AMBITION AND SUCCESS: How to Master Your Destiny, Purpose, and Achievement - Orison Swett Marden (1919) - SECRETS OF SUCCESS: Masters’ Greatest Wisdom

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ambition and Success by Orison Sweat Martin, nineteen nineteen, Chapter one.
What is ambition? Ambition is the spur that makes man
struggle with destiny. It is Heaven's own incentive to make
purpose great and achievement greater. In a factory where Mariner's
compasses are made, the needles, before they are magnetized, will

(00:23):
lie in any position wherever they are placed. But from
the moment they have been touched by the mighty magnet
and have been electrified, they are never again the same.
They have taken on a mysterious power and are new creatures.
Before they are magnetized, they do not answer the call
of the North Star. The magnetic pole does not have
any effect upon them, But the moment they have been magnetized,

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they swing to the magnetic North and are ever after
loyal and true to their affinity. Multitudes of people, like
an unmagnetized needle, lie motionless, unresponsive to any stimulus, until
they are touched by that mysterious force we call ambition.
Whence comes this overmastering impulse which pushes human beings on
each to his individual goal. Where is the source of

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ambition and how and when does it gain entrance into
our lives. How few of us ever stop to think
what ambition really means, its cause or significance. Yet, if
we could explain just what ambition is, we could explain
the mystery of the universe. The instinctive impulse to keep
pushing on and up is the most curious and the

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most interesting thing in human life. It exists in every
normal human being and is just as pronounced and as
real as the instinct of self preservation. I believe this
incessant inward prompting call it ambition or what we will,
this something which pushes men to their goal, is the
expression in man of the universal force of evolution which
is flowing godward. That it is a part of the

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great cosmic plan of creation. We do not create this urge,
we do not manufacture it. Every normal person feels this
imperious must which is back of the flesh, but not
of it, This internal urge which is ever pushing us on,
even at the cost of our discomfort and sacrifice. It
is a part of every atom. For all atoms are alive,

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and this upward impulse is in every one of them.
It is in the instinct of the bee, the ant,
and in all forms of insect and animal life. The
same kind of urge that is in the seed buried
out of sight, and which is ever pushing it up
and out through the soil, prodding it to develop itself
to the utmost and to give its beauty and fragrance
to the world, is in each one of us. It

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is ever pushing us, urging us on to fuller and
completer expression, to a larger, more beautiful life. But for
this desire to get on and get up, this god urge, everything,
even the universe itself, would collapse. Inertia, would bring everything
to a standstill. If we obey this call, we expand

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blossom into beauty and develop into fruitage. But if we
neglect or dissipate it, if we only half obey it,
we rem may mere scrub plants without flower or fruitage.
That mysterious urge within us never allows us to rest,
but is always prodding us for our good. Because there
is no limit to human growth, there is no satisfying
human ambition, man's higher aspiration. When we reach the height

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which looks so attractive from below, we find our new
position as unsatisfying as the old, and a perpetual call
to go higher still rings in our ears. A divine
impulse constantly urges us to reach our highest ideal. Faith
and the ideal still remain the most powerful levers of
progress and of happiness, says Gene Finnett. Did you ever

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hear of a man who had striven all his life
faithfully and singly toward an object, asked Thorroau, and in
no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is
he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth,
sincerity and find that there was no advantage in them?
That it was a vain endeavor. Aspiration finally becomes inspiration

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and ennobles the whole life. When the general habit of
always aspiring, moving upwards, and climbing to something higher and
better is formed, all the undesirable qualities and the vicious
habits will fade away. They will die from lack of nourishment.
Only those things grow in our nature which are fed.
The quickest way to kill them is to cut off

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their nourishment. The craving for something higher and better is
the best possible antidote or remedy for the lower tendencies
which one wishes to get rid of every faintest aspiration
that springs up in our heart. Is a heavenly seed
within us, which will grow and develop into rich beauty
if only it be fed encouraged. The better things do
not grow, either in material or mental soil without care

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and nourishment. Only weeds, briars, and noxious plants thrive easily.
Most young people seem to think that ambition is a
quality that is born in one and which cannot be
materially changed. But the greatest ambition may be very materially
injured in me manyas any different ways. The habit of procrastination,
of postponing, the habit of picking out the easier tasks

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and putting off the difficult ones, for example, will very
seriously impair the ambition. Whatever affects the ideals affects the ambition.
Ambition often begins very early to knock for recognition. If
we do not heed its voice, if it gets no encouragement,
after appealing to us for years, it gradually ceases to
trouble us, because, like any other unused quality or function,

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it deteriorates or disappears when used. God is whispering into
the ear of all existence. Of every created thing. Look up,
every sensient thing in the universe seems to be trying
to get to a higher level. Everything is in the
process of evolution, and the evolution is always upward. The
butterfly does not become a grub. It is not the

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evolutionary law. The grug develops into a butterfly. It is
never the other way. Be careful how you discourage or
refuse to heed that inner voice which commands you to
go forward, for if you do, it will become less
and less insistent, until finally it will cease to prod you.
And when ambition is dead deterioration has set in. That

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inner call to go forward, to push on to a
higher good is God's voice. Heed it. It is your
best friend and will lead you into light and joy.
Chapter two, The satisfied Man F. W. Robertson has said,
whoever is satisfied with what he does has reached his
culminating point. He will progress no more. Man's destiny is

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to be not dissatisfied, but forever unsatisfied. One of the
saddest things in life is to see men and women
who started out with high hopes and proud ambitions settled
down in mediocre positions, half satisfied, just merely to get
a living, to plod along indifferently. Oh, what tragedy there
is in being content with mediocrity, in getting into a

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state where one is indifferent to the larger, better things
of life. When you are satisfied with the life you
are living, with the work you are doing, with the
thought you are thinking, with the dreams you are dreaming,
satisfied with the character you are building with your ideals,
you may be sure that you are already beginning to deteriorate.
There is little hope for the man who feels satisfied

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with himself, who does not know the noble discontent that
stirs the acorn to become an oak. Man's ambition to
improve something somewhere every day, to get a little further
on and a little higher up than he was the
day before, an insatiable passion for bettering things all along
the line is the secret of human progress. Do you realize,
my young friend, that if the motive were big enough,

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if you had a very unusual incentive, you could materially
improve upon what you now are satisfied to consider your
best endeavor as an employee, you may think you are
doing your level best, and are conscientious, loyal, true, and industrious.
And yet if a great prize should be offered you
to bring your work up to a certain higher stand
for the next sixty days, would you rest until you

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had succeeded in very greatly improving what you now think
is your best work. Don't you think, you who pride yourself,
that it would be impossible to better what you are
now doing, that if your name were over the door
as proprietor instead of the name of the company you
work for, you could jack yourself up about fifty percent,
that you would find some way of doing it. Don't
you think you would be a little more ambitious, make

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a little better use of your time, that you would
try to call out a little more ingenuity and effectiveness,
a little more resourcefulness. Do you think you would jog
along in the same half hearted manner, thinking more of
your salary than of your opportunity to absorb the secrets
of your employer's success. Do you think you would stand
by without protest and see the merchandise injured or waste

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it when you could stop it, Or that you would
be so careless or make so many blunders yourself. Don't
you think the prize to be gained would make you
take a little more interest in things than you do now,
make you a little more alert, more eager for the
success of the business. It is a deplorable sight to
see so many young men and young women apparently so
satisfied with themselves with what they are doing, that they

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have no great yearnings, no insatiable longing for something higher
and better. Multitudes of capable employees are satisfied to plod
along in mediocrity instead of rising to the heights where
their ability would naturally carry them. I have a friend
who has a much superior brain to the man he
is working for, and yet for a great many years
he has been on an ordinary salary. He has never married,

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He takes life in an easy going way, and whenever
I have tried to encourage him to go into business
for himself, to show him how much superior he is
to the man he is working for, he always says,
why should I exert myself more take on greater business responsibilities.
I have nobody but myself to consider. I like to
have a good time and don't want to have the worry,

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the care and anxiety of running a business of my own,
although I know perfectly well I could do it if
I wanted to. Of course, the higher up and the
world a man gets, the greater his responsibility. But think
of the satisfaction which comes from the consciousness that he
has made the most of his talents, that he has
not buried any of them in a napkin. The satisfaction
which comes from the feeling that he has made good,

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that he has delivered his message to the world and
delivered it like a man. That he has fulfilled his mission,
that he has made the most possible of the material
and the opportunities given him. The feeling that he has
no regrets, that he has done his level best more
than compensates for any additional effort and greater responsibility. We
tend to become like our aspirations. If we constantly aspire

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and strive for something better and higher and nobler, we
cannot help broadening and improving. The ambition that is dominant
in the mind tends to work itself out in the life.
If this ambition is sordid and low and animal, we
shall develop these qualities for our lives, follow our ideals.
Civilization has made its greatest advancement under the stress of necessity,

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under the leadership of a great ambition to satis the
heart's yearnings for better things. We do our best work
while we are trying desperately to match our dreams with
their reality. The struggle of man to rise a little higher,
to get into a little more comfortable position, to secure
a little better education, a little better home, to gain
a little more culture and refinement, to possess that power

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which comes from being in a position of broader and
wider influence through the acquirement of property, is what has
developed the character and the stamina of our highest types
of manhood. Today. This upward life trend gives others confidence
in us. When we have attained a little success, when
we have gained a little public applause, how many of
us think we can relax our efforts, And before we

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realize that our ambition has disappeared, our energy evaporated, a
sort of lethargy comes over us and lulls us into inaction.
First successes, and especially early successes, to many act like
an opiate. They are overcome with inertia, which only an
unsatisfied and determined ambition can overcome. It takes more grit

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and a stronger will to force ourselves to do our
level best after we have demonstrated without doubt that we
have the ability to do what we undertake, than it
does to achieve the actual first success itself. One of
the greatest enemies to ambition is personal inertia, and it
is one of the hardest things to overcome. The temptation
to slide along the line of the least resistance, to

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get into a comfortable position and take one's ease is
so strong that many allow it to master them. The
ambition is not persistent enough or strenuous enough to shame
them out of their inertia or prod them on to
greater things. Mediocrity is often a premium upon laziness. The
poet tells us, he who would climb the heights sublime

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or breed the purer air of life must not expect
to rest in ease, but brace himself for toil or strife.
One of the most discouraging problems in the world is
that of trying to help the ambitionless, the half satisfied,
those who have not discontent enough in their natures to
push them on, initiative enough to begin things and persistency
enough to keep going. If a young man is apparently

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satisfied to drift along in a hundrum way, half content
with his accomplishments, undisturbed by the fact that he has
used but a very small part of himself, a very
small percentage of his real ability, that his energies are
running to waste in all sorts of ways, you cannot
do much with him. If he lacks ambition, life, energy,
and vigor, is willing to slide along the line of

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the least resistance and exerts himself as little as possible,
there is nothing upon which to build. It is the
young man who is not satisfied with what he does,
and who is determined to better his best every day,
who struggles to express the ideal, to make the possible
in him a reality that wins. Activity is the law
of growth, Effort the only means of improvement. Whenever men

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have obeyed their lower nature and ceased to struggle to
better their condition, they have deteriorated physically, mentally, and morally,
while just in proportion, as they have striven honestly and
insistently to improve their situation, they have developed a larger
and nobler human type. When a man who is said
to be the highest salaried official in the United States
was asked to give the secret of his success, he replied,

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I haven't succeeded. No real man ever succeeds. There is
always a larger goal ahead. It is the small man
who succeeds in his own estimation. Really great men never
reach their goal because they are constantly pushing their horizon
out further and further, getting a broader vision, a larger outlook,

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and their ambition grows with their achievement. If you are
getting a fair salary in a mediocre position, there is
danger of hypnotizing yourself into the belief that there is
no need to exert yourself very much to get up higher.
There is danger of limiting your ambition so that you
will be half content to remain a perpetual clerk when
you have the ability to do much better. This satisfaction

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with the lesser when the greater is possible often results
from relatives or friends telling you that you are doing
well and that you would better let well enough alone.
These advisers say, don't take chances with a certainty. It
is true you are not getting a very big salary,
but It is a sure thing, and if you give
it up with the hope of something better, you may
do worse. Don't let anyone or any conditions make you

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think you have not the ability to match your longings.
Wrapped up in every human being there are energies which,
if unfolded, concentrated, and given proper attention, will develop his
highest ideal. Our longings are creative principles, prophecies indicative of
potencies equal to the task of actual achievement. These latent

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potencies are not given to mock us. There are no
sealed orders wrapped within the brain without the accompanying ability
to execute them. When you once get a glimpse of
yourself as you were intended by your maker to be,
with all of your latent possibilities developed into realities, when
you once see yourself as the superb man, it is
possible for you to be nothing, and no one but

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yourself can prevent you from attaining your ambition. It is
only the man who has stopped growing that feels satisfied
with his achievements. The growing man feels a great lack
of wholeness, of completeness. Everything in him seems to be
unfinished because it is growing. The expanding man is always
dissatisfied with his accomplishment, is always reaching out for something larger, fuller, completer.

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Chapter three, The influence of environment. Environment has a great
deal to do with man's ambition and achievement. It may
make all the difference to you, my friend, between success
and mediocrity, whether you are in a favorable environment and
keep close to people who inspire and encourage you, who
communicate to you the enthusiasm of their example, or whether

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you are surrounded by discordant conditions and associate with people
who have an opposite effect upon you. We cannot associate
with a really ambitious person without catching his spirit to
a greater or less extent. Unconsciously reflect the people with
whom we mingle much. Their mark is left upon us.
We may not be able to see it ourselves, but

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other people can detect it. Our Indian schools sometimes publish
side by side photographs of the Indian youths as they
come from the reservation and as they look when they
are graduated, well dressed, intelligent, with the fire of ambition
in their eyes. We predict great things for them. But
the majority of those who go back to their tribes,

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after struggling awhile to keep up their new standard, gradually
drop back to their old manner of living. There are,
of course many notable exceptions, but these are unusually strong characters,
able to resist the downward dragging tendencies about them. If
you interview the great Army of failures, you will find
that multitudes in it have failed because they never got

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into a stimulating, encouraging environment, because their ambition was never aroused,
or because they were not strong enough to rally under depressing, discouraging,
or vicious surroundings. How often we see men and women
with splendid brain power, with robust physique, apparently superbly equipped
for great careers, and yet they are living very ordinary lives,

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plotting along, perhaps in mediocrity. This may be because they
have never been aroused and are totally ignorant of their powers.
They may never have looked into the mirror of others
who were succeeding along their lines and caught a glimpse
of their own possibilities. Whatever you do in life, make
any sacrifice necessary to keep in an ambition arousing atmosphere,

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an environment that will stimulate you to self development. Keep
close to people who understand you, who believe in you,
who will help you to discover yourself and encourage you
to make the most of your life. Choose companions and
friends who are in sympathy with your ambition, and who
will give you their moral support and make you do
what you are capable of doing. A few such friends

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may make all the difference to you between a grand
success and a mediocre existence. We are all diamonds in
the rough. Ourronment may grind one, two, or twenty facets.
Some people never come in contact with the wheel which
grinds a facet and lets in the light to reveal
the hidden wonders. Many are buried as rough diamonds, even

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though there may have been locked up in them great
brilliancy and enormous value. Comparatively, few human diamonds are ever
so completely ground that all the hidden treasures are revealed.
Yet how trifling are the things which sometimes reveal the man.
It may be the sight of a motto, the hearing
of a sermon a speech, the reading of some inspiring

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life history or some stirring ambition arousing book, the encouraging
conversation of a friend of someone who believes in us
and sees in us something which we never knew was there.
I know men who had apparently lost their ambition, who
have been literally down and out, but who, by the
reading of an inspiring book or listening to a stimulating sermon,
were thoroughly aroused to their possibilities, even in a most

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discouraging environment, and so completely transformed in a few months
that they did not seem like the same individuals. The
speeches of Wendell Phillips, Webster and Henry Clay started a
fire in many an ambitious youth which never went out,
but which became a beacon light in American history. We
all know that the old fashioned debating societies and clubs

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woke up the ambition of many a youth in the
early days of our country who might never have been
heard from outside of his own little community but for
the arousing influence of these debates. The ambition of the
boy who has lived on a farm in the back
country is often aroused for the first time when he
goes to the city. To him, the metropolis is a
colossal world's fair where everybody's achievement is on exhibition. The

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progressive spirit which pervades the city is like an electric
shock to him and arouses all of his latent energies,
calls out his reserves. Everything he sees seems to be
a summons to him to go forward, to push on.
He is constantly reminded by his city environment of what
others have done. He sees the tremendous engineering feats, great

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factores and offices, vast businesses, all huge advertisers of man's achievement,
and is stirred by an ambition to do something great himself.
Ambition is contagious. When a man meets others at the
restaurant or club or in other social ways, and here's
accounts of their great successes, greater achievement, he immediately says

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to himself, why can't I do it? Why don't I
do it? And if he is of any account, he
probably says, I will do it. Then he goes back
to his business with a new determination, perhaps with new
ideas and new conceptions of the possibilities of his own success.
I have known young business men in the country who
have not been specially successful, who got tremendous impetus to

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their ambition by visiting larger city concerns in the same
line of business. The greater successes touched their pride, and
they went back home and began to brace up and
build up. The same thing is true in professional life.
The young country doctor visits a city hospital, attends clinics,
seese operations by noted surgeons, and he goes home with

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his ambition fired and makes a vigorous resolution to try
harder to be somebody in his own profession. Men who
are in business in small towns where they have no
competition and where they very seldom come in contact with
those who are successful in their line of trade are
in constant danger of getting into a rut. Their ambition
unconsciously becomes dulled, the energy uses out of their efforts,

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and they take things easier, jog along in the same
old manner year after year, and before they realize it,
dry rot gets into their business. It is much easier
to keep up one's interest and enthusiasm to do things
worth while when we are right in touch with the ambitious,
with those who are forging ahead with all their might,
and who are perhaps working under great difficulties. One of

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the unfortunate things about small towns and country places is
the lack of stimulus to ambition. Many people living in
remote country districts do not come in contact with standards
by which they can measure and compare their own powers.
They live a quiet, uneventful life, and there is little
in their environment to arouse the faculties which are not
active in their vocation. If you are ambitious to get on,

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you will learn some splendid lessons from studying the qualities
of those who have succeeded along the line of your ambition.
You will find that it is a characteristic of the
winner that he is always thinking upon his life theme,
is always headed towards the goal of his ambition, always
planning along the line of his dreams. He talks the
things acts in the same direction. His whole life is

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absorbed in his theme. He radiates law, medicine, engineering, or manufacturing.
By keeping his mind in a positive creative condition. He
is constantly encouraging his mental magnet to attract the thing
he is studying. If he is studying law, he thinks law,
pictures himself pleading at court or giving advice in his office.

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He becomes a law magnet to attract law. I know
a man who says he will not take chances of
the demoralization and the deterioration which which would be worked
in his nature by associating with habitual failures. He will
have nothing to do with such people. He avoids doing
business with them, for he says, he finds that, no
matter how he may protest against it, he is unconsciously

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influenced by them. There is no denying that there is
much truth in this. We are unconsciously affected by the
atmosphere surrounding us. Like attracts like. Successful people attract successful people,
Failure attracts failure. Unlucky people attract unlucky people. Slovenly slipshot

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people attract others of the same sort. Birds of a
feather flock together. The failures get together, the successes come
together naturally. On every hand, we see young men who
started out with brilliant prospects when they left college. Their
friends predicted great things for them, but somehow or other,
the enthusiasm of their school or college days soon neused

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out tinual suggestion of possibility which came to them from
their school environment. The contagion from the ambitious spirit all
about them seemed then to multiply their prospects, to magnify
their ability, and to stir up their ambition until they
really thought they were going to amount to something in
the world, were going to accomplish something. But after they
got away from the battery charging institutions, they gradually lost

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their enthusiasm. Their ambition dwindled, their ideals changed with their environment.
Little by little, their dreams faded, and they resigned themselves
to mediocrity or hopeless failure. There is no environment so unfavorable,
so discouraging, no situation so disheartening that a youth who
is made of the right kind of material cannot change it. Lincoln,

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Benjamin Franklin, Fred Douglas, John Wannamaker, Marshall Field, and thousands
of other American boys found themselves in the midst of
the most disheartening environment, but made a new environment for themselves.
It is possible for you to do the same. The
great trouble with the most of us is that we
never get aroused, never discover ourselves, until late in life,

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often too late to make much out of the remnant
that is left. It is very important that we become
aroused to our possibilities when young. Thus we may overcome
the most unfavorable environment and get the greatest possible efficiency
out of our Lives, Chapter four, Unworthy Ambitions. There are
scores of people in our great cities who do not

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really live at all. They merely exist. They are the
slaves of a morbid ambition and agreed that has grown
to be a monster. Many of these people take very
little comfort. They are always on a strain to keep
up appearances, to maintain homes and portions of the city
where they can ill afford to live, to keep automobiles
when they can barely afford a bicycle, to wear clothing

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and jewelry which is beyond their means, and they keep
themselves constantly worried over it, killing their legitimate comfort and
enjoyment through the exhaustion of the strain and stress, and
all for nothing that is real or permanent, nothing that
adds to their character or well being. Such people have
a perfect mania for trying to make other people think
they are better off than they really are, that they

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amount to more than they really do, that they cut
a bigger figure in the world than is actually the case.
In other words, they make themselves pitiable slaves of other
people's eyes. They go through life not doing the things
they ought to do what is best for their welfare.
And growth. Their lives are superficial because they do not
live in or deal in realities. Everything about them is deceiving.

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They live masked lives. Few people know them as they
really are. They only know them as they pretend to be.
What do these people who are always chasing shadows get
out of life? Anyway? There is an ambition which reminds
one of a bird whose voracious appetite can never be satisfied.
It grows on what it feeds, and the more it eats,

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the more ravenous the appetite. Woebe it to him who
caters to a false ambition. He follows it blindly, expects
that it will give him peace when it is satisfied,
But alas it is never satisfied. It is like the
water in the Enchanted story. The more the victim drank
of it, the greater was his burning thirst. Such an

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ambition is fatal and will surely reckon who blindly pursues it.
It will ruin his health and will rob him of
all that is dearest and sweetest in life. There are
a great many people in this country who are committing
suicide upon many years of their lives by being slaves
of an inordinate ambition. One of the most pathetic phases
of our civilization is that men and women in poor health,

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devitalized from overwork, are goaded on way beyond their strength
by a fiendish ambition. Their pride and their vanity say
to them, now, it will not do to slow down.
We must keep up the pace with our neighbors. People
who do not keep up appearances in these days are nobodies.
We must keep owing, no matter how we feel. We

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must make more money, we must show more evidence of
our prosperity. We must put up a better front, or
missus Grundy will pass the suspicion along that we are,
after all, not much of a success, that we lack
the ability to do what people thought we were going
to do. No matter how we feel, we must keep up,
keep pushing, keep going, crowd on more steam, take stimulants

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and drugs if necessary, goad ourselves on. It is absolutely
imperative to keep pushing. Oh what fool's pride and vanity
make of us, especially when we are in no condition
to keep up the pace. When we owe it to
ourselves to slow down, when it is positively wicked to
crowd on more steam. How many people are driven into

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the grave by the lash of a mortgage on a farm,
on a home, or on their business, put there in
an attempt to satisfy some overvaunting ambition. Debt has made
more people miserable, ruin the peace of mind of more
human beings, the comfort and the happiness more homes than
almost anything else in the universe. It is a terrible
thing to so mortgage oneself to others, that we must

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make slaves of ourselves. How much better to live simply,
to struggle on in poverty until we can improve our position,
than to compromise ourselves with debt, sell ourselves to a
mortgage or a bill of goods. What an easy thing
it is to borrow money, to give a note, or
to give a mortgage. We believe at the time that
we can pay all right. But no one can be

(30:28):
certain that things will go all right with him. No
one knows what the times may bring forth. No one
knows whether his health and strength will be spared, or
how soon he may be physically or mentally disabled. The
only true measure of real success is the quality of
the ambition. If the animal figures too largely in your ambition,

(30:48):
if the quality is coarse, The success will be cheap,
no matter how great the quantity. It is an unfortunate
thing that so many of our youths should start out
in life with only one aim, and that is to
make money. This becomes the leading purpose in their lives
and warps their way of looking at things. Everything else
is seen in dwarfed proportions. They do not consider making

(31:11):
a life building character. They are bent only on making money.
This is the all absorbing topic everywhere. The goal we
hold in the mind is the model which shapes our lives,
and its character is reflected in everything we do. Think. Therefore,
what the influence must be of pointing all our faculties,
focusing all of our energies upon the money making goal.

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How it must warp and twist and wrench out of
their natural orbit, the more delicate sentiments, the finer faculties,
When everything in us looks money warped, and the gaze
is held persistently upon the dollar and what it will bring.
What must be the havoc, the tragedy, the fatal damage
in the affections, the friendships and the social faculties. When
the affections are chilled and the friendship strangled what is

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there left in a man but the monster brute qualities.
This is why a youth who starts out with noble aspirations,
with fine sensibilities and responsive affections, often becomes hardened in
his business career. His finer sensibilities and more delicate faculties
atrophy from disuse because he overdevelops the grasping, greedy, selfish

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faculties by the modern mania for the almighty dollar. The
transformation is so insidious that he does not half realize
it until he finds himself stooping to scheming and plotting
and underhand cunning, which would have shocked him a few
years earlier. When a man once gets in the power
of the selfish, greedy, grasping monster within him, which he
has fed and catered to so long that it has

(32:39):
become a giant, it is almost impossible to wrench himself away,
and he often becomes the slave of the very thing
he once despised and loathed. It is always a question
of what is uppermost in the ambition, the dominant aim
that shapes the life most. When a man has pursued
an aim for years which tends to dry up the
best within him, when he has used all of his life,

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forces all of his energies to feed that unworthy ambition,
until it has become a monster which controls him. He
is a pitiable creature. There is no more distressing sight
in the world than that of one who is completely
in the clutches of a heartless, grasping greed, spurred on
by the morbid ambition which has taken possession of him.
He is madly pursuing the dollar which haunts him, until

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he is deaf to all appeals of his finer self,
and has lost all taste for that which he once enjoyed.
Multitudes of people seem to think that if they were
only in an ideal environment where they would be free
from worry or anxiety regarding the living getting problem, if
they were free from pain and in vigorous health, they
would be perfectly happy. As a matter of fact, we

(33:43):
are not half so dependent for happiness upon our environment
or upon circumstances as we sometimes imagine we are. False ambition, envy,
and jealousy are responsible for much of our uneasiness, our restlessness,
and discontent. Our minds are so intent upon what other
people have and are doing, that we do not get
a tithe of the enjoyment and satisfaction out of our

(34:04):
own work, out of our own possessions, that they should
afford us. An inordinate ambition, a desire to get ahead
of others, a mania to keep up appearances at all hazards,
whether we can afford it or not. All these things
feed selfishness, that corrosive acid which eats away our possible
enjoyment and destroys the very sources of happiness. The devouring

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ambition to get ahead of others in money making, to
outshine others socially develops assorted grasping disposition, which is the
bane of happiness. No man with greed developed big within
him need expect to be happy. Neither contentment, satisfaction, serenity, affection,
nor any other member of the happiness family can exist

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in the presence of greed or an inordinate selfish ambition.
We have had some conspicuous examples of political aspirants who
have put their personal ambition above their duty to their
party and their country. Time and again, one or the
other the other of the great political parties has been
well nigh ruined by a man who could put his
own personal ambition against even his country's welfare. It is

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a dangerous thing to put personal ambition above duty anyway,
but especially so to a politician or statesman, who is
rendered doubly dangerous if he possesses great magnetic qualities. We
do not always know where the following of ambition's call
will lead us, but we do know this that by
being loyal to ambition and doing our best to follow
it in its normal, wholesome state, when not perverted by selfishness,

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by love of ease or self gratification, it will lead
to our best and highest welfare. That when we follow,
when we put ourselves in a position to give it
the best and the freest scope, it will lead us
to the highest self expression of which we are capable,
and will give us the greatest satisfaction. We know, too,
that when our ambition is perverted to base ends, our

(35:52):
lives go all awry. When we are false to the
higher voice within us, we are discontented, unhappy, inefficient, and
our lives are ineffective. When a man becomes so infatuated
with the mania for wealth, position, fame, or notoriety that
he focuses his whole soul, all his powers and energies
upon a false ideal upon a selfish, narrow goal, he

(36:14):
develops only a very small part of himself, and he
becomes very narrow. He lives most who lives truest, he
lives most who touches life in the largest number of
the largest and highest points. Don't start out in life
with a false standard. A truly great man makes official
position and money in houses and estates look so mean
and poor that we feel like sinking out of sight

(36:36):
with our cheap laurels and our ill earned gold. Chapter five.
Ambition knows no age limit. What has become of that
something which in your youth keyed your determination up to
such a lofty pitch. What has become of that something
in you which would not let you rest, which robbed
you of sleep, which constantly prodded you, bombarded you with

(36:56):
visions of the great and wonderful things you were going
to do in the future. One of the ear marks
of old age is the cooling down of the fires
of ambition, while they burn brightly, As long as you
feel just as eager and as determined as in your
younger days, to do your level best, to get up
and to get on in the world, to keep growing,
to keep improving, you are not aging very much. Your

(37:18):
years may dispute this, But as long as a man aspires,
as long as he is eager to grow, as long
as he yearns and struggles to better his best, he
is not old. When we are getting along in years,
there is always a great temptation to make ourselves believe
that we have a right to let up a bit,
and to take things easier, to get rid of as
much drudgery as possible. We have less and less inclination

(37:40):
for the strenuous struggle to attain that which characterized our youth.
The great danger at this time is that as we
let up a bit in our efforts, our ambition will decline.
All of our life standards drop. Many people are not
quite as painstaking, not quite as particular, when they get
along in years as in their younger days. It is
so much easier than to slide along easily, not to

(38:02):
trouble about one's dress and personal appearance, to hypnotize one's
self into thinking, well, it does not matter very much
now I am no longer young. One of the most
difficult things one is called upon to do as the
years pass is to keep his ambition from dying. His
ideals clear and clean cut, his interest in his work
from getting stale. The secret of keeping the ambition fresh

(38:24):
and bright is in keeping up the interest. The artist
who is in love with his work, no matter how old,
never loses his zest, his enthusiasm. He goes to his
canvass in old age with all the interest and eagerness
of his youth. Many men and women age through sheer laziness,
mental inertia, indifference. They are only half alive. They are

(38:47):
not willing to take the trouble to pay the price
for perpetual youth to keep their ambition from lagging. Some
people seem to think that the ambition to do a
certain thing in life is a permanent quality which will
remain with them. It is not. One of the first
symptoms of age and deterioration in one's work is the
gradual unconscious using out shrinkage of one's ambition. There is

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no one quality in our lives that requires more careful
watching and constant bracing up, jacking up, so to speak,
than our ambition, especially when we are advancing in years
and do not keep in an atmosphere which tends to
arouse one to life's possibilities without realizing it or meaning to.
We then easily become victims of the human inclination to

(39:31):
take things easy, not to exert one's self very much.
No matter how high our youthful ambition, it is very
easy to let it wane with the years, to allow
our standards to drop. The moment we cease to brace
ourselves up to watch ourselves, we begin to deteriorate, just
as a child does when his mother ceases to pay
strict attention to him and lets him have his own way.

(39:54):
The tendency of the majority at every age of existence
is to go along the line of least resistance, to
take the easiest way. The race instinct to climb is
continually at war with the lower nature, which would drag
it down. Even the noblest beings are not free from
the struggle of the higher with the lower, which goes
on ceaselessly throughout nature. It is the triumph over the

(40:15):
lower that keeps the race on the ascent. There is
no more pitiable sight in the world than that of
a person in whom ambition is dead, a man who
has repeatedly denied that inward voice which bids him up
and on a man in whom ambition's fires have gone
out from the lack of fuel. There is always hope
for a person, no matter how bad he may be,
as long as his ambition is alive. But when that

(40:38):
has disappeared, the great life spur, the impelling motive is gone.
It requires a great deal and a great variety of
food to keep the ambition vigorous. Unless it is well fortified,
it does not amount to anything. It must be backed
by a robust will, power, stern resolve, physical energy, and
great powers of endurance to be effective. The habit of

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watching the ambition constantly and keeping it alive is absolutely
imperative to those who would keep from deteriorating. Everything depends
on the ambition. If we lived and thought more scientifically,
there would not be such a dropping of standards, such
a dulling of ideals, and letting down in our efforts
with advancing years. Whatever our ambition may be, nothing else

(41:23):
can be quite so precious to most of us as life,
and we want that life at its best. Every normal
person dreads to see the mark of old age, the
symptoms of decrepitude, and wants to remain fresh, buoyant, robust
as long as possible. Yet most people do not take
sensible precautions to preserve their youth and vigor. They violate

(41:45):
the health laws, longevity laws, sap their vitality in foolish,
unnatural living, in deteriorating habits. I have a friend who
is always referring to his age. He has formed a
habit of constantly dwelling upon his declining years and keeping
the picture of decrepitude in his mind. You know, when
a man gets past sixty, he can't stand what he

(42:07):
once could. He will say. The idea that our energies
and forces must begin to decline and the fires of
ambition die out after a certain age is reached has
a most pernicious influence upon the mind. We do not
realize how impossible it is for us to go beyond
our self placed deadline limits to do what we really
believe we cannot do. No one is old until the

(42:29):
interest in life is gone out of him, until his
spirit becomes aged, until his heart becomes cold and unresponsive.
As long as he touches life at many points, he
cannot grow old in spirit. A man is old, no
matter what his years, when he is out of touch
with youth, with its ideals, its points of view, out
of touch with the spirit of his times when he

(42:49):
has ceased to be progressive and up to date, Many
of the grandest characters that ever lived have retained their
youthful mentality up to the very last of a long life.
There was no deay deterioration in the mind of Marshall Field,
when in his advanced years he never showed any inclination
to take less pains, any cooling of ambition, any inclination

(43:09):
to bank his fires, to drop his standards, to lower
his ideals. We know that Gladstone's mind was right in
its prime at eighty. Many a man signs his death
warrant when he retires from business. Retiring from business to
many means practically retiring from life, that is, from real living,
because they have nothing to retire to. They have not

(43:32):
prepared themselves for retirement to anything outside of routine business life.
They have lost most of their friends and their absorption
in business and their exclusive mode of living. They have
never developed their social faculties, their love of art, of music,
or of reading. The whole life has gone into one
business channel, and when out of this they are lost,

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life means little without a purpose. Once his life aim
is gone, man simply exists. He does not really live
a high ideal, a lofty purpose, a noble aim. Whatever
tends to make man look up and struggle up tends
to improve his health condition and prolong the life. The
soul that aspires, other things being equal, has the longest life.

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Aspiration is a perpetual tonic. It stimulates all the faculties.
Chapter six, Make your life count. Everywhere we see men
and women doing the lower, the commoner things, seemingly satisfied
to do them all their lives, when they have the
ability to do the higher. Many people do not start
out with ambition enough to spur them to do big things.

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They make a large career practically impossible at the very
outset because they expect so little of themselves. They have
a narrow, stingy view of life and of themselves, which
limits their ambition to a little ruddy, poverty stricken groove.
If I could give the American youth but one word
of advice, it would be that which might Angelo wrote

(45:00):
under a diminutive figure on a canvass in Rafael's studio,
when he called and found the great artist out Amplius,
meaning larger. Rafael needed no more. This word meant volumes
to him. I advise every youth to frame this motto,
hang it up in his room, in his store, in
his office, in the factory where he works, where it

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will stare him in the face. Constant contemplation of it
will make his life broader and deeper. A fine ambition
is a splendid life steadier. It holds us to our task,
keeps us from yielding to the hundred temptations that might
ruin us. What chaos there would be but for man's
ambition to get up and get on in the world,
and to improve his condition. Nothing so strengthens the mind

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and enlarges the horizon of manhood. As a constant effort
to measure up to a worthy ambition, it stretches the thought,
as it were, to a larger measure, and touches the
life to finer issues. I am determined to make my
life count set a poor young immigrant with whom I
was talking not long ago. Now there is a resolution
that is worth while because it is backed by a

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high ambition, the determined purpose to be a man, to
make his life one of service to humanity. This young
fellow works hard during the day, studying in a night school,
and improving himself in every possible way in his odds
and ends of time. This is the sort of dead
in earnestness that wins. This is the sort of material
that has made America distinctive among all the nations of

(46:30):
the earth. This is the sort of determination that gave
us a Lincoln, an Andrew Jackson, an Edison, a John Muir,
all our great men, native born or adopted sons. Could
any one have a nobler ambition than this to make
his life count? One cannot imagine its failure backed up
by dead in earnestness. The quality of the ambitions of

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a people at any time locates them in the scale
of civilization. The ideals of an individual or a nation
measure the actual condition and the future possibilities and probabilities.
The trouble with many youths is they start out with
no definite plan, no one, unwavering aim for success, no
worth while goal in view. They just look for a job.

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It may fit them or it may not, and they
plod along, doing their work indifferently, with no spirit or
ambition to push them towards the heights. It is astonishing
how many people there are who have no definite aim
or ambition, but just exist from one day to another
with no well defined life plan. Although the Great World
War has done much to bring our youth to a

(47:36):
realization of their responsibilities and raise their ideals to a
lofty height, we still see all about us on the
ocean of life, young men and women, aimlessly drifting without
rudder or port, throwing away time, without serious purpose or
method in anything they do. They simply drift with the tide.
If you ask one of them what he is going
to do, what his ambition is, he will tell you

(47:58):
he does not exactly know yet what he will do do.
He is simply waiting for a chance to take up something.
Between the great things that we cannot do and the
small things we will not do, the danger is that
we shall do nothing, says Adolph Mono. It is not
enough for success to have ability, education, health. Hundreds of
thousands have all these and still fail or live in

(48:20):
mediocrity because they do not put themselves in an attitude
or condition for achievement. Their ability is placed at a
disadvantage by the lack of a big motive, the stimulus
of a worthy ambition, the important things in life is
to have a great aim and to possess the aptitude
and perseverance to attain it, says Gerda. Of course, many

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people are hindered in the race through no fault of
their own. But the vast majority of those who cease
to climb and give up, often right in sight of
their goal, do so from some weakness or defect. Many
of them lack continuity of purpose or persistency. Others lack
courage or determination. Many of these unfortunates would attain to
at least something of real success by merely sticking to

(49:03):
their tasks. If the motive is big enough, the ability
to match it is usually forthcoming. There is not one
of you, my friends, who could not be more alert,
more original, more ingenious, more resourceful, more careful, more thorough
more level headed. Not one of you who could not
use a little better judgment, a little more forethought, a

(49:23):
little more discrimination, if you saw at tempting prize ahead
of you as a reward. Whatever may be your ambition,
play fair with yourself, quit the side issues, cut out
the diversions, live with and for your big ambition. Drop
all else to attain your end, and you will win,
you will be and you will have what you want.

(49:45):
Take a lesson in pruning and lop off the useless
branches which consume vitality and obscure the sunshine. That card
club that interferes with early rising, that light reading that
takes your mind off preparation for bigger things, and all
other wasteful habits. Have you cut them off? If you
have not, it is because you don't want the big

(50:05):
thing hard enough to deserve it, and you won't get
it unless you prune off the useless habits that are
diverting your energy and keeping you away from the main chance.
Success in life is a process of selection and elimination,
a choosing between the worthless and the worth while. To
get time for things that count, you must save time
by eliminating all else. Copy the athlete at the training table,

(50:28):
feed on that which builds you up and keeps you
fit for the struggle. Unless you are inspired by a
great purpose, a resolute determination to make your life count,
you will not make much of an impression upon the
world about you. The difference in the quantity and quality
of success is largely one of ambition and determination. If
you lack these, you must cultivate them vigorously, persistently, or

(50:50):
you will be a nobody. I have never known any
one to make a place for himself in the world
who did not keep his purpose alive by the constant
struggle to reach his goal. The moment ambition SAgs, we
lose the force that propels us, and once our propelling
power is gone, we drift with the tide of circumstances.
The youth who does not look up will look down,

(51:11):
and the spirit that does not soar is destined to grovel.
A young stenographer said to me once that if she
felt sure she had the ability to become an expert
literary stenographer, she would go to evening school and would
study nights and holidays and improve herself in every possible way.
But if she was convinced that she could never attain
very great speed, she would simply prepare herself for ordinary

(51:32):
letter dictation and let it go at that. She did
not seem to think that making the most possible of
what ability she had would give her a correspondingly good position,
or that the best possible training she could give herself
would be the best possible investments she could make, and
would give her infinite satisfaction. The less ability you have,
my young friend, the more important it is that you

(51:53):
make the most possible out of it. If you are
obliged to get your living and some of you to
support to family and make a home with one talent,
you certainly need to make the most possible out of it,
and to put forth much greater effort than if you
had been given ten talents. Chapter seven. Visualize yourself in
a better position. No matter in what business you may

(52:16):
be or what your profession, your prime ambition should be
to attain a high water mark in it. The love
of excellence is the load star that leads the world onward.
It is this that makes not only the successful business
or professional man, but also the all round successful person
in any line of endeavor. Andrew Carnegie said, I would
not give a fig for the young man in business

(52:37):
who does not already see himself a partner or the
head of the firm. Do not rest for a moment
in your thought of yourself as a head, clerk, foreman,
or manager in any concern, no matter how big it is,
Say each day to yourself, my place is higher up.
Be king in your dreams. Vow that you will reach
the position with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow

(53:01):
to distract your attention. I am frequently asked by youths
and young men whether I think they really have enough
in them to make much of a success in life,
anything that will be distinctive or worth while, And I answer, yes,
you have. I know you have the ability to succeed,
but I don't know that you will. That rests entirely
with you. If you have the energy and the will

(53:23):
to succeed, nothing can hold you back. But if you
have not, no amount of education, no pull or influence,
no power on earth outside of yourself can push or
lead or boost you into success. There is nothing so
important in your life as your mental attitude towards yourself,
what you think of yourself, the model which you hold
of yourself, and your possibilities. If this is small, narrow,

(53:47):
and dwarfed, your life will correspond. You must see yourself
above a clerkship, or you will never be anything higher
than a clerk. You must visualize yourself in a better
position and hold constantly a grin determination to reach it,
or you will never get there. Never for a moment
blur your motive or weaken your determination by harboring a
doubt of your ability to reach your goal. Whenever you

(54:10):
do this, you are neutralizing just so much of the
force which would take you there. Remember, there is a
partnership waiting for you somewhere if you are big enough
and determined enough and have pluck enough to take it.
If you do not, there is probably someone very near
you who will do so, someone who perhaps has not
had nearly as good an opportunity as you have had,
and in the years to come, if you do not

(54:32):
take advantage of this opportunity to climb, you will no
doubt grumble at your ill luck and wonder how Billy
or Johnny or Joe, who worked alongside of you managed
to get the partnership or coveted position. A recent writer says,
my advice to all those just starting to travel life's
turnpike is don't start until you have your ideal, then

(54:52):
don't stop until you get it. Very few of us
realize how dependent our growth is on some special stimulus.
Every act must have a motive. We do nothing outside
of our automatic, habitual acts without an underlying motive. Perhaps
the stronger life motive of the average man is that
which comes from his desire to get up in the world.

(55:14):
Lincoln studying by the firelight. There was a force behind
Lincoln which drove him from a log cabin up to
the White House. There was a vision of the North
Pole which haunted Pyrie, filled him with ambition to climb
to the Earth's uttermost boundary, and finally drove him after
repeated failures to the pole. The same indomitable inner force

(55:34):
urged the despised young Jew Benjamin Disraeli to push his
way up through the lower classes in England, up through
the middle classes, up through the upper classes, until he
stood a master self poised upon the topmost round of
political and social power, the prime Minister of the greatest
country in the world. The story of those men is
the same at bottom as that of every man who

(55:56):
has attained greatness. They were continually urged forward and upward
by some inward prompting They could not resist. This instinctive
impulse to keep pushing on and up is the most
curious and the most interesting thing in human life. It
exists in every normal human being, and is just as
pronounced and as real as the instinct of self preservation.

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Upon this climbing instinct rests the destiny of the race.
Without it, men would still be savages and living in
caves and huts. Civilization as we know it would not exist.
There would be no great cities, no great factories, no railroads,
no steamships, no beautiful homes or parks, pictures, sculpture, or books.

(56:40):
But for this mysterious urge, which we call ambition. The
best of every man's work is above and beyond himself,
and is accomplished in the struggle to attain a lofty ideal.
The artist stands aside and points through his work to
a glimpse of the universal art. In his inspired moments,
the individuality of the order is melted and used into

(57:00):
the all pervating fire of eloquence in art or business,
in science, or the daily commonplace tasks of life. The
gods will move along toward the line of absolute excellence,
or they will leave us to our own devices. We
do our most effective work in our struggle to get
what we are after. To arrive at the goal of
our ambition. We put forth our greatest effort, our most

(57:22):
strenuous endeavor, while we are climbing, not after we have
arrived at our goal. This is one reason why rich
men's sons rarely achieve any great personal success. They lack
the climbing motive of necessity that tremendous urge the prodding
of ambition, which drives us on to achieve what we
desire and are capable of attaining. Ambition is the leader

(57:44):
of all great achievement. It is the forerunner which goes
ahead and clears away for the other faculties. The ambition
is not always a safe guide. However, there are two
wings to genius. Common sense and good judgment must acomepy
the ambition or it will very often run away with
a man. We have seen splendid pieces of machinery whose

(58:06):
iron fingers would punch holes through solid steel plates without
a single jar. The machinery accomplishes this wonderful feat because
of a huge balance wheel. It is the stored up power, velocity,
and momentum which enable it to accomplish this wonderful task.
Take away the balance wheel, and the machinery, which does
its work as easily as a cook would make. The

(58:28):
holes in rolled out pastry, falls all to pieces the
moment the balance wheel is removed. The balance wheel is
the secret. The judgment is man's balance wheel great common
sense or sense, his ambition will run away with him
if he does not have this. The young man who
overestimates his ability, who plunges beyond his death, who is

(58:50):
over confident, whose self trust is not based upon an
accurate knowledge of his ability and limitations, almost always comes
to grief. It is just as necessar to know what
you are not qualified for and to let it alone,
as to know what you can do and do it.
Study yourself, says Longfellow. And most of all, note well

(59:10):
wherein kind nature meant you to excel. It takes a
giant to do a giant's work. What a Morgan or
a Carnegie would do with perfect ease and safety might
be as impossible for you to accomplish as to lift
yourself by your own bootstraps. On the other hand, you
may be able to do something which even a Morgan
could not do. Study your own adaptations, try to get

(59:34):
a measure of your possibilities. A man should early take
an inventory of his ability and locate himself where he belongs.
If he has but one talent, he should not try
to train with the ten talent man. He should simply
try to make the most of his one talent. It
is impossible to make one talent do the work of
ten talents, no matter how ambitious or how much energy

(59:57):
one may fling into his work. A great eight brain
does a great thing easily. We all do our best
work without overstraining. It is dangerous to overtax one's faculties.
I have seen a college student who has overstrained his
brain until he has seriously marred his mental power in
the foolish effort to try to head his class when
he was not a natural scholar. He seemed to think

(01:00:20):
that by making a superhuman effort, studying all the time
when others were at play during holidays and sundays, always plugging, plugging, plugging,
he could overcome any handicap. While he managed to come
pretty near leading his class, he never completely rallied from
the effects of overstraining his brain. It is a great
thing to be able to measure our talents, to understand

(01:00:41):
ourselves so thoroughly that we will undertake just so much
as we are able to accomplish, and will not aim
at the unattainable Chapter eight forwarded ambition. All about us,
we see people who seem to have no special zest
in life, no great enthusiasm for anything. There is a
great discas appointment somewhere in their lives. Why are they

(01:01:03):
so unhappy? No one loses his interest in life or
becomes indifferent to his work unless he has been thwarted
in the carrying out of his ambition, or for some
other reason, has been unable to find his right place
in life. Wherever we see discontent, unhappiness, unrest, we may
be sure that the person exhibiting these conditions is a
round peg in a square hole, or has not been

(01:01:24):
able to realize his dreams for some reason. His heart
has been cheated of its ideal. A thwarted ambition seems
to wrench the whole nature out of its normal orbit.
There is no suffering except remorse so fatal as that
which comes from the consciousness of blasted hope stifled aspiration.
To be conscious that one possesses decided ability for some

(01:01:47):
particular calling, and to be compelled by circumstances year after
year to be chained to drudgery which the heart loaths,
requires supreme courage. To feel that there is no probability
or even possibility of ever being able to express that
great hungry, longing, pent up in the heart, feeling it
almost to bursting, to drag through the weary years trying

(01:02:07):
to be cheerful and hopeful and helpful to those one loves,
and yet to feel that his devotion to them has
made the other thing impossible to him. To suffer in silence. Disappointment,
which makes the heart sick is the greatest test of
real manhood or womanhood. It is very easy to criticize
other people who have not risen in the world as
perhaps we have, but they may be heroes compared with us.

(01:02:29):
We can never tell what tragedies may be going on
in their hearts, or from what tortures of disappointed ambition
and blasted hopes they may be suffering. To be compelled
to go through life without any possibility of satisfying the
great soul hunger of realizing the infinite longings of the
heart is torture. There is no compensation for this, except
from the sense of duty done to others who would

(01:02:51):
have suffered had we tried to realize our ambition. I
know a beautiful woman of charming personality who has a
great musical talent a superb voice, and yet she scarcely
dares mention the subject of music in the presence of
her husband, who flies into a passion at the mere
suggestion of her developing her wonderful talent. All of her
friends think it is criminal of her not to use

(01:03:13):
her great gift, but she feels forced to smother her ambition.
Her husband, although well able to meet the expense, will
not consider her taking lessons or making any effort to
improve this God given talent. The result, as a blight
is setting on this woman's life. She tries to be
cheerful and to do her duty, but those who understand
her can see the slow strangulation processes going on which

(01:03:36):
is undermining her ambition and destroying her health. I recently
heard through a piano dealer of another woman of great
musical talent, who, with money bequeathed to her, purchased a
beautiful long for piano. Her husband made life so unbearable
to her because of it that she returned it to
the makers, who, appreciating her position, generously returned to her

(01:03:56):
the money paid them for it. Is there anything more
cruel than to strangle a talent which was intended to
be a perpetual joy as well as to give us success?
Is there anything more wicked than to murder a divine ambition,
to destroy sacred aspirations, anything more cruel than to make
a human being miserable who is intended to be happy,
to rob one of all possibility of doing that which

(01:04:17):
she was made to do. Yet there are thousands of
husbands who are doing this, and they wonder why their
wives are not always buoyant and bubbling over with vivacity
in life, why they are not always cheerful, hopeful, and resourceful.
Many husbands do not mean to be selfish in their
home life, and really believe they are generous, but their
minds are so focused upon themselves and their ambition that

(01:04:40):
they can only think of a wife in reference to themselves.
Whereas the highest love has the highest welfare of the
individual at heart, not its own, ambition often blinds one
to justice. There is nothing more pitiable than to see
a man the victim of an inordinate selfish ambition to
advance himself at all costs, to gain fame or notoriety

(01:05:01):
or pleasure, no matter who is sacrificed in the process.
Many women have a marvelous way of hiding their griefs,
covering up their disappointment but such disappointment may mar the
whole life. There is something so utterly discouraging, disheartening in
being forced to give up the careers they long for
that the nature never entirely rallies from the shock. Everywhere

(01:05:24):
we see these burned out shells of individuals who have
been robbed of their normal pursuit. They are ambitionless, restless,
ineffective weaklings, mere pigmies of their possible selves. Ella Wheeler
Wilcox gives some wise advice that the dissatisfied and unhappy
man or woman whose ambition has been thwarted, may he
to advantage. Do not waste your vitality in hating your life.

(01:05:47):
Find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying,
while you keep steadily at work to make it what
you desire. She says, be happy over something every day,
for the brain is a thing of habit, and you
cannot teach it to be happy in a mone moment
if you allow it to be miserable for years. There
is a powerful tonic in holding the conviction that you
are in the world for a purpose, that you are

(01:06:08):
here to help, that you have a part to perform
which no one else can take. For you, because every
one else has his own part to fill in the
great life drama. If you do not act your role,
there will be something lacking, a want in the production.
No one ever amounts to much until he feels this
pressure that he was made to accomplish a certain thing
in the world, to fill a definite part. Then life

(01:06:31):
seems to take on a new meaning. Few of us,
says Sir John Lubbock, realize the wonderful privileges of living,
the blessings we inherit, the glories and beauties of the universe,
which are our own if we choose to have it so,
the extent to which we can make ourselves what we
wish to be, or the power we possess of securing peace,
of triumphing over pain and sorrow. We go through life

(01:06:53):
with our eyes steadily fixed on some distant goal, straining
every nerve to reach it. We pass on our way
up opportunities innumerable of helping others over rough places, of
brightening and beautifying the commonplace life of every day, but
we see them not. Man was made for growth, to
realize peace, poise, satisfaction, an ambition to be a man,

(01:07:16):
to stand for more in the community, to push our
horizon farther and farther away from us, to think a
little higher each day, to think a little more of ourselves,
to have a little more faith in ourselves and in
everybody else. An ambition to be of real use in
the world is an ambition worthy of the man God created,
and cannot but bring happiness to the individual in the

(01:07:37):
white light of history. Before the tribunal of justice, we
shall not be judged for what we seem to be
or have achieved, but for what we are and by
what we have tried to do. In the judgment of
this tribunal, from which there is no appeal, many failures
will be approved as successes, and many successes will be
adjudged failures. It will be easy to find the story

(01:07:58):
of some boy who remained on the farm and health
helped pay the mortgage, stifled his ambition in order that
the favorite brother might be sent to college, and thereby
scored a much greater success than the one for whom
the sacrifice was made. The girl who smothered her longings
for a higher education, or sacrificed the prospects of marriage
and a home of her own in order to take
care of her aged parents and was not known outside

(01:08:20):
of her little coterie of friends, may have her name
recorded far higher on the honor role than that of
the sister who went to college or became a great author, musician, artist,
or actress. In imperishable characters, there will be inscribed on
the success role of honor names unfamiliar to most of us.
The names of those who nobly performed humble parts in life,
The unknown workers for humanity, the heroic sufferers, some blind,

(01:08:44):
some crippled or handicapped by the loss of hands or feet,
or tortured by incurable diseases, who, with a fortitude equal
to that of the martyrs of old, took up life's
burdens and bravely made the most of the powers and
opportunities bestowed upon them by the almighty. Chapter nine, Why
don't you begin? When do you expect to do the

(01:09:05):
wonderful things you have been dreaming about? Why don't you begin?
What are you waiting for? Why don't you start? Are
you waiting for a good thing to come to you?
Waiting for influence, for pull, for someone to help you?
Do you know that nothing is more demoralizing to the life,
weakening to the character than to be constantly wishing and

(01:09:27):
dreaming of the great things we are going to do
without a corresponding effort to actualize our dreams. Wishing without
a corresponding effort to realize degenerates the mind, destroys initiative.
How many people deceive themselves into thinking that if they
keep aspiring, if they keep longing to carry out their
ideals to reach their ambition, they will, without any other effort,

(01:09:48):
actually realize their dreams. They do not seem to know
that there is such a thing as aspiring too much
as forming the dreaming habit to one's injury. Our visions
are the plans of the possible life structure. But they
will end merely in plans if we do not persistently
follow them up with a vigorous effort to make them real,
just as the architect's plans will end in his drawings

(01:10:08):
if they are not followed up and made real by
the builder. Three things we must do to make our
dreams come true. Visualize our desire, Concentrate on our vision,
work to bring it into the actual. The implements necessary
for this are inside of us, not outside. No matter
what the accidents of birth or fortune, there is only

(01:10:31):
one force by which we can fashion our life material mind.
All men who have achieved great things have been dreamers,
and what they have accomplished has been just in proportion
to the vividness, the energy, and persistency with which they
visualize their ideals, held to their dreams, and struggle to
make them come true. The crying evil of the young
man who enters the business world today is the lack

(01:10:53):
of application, preparation, thoroughness with ambition, but without the willingness
to struggle to gain his desired end. As Theodore and Veil,
it is one thing to have the ability and the
desire to do something distinctive, something individual, but doing it
is a very different thing. There is a tremendous amount
of unproductive ability in the great failure army to day.

(01:11:15):
Why didn't the men who have it make something of themselves?
Many of those men could be prosperous, successful men of
standing in their community instead of mendicants in a bread line.
They had the opportunity to make good. Why didn't they?
It is a good thing to ask ourselves every now
and then whether we are making good, whether we are

(01:11:35):
making the most of our opportunities, whether we are going
up or down. Oliver Wendelholmes says, it does not matter
so much where we stand as the direction in which
we are moving. In what direction are you moving? There
are thousands of people in this country to day who
have splendid ambitions, who have made resolutions to carry out
those ambitions, but who are cowering victims of doubt which

(01:11:57):
keeps them from making a start. They are just waiting.
They are unable to make a beginning while this monster
stands at the door of their resolution. They are afraid
to burn their bridges behind them, to commit themselves to
their purpose. At the very outset of your career, it
is a splendid thing to make up your mind that
you are going to be a conqueror in life, that

(01:12:18):
you are going to be the king of your mental
realm and not a slave to any treacherous enemy. That
you will choose the wisest course, and no matter how
forbidding or formidable, the difficulties in the way, that you
will take the turning which points toward the goal of
your ambition, no matter who or what may bar your
onward path. Don't let doubt balk your efforts. Don't let
it paralyze your beginning and make you a pigmy, so

(01:12:40):
that you will not have try to make good when
you have a waiting giant in you. Confidence, self assurance,
self faith. These are the great friends which will kill
the traitor doubt. The fact that you have an almost
uncontrollable impulse, a great absorbing ambition to do a thing
which meets with the approval of your judgment and your
better self, is a notice served upon you that you

(01:13:01):
can do the thing, and should do it at once.
Do not be afraid of taking responsibilities. Make up your
mind that you will assume any responsibility which comes to
you along the line of your legitimate career, and that
you will bear it a little better than anybody else
ever before has. There is no greater mistake in the
world than that of postponing present responsibility, thinking that we

(01:13:22):
will be better prepared to assume it later. It is
accepting these positions as they come to us that gives
us the preparation. For we can do nothing of importance
easily effectively until we have done it so many times
that it becomes a habit. How often we hear people
make remarks like this, I know that I ought to
do this thing today, but I do not believe I will,

(01:13:42):
or I do not feel like it. So they perhaps
procrastinate or let the thing slide along, and do just
the opposite to what they know they ought to do.
If those who are disappointed with what they have so
far accomplished, would only make up their minds that for
one month they would force themselves to do the things
they dislike but which they know would be for their good,

(01:14:03):
they would get a new start on the success road,
a grip on themselves and their possibilities. Their whole work
system would feel the resultant tonic on the very resolution
to do the thing which is best for you, no
matter how disagreeable, no matter how humiliating, no matter how
much you may suffer from sensitiveness or a feeling of unpreparedness,
depends the development of your manhood or womanhood. Why be

(01:14:27):
afraid to demand great things of yourself? Affirm your ability
to do and be in powers which you never dreamed
you possessed will leap to your assistance. Trust thyself. Every
heart vibrates to that iron string. There is no one
that can shut the door which leads to any legitimate
ambition to a larger fuller life but yourself. There are

(01:14:50):
no obstacles, no difficulties, no power on earth, nothing but
yourself that can make God's promise to man void. Behold,
I have set before you an open door which no
no man can shut. We are all reservoirs of power,
and what we make of ourselves, what we achieve in life,
is not dependent on the outward things, but on the
extent to which we draw on our hidden forces, our

(01:15:12):
latent talents and resources. Whatever comes to us in life
we create first in our mentality. As the building is
a reality in all its details in the architect's mind
before a stone or brick is laid, so we create
mentally everything which later becomes a reality in our achievement.
Our heart, longings, our soul aspirations are something more than

(01:15:33):
mere vaporings of imagination. They are prophecies, predictions, couriers, forerunners
of things that can become realities. Hold the picture the
plan of the man or woman you long to be
and that you are resolved to be, and stick to
your mental plan of a glorious future. Do not give
up in your discouraged moments or allow any obstacle to

(01:15:54):
blur your ideals. Persist in visualizing the ideal man you
are determined to be, and always think of yourself as
you are ambitious to become. This mental attitude will help
you to match your dream with its reality. There is
a magnetic attractive power in such a mighty purpose, in
clinging to one unwavering aim. This sort of mental attitude

(01:16:16):
and effort will establish your relation between yourself and the
thing you are seeking. The end

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AMBITION AND SUCCESS: How to Master Your Destiny, Purpose, and Achievement - Orison Swett Marden (1919)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}AMBITION AND SUCCESS: How to Master Your Destiny, Purpose, and Achievement - Orison Swett Marden (1919)