“People who amount to anything don’t wait for certainties before they act. The man who uses the best judgment he can and then forges ahead is the man who will ultimately succeed.”–Anon.

ANY ONE who is looking for a formula which all can follow to reach success for?gets that the most powerful force in the world is nature. Each man must find the way nature has built him to go–and then go ahead. A mole travels one road, according to the way nature intended him; and a squirrel travels another. They cannot follow the same path to get ahead. But the mole is not a failure because he cannot climb a tree, nor does the squirrel sit down and mope because he cannot travel under?ground. You cannot make a ship sail on dry land to any port; and it is equally foolish to try to make one person reach money and prosperity by the same road which another travels with ease.

There are different species among the human race as among animals. But man does not always follow his instincts, and the animal does–that is why so many men are failures; some try to climb a tree when nature built them to ‘’ get there'’ under the earth.

Nobody is born to be a failure. It is only when he refuses to see his way; the way which always lies right at his hand; when he ignores his way and thinks the other fellow’s way is better, then he dwindles into a failure.

There is the case of a famous Senator from Michigan. He began business selling popcorn, with newspapers as a side line. Then he became an office boy in a law office, and while he was sitting by the door ready to answer questions to callers, he was studying law. At twenty-four he was admitted to the bar. That was his way, and he found it. He did not wait for “an easy job” but took hold of the first thing at hand; then the way opened before him as he went along.

A good many years ago there was a ten-year-old boy running errands at a small railroad station in Illinois. His spare time was spent studying the telegraph key, and when he was thirteen he was given a job as a regular telegraph operator. At the age of thirty-eight he was President of a rail?road. He died the other day, President of the Canadian Pacific
Railroad, owning an art collec?tion worth $2,000,000, knighted, and regarded as one of the greatest railroad Presidents in the world. He did not wait for an “opportunity.” He began, like the mole, right where he was and burrowed his way ahead.

The main thing is to start–no matter what at, but start at something. The best schooling in the world is dealing with people. The youth who is selling egg-beaters from door to door is worth forty young fellows who are “waiting for an open?ing.” The boy who is sweeping out the drug store before school in the mornings is learning business; learning the use and value of money; and learning that money is needed in every occupation. He learns that anybody can have money. It is a simple case of keeping what you get instead of passing it along to somebody else’s pocket.

Money is the grease which makes the engine travel easily and swiftly instead of laboriously with shrieks and groans.

The son of James J. Hill began as a brakeman on the Great Northern Railroad and did his work so well that he arose to the post of chief engineer. When he was promoted to this office, it was dis?covered to the astonishment of his “bosses” that he was the son of the richest railroad man in the Northwest.

Cornelius Vanderbilt went to work as a fireman and stuck to the job for two years. Afterward he invented a fire-box which is now in use on large engines. He worked harder than most of the men who were his companions of the coal shovel, and was always proud of “making good” as a first-class and thrifty fireman.

“In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile, to the indus?trious, brave, and persevering.”–Emerson.

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Tags: The Secret of Wealth