Defining success

Success is liberty to command, coupled with a clear conscience and loving heart. William Gladstone was a success. Abraham Lincoln was another.

Few men attain so complete a success as theirs. Liberty to command must not be overworked, lest it cease to be liberty and become the drudgery of taking care of things.

A successful man is not necessarily a rich man, but he is a man who can command all he desires. Among money kings it is said J Pierpont Morgan is not rated a very rich man. But he commands more money than any other man in the world. It is said men confide in him because of his fine business sense, gained by using his own judgment; and because “he does exactly what he agrees to.”

He never asks advice and he keeps his mouth shut unless he has something special to say. Then he says it, in the simplest and fewest words possible. This is concentration, the mode of success.

Money is not success, success includes the power to command money. Success includes the liberty to command money enough to gratify all one’s aspirations to better his own condition, and the condition of those dependent upon him. This does not mean that success includes money enough to enable one to outshine his neighbour. No man with that aim in life was ever successful, or ever will be.

Not to out-shine, but to shine upon his neighbours, is the successful man’s mission.
Success germinates, sprouts and grows. It grows first underground. In due time it appears and keeps on unfolding.

It is just as easy to grow success as to grow potatoes. Yes, it is easier; for success will grow out of potatoes, and it will grow where potatoes won’t. There is not a spot on earth, or in heaven, or hell that will not serve to sprout success in — not one. Success may outgrow a place and need transplanting; but it will sprout anywhere.

From How to Grow Success by Elizabeth Towne