It’s an attitude which makes the mistake of assuming that because I work in this business, I know all there is to know about it, while the customer doesn’t know anything about it at all. Because of that situation, I am infinitely wise, while the customer I now see approaching is infinitely stupid.
Now, I don’t mean to say that all who serve the public feel that way by any means. A good percentage of them are great and a joy to do business with, and we remember them and go back to them whenever we can. And I don’t mean to pick on the salespeople or the service people, particularly. The boss is the one who frequently makes the mistake of underestimating the public, or assumes most people are as dumb as they are. Some time back, I was checking into a motel and soon, I was back at the desk, asking them to make reservations for me somewhere else. The desk clerk asked me what was wrong, and I simply said, “Your motel isn’t good enough.” Traveling is tough enough without having to stay in a small, dirty room with an indifferent shower that goes from scalding hot one minute to ice cold the next, with the tile and plaster falling off the walls and ceiling. They underestimate the customer, or feel they have a lock on business, whether the customer likes it or not. The primary function of any organization is to help people enjoy a more meaningful existence.
That little legend ought to be cast in bronze and put every place in a business firm. The primary function of any organization is to help people enjoy a more meaningful existence. Now, if it isn’t meeting that qualification, the people in it should get into something else. The definition of genius is to think in unhabitual ways. A day should never pass in which people in business do not ask themselves, “How can we do a better job of serving our customers?” But the number of businesspeople who ask themselves that question every day could fit easily into the back seat of a Volkswagen. Instead of concentrating on the cash register, if they would concentrate more on serving the customer, the cash register would take care of itself.
We shouldn’t get our
causes and effect mixed up. By making our product or service right, all else will fall into place. It’s just a matter of time and perseverance. But we should never underestimate the customer and his natural desire for quality, for value for his time and money. The businesspeople who have heeded that kind of thinking have prospered. Anyway, it’s a good idea, that little sign: “God give me the wisdom to be as smart as my customers.” And we might add: “And to serve them as I enjoy being served when positions are reversed.” And that business of thinking in unhabitual ways can also bring a fresh, clean breath of renewal into a business.
BRING YOUR IDEAS TO LIFE
Imagination, you know, is everything. Wilfred A. Peterson, author of “The Art of Living in the World Today,” writing in Science of Mind magazine sometime back, quoted Felix Adler, who once said, “I am grateful for the idea that has used me.” And Peterson went on to say, “There are millions of great ideas in the world waiting for men and women to use them.” For people to dedicate their minds, hearts, spirits, eyes, ears, hands, arms, and legs to putting those ideas into action. There’s no lack of ideas waiting to be used, there’s only a lack of people willing to use them. The idea of the electric light used Edison. The idea of flying the Atlantic used Lindbergh, the idea of saving the Union used Lincoln. The idea of building a hospital in Africa used Schweitzer. The idea of writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin used Harriet Beecher Stowe. Ideas use people when people work for those ideas, when people are dominated by those ideas and make them a part of themselves. The ideas need not be world-shaking; ideas may be limited and yet meaningful. The idea of a new school in the community, the idea of a new church. There are ideas for thousands of projects that will contribute in large or small measure to mankind. Ideas, of themselves, do nothing. Used by men, they can do anything.
The idea of peace is a great idea, perhaps the very greatest that people should open themselves to and be used by. The idea of war has been used by man for far too long a time. It’s sent millions marching to their death, destroyed cities, wrecked the world. We need to be gripped by the idea of peace. We should get it into our hearts, into our blood streams, into our bones, and make it a part of ourselves. It’s been waiting around for a long time for men to use.
The supply of great ideas is inexhaustible. Let a great idea use you. Stand up for it, work for it, teach it, sell it, crusade for it. Help a great idea to become a reality through you. Well, I think that’s a great little piece, because it should make clear to those who are searching for something to do, some kind of work to get into, a way in which they can not only find something to do but at the same time be swept up and along by an idea that’s bigger than they are. Find an idea you think is interesting and exciting and jump into it with both feet, head, hands, and heart. Let a great idea use you. A great idea might be to build and operate the best business of its kind. Marshall Field had that idea. Great restaurants, hardware stores, supermarkets, any sort of business. You don’t have to make a great invention or win the Nobel Peace Prize. A business motivated by a great idea will succeed out of all proportion to a business operating only for profit. So will a career in anything: selling, law, medicine, farming. A person moved by an idea that’s bigger than they are can move a lot of mountains during their lifetime. A great idea is like a broad, swift river: Once you’ve found the one you want, all you have to do is jump in and start swimming. It’ll carry you along much faster than you could have traveled otherwise.
ENTREPRENEUR TIP
Ready to bring your next “great idea” to life? Have a blue-sky meeting with your team. Put your new idea in front of the team and have everyone in the room envision all the things they can do to bring that big, new idea to fruition. In a blue-sky meeting there are no bad ideas—only possibilities. At the end of your session, choose the top five tasks/concepts/approaches that seem most viable and start drafting your master plan.
CHOOSE YOUR PATH
In the world of today, it seems that each of us needs to choose between one of three courses: recognizing that we are undergoing changes unprecedented in human history, we can choose to escape from the world, to help build a better world, or to just hang on for dear life and hope that the whole thing doesn’t fly apart during our lifetimes. How about you?
We’re in a whole new ball game, and it takes some shifting of gears. We’ve found, for example, that affluence does not satisfy wants; it simply creates new ones, more voracious, more difficult to satisfy than the old ones. Utopia involves the satisfaction of wants, but the wants of man are insatiable. Supply one and two rise to take its place. And man is the only creature so constituted. Satisfy the wants of an animal, and he’ll drop off into a peaceful sleep, totally content. Not man. Satisfy man’s wants, and his eyes bug out looking for new ones. That’s one of the reasons there’s no end in sight to the possible growth of business, which is, in many ways, good.
The same technology that created the monsters which terrify us now—overpopulation, pollution, wars, and crime—can contain them, ultimately do away with them entirely, I’m sure. Technology gives us what we want, and then it lets us see, as a New York University professor put it, that while dissatisfaction may be uncomfortable, the real disasters in life come from getting what we want. But only temporarily, during man’s painful maturing process.
Of the three choices open to us (escape, reconstruction, or teeth gritting and hanging on), I think most of us want to help put things together in a better way. And one way each of us can do that is to strive for quality in whatever it is we do. Simplify our lives, cut down on the number of things we’ll permit to engage our attention, and make sure they’re of good quality. When you’re building on quality, you’re building long-term growth. If we refuse to let junk appear in our lives, it will disappear from our lives. If we refuse to buy things we think are priced too high, the prices will come down. We can make do with what we’ve got. If the homes in the new development all look exactly alike and there are no trees, let’s not buy one. And let’s not buy anything that has not been well constructed to last a long time. Let’s carefully examine and check out things before we’ll permit them to enter our lives. And most importantly of all, let’s make sure that what we do is of the best quality possible.
The late Ernest Holmes wrote something we’d do well to remember every morning as we begin our day. He said:
Create or perish is the eternal mandate of nature. Be constructive or become frustrated is an equal demand. We do not all have to act or think alike, but each should give full reign to the urge within him to express his life. This thing called life is intimate to everyone, even as the law of cause and effect is available to all. Take your place, then, in the universe in which you live, having neither fear nor arrogance, but in the simplicity of faith, come to believe that you are one with the creative genius back of this vast array of ceaseless motion, this original flow of life. You are as much a part of it as the sun, the Earth, and the air. There’s something in you telling you this, like a voice echoing from some mountaintop of inward vision, like a light whose origin no man has seen. Like an impulse welling up from an invisible source. Your mind is an outlet through which the creative intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment.
It’s good, isn’t it? And powerful. It reminds me of Emerson’s great quote that says we should listen to the voice within. He wrote, “Create or perish, be constructive or become frustrated. We may dread the work that lies ahead of us tomorrow, but we should dread even more a time when we will have nothing at all to do tomorrow, when there’s nothing for us to do. And so, let’s create. Let’s bring something new, something better because of us, to our work, which is what creation is all about.”
There are all kinds of people in the world. There are the bizarre, the decadent, the bored, the disenchanted. There are the mindless hedonists, the shallow seekers of distraction. There are the grim cynics to whom nothing is nor can be good or meaningful. But the happiest people on Earth are those who, out of themselves, create conditions
beneficial to those it has been given them to serve. They create happy homes, good meals, education, better health, enjoyment, humor, new buildings, products, services, a better job, a helping hand, better government. Wherever they are, things are better for them having been born. They bring something of themselves to their work, something that makes it better. They are constructive, they are the builders of the world. They listen to the iron string that vibrates deep within them, of which Emerson spoke.
Ernest Holmes went on to say, “The greatest gift life could have made to you is yourself.” You are a spontaneous, self-choosing center in life, in the great drama of being, the great joy of becoming, the certainty of eternal expansion. You could not ask for more, and more could not have been given. You need not mold your life after another; trust yourself. Believe in your direct relationship with life, and you will not be disappointed. But do not wait. Today is the time to start. Right where you are is the place to begin.
ENTREPRENEUR ACTION ITEM
Create Your Self-Development Mindset
The most fulfilling path to success and personal fulfillment comes through the pursuit of your own self-development, as Nightingale mentioned in the essay you just read. The radically successful and happy immerse themselves in self-development and a deep interest in life and relationships. Through self-exploration they remain openly curious and passionate about their self-education and improvement. They hold the belief that they can only learn if they are willing to risk themselves personally and professionally.
Through life’s experiences, good and bad, you become able and ready to be proactive in all your efforts, challenges, and successes. You choose to no longer wait for success or happiness; you go out and make it happen. Making a commitment to your own development is the first step on the path to living your personal legend. Here are some important elements of a self-development mindset.
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