The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran
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stick Together.
Win
The very first commandment in the decalogue of Winning is to —
Keep your Chin up!
Get busy at the first job that you run into or that runs into you. Tackle it “on all fours,” if necessary. Center your whole enthusiasm in it. Study its every detail. Drive your very Heart interest into it. But don’t forget to —
Keep your Chin up.
People who look down never get much of an idea of the sky where the Stars are set. And the fellow who doesn’t hitch at least one or two of his wagons to a Star never gets very high up. Get your eyes off the ground. Look ahead.
Keep your Chin up.
For, after all, Winning is a thing within — then out. No other man will or can Win for you. No other man in all the world, no matter how exalted, has the ability and power that is concentrated in you, waiting for some match of Action to touch it off. Also, your Success can be as the Success of no other man. But you alone must find the Thing and DO the Work. It’s great fun, too, if you —
Keep your Chin up.
It is easier to Win than to Fail. Everybody sides with the Winner. But the Failure walks alone.
Keep your Chin up.
Remembering that to Win is to do your work well — to-day. The thing delayed or put off is the thing undone. Start right now. Straighten your shoulders. Set your eyes ahead. Clench your fist — close your jaw, and —
Keep your Chin up.
And you will WIN!
Time
The reason I beat the Austrians is, they didn’t know the value, of five minutes.
Napoleon
.
Learn to use your Time.
For if you don’t it passes on, never to return — coldly mindless of your sorrow and your regret.
As steadily, silently and smoothly as does this aged Earth move in its path, so does Time move on. It never stops to tie its shoestrings. It never waits.
Time is Effort, harnessed and worked to a full day’s portion.
Time has no Business, boasts no monied Millions, hires no fast-legged Errand Boys, houses no Clerks, thinks no Problems, rules no States. Time IS Business, Money, the Errand Boy, the Clerk, the Problem, the State!
Time is but the man in the job put to action and to work.
And Time used to profit To-day will accumulate Power for you To-morrow just as sure as Time goes on. Meditate not on Trifles. Attempt big things. Remembering that —
This day will never dawn again!
And yet, mighty as Time is, priceless in comparison to all else in the world, Time is the freest thing in existence. Perhaps that is why so many fail to grasp it with earnestness and with enthusiasm? Perhaps that is why so few realize its presence and let it pass on?
Think! No matter what your work to-day, if it is worthwhile at all — Time to plan it out, Time to do it well, and Time to finish it, is your day’s greatest gift and your greatest job.
Learn to use your Time.
Success
In Success, defeat is but an incident. Obstacles, stumbling blocks, disappointment in ideals — these things weave into and form the Raiment to Success. For Success is a series of failures — put to flight.
Learn to walk past Failure.
A few years ago a young man stood behind a New England counter as a Clerk. Quiet, honest, faithful, yet a Failure in the eyes of his Employer, who one day drew aside the father of the boy and advised that the son be taken back to the farm for he never would become a Merchant. To-day if you will but walk down State Street, Chicago, you will behold this young man’s monument — a tribute to the failures, disappointments and iron persistence of Marshall Field, who died the greatest Merchant in the World.
Learn to walk past Failure.
But Success isn’t measured in tangible assets. Lincoln left next to nothing in money standards. His Success, though, is the marvel and inspiration of the Ages. Learn to walk past Failure.
Success is largely a matter of personal Viewpoint. It is impossible for you to fail permanently if you determine to Succeed. Let each new day of your life then, take invoice of its own self. Let it chalk up the Failures with the Successes — let it mark plainly the Record. But inside of your own consciousness let nothing take from the image of your mind, the Knowledge that real Success consists wholly in sacrificing temporarily in repeated failures that you may win permanently in worthwhile Deeds done.
Learn to walk past Failure.
Dare
Immortality is but a simple matter of Decision — a Decision to Dare.
Initiate — Dare.
All the world loves the man who isn’t afraid to Dare — a man willing to start something without first waiting a week to figure out the cost. It always takes Courage — sometimes courage mixed with “blood and iron.” But the man ready to Dare is the creator of great Events.
Initiate — Dare.
Better make mistakes — better blunder along making some healthy headway, than to fear Failure or grow timid and vacillating and flabby in the legs. Become a man of Daring and Doing and the Powers that are so latent in every human will rise to aid you and push you on.
Initiate — Dare.
You will never be Anything, unless you Dare Something.
Initiate — Dare.
Dare to attempt new things. Dare to try out new Jobs. Dare to go ahead, kicking aside Precedent if necessary, and you will have no time to shovel out of your pain wrecked Hopes and dead Dreams. Dare to be a better man at your present task than the man who went before you. Dare to be a bigger man than the man above you. Be. But, if you are, you will first have to —
Initiate — Dare.
Backbone
There are two kinds of Backbones — the one with the Back and no Bone and the one with both Back and Bone! Backbone! what great things have been put across in your name!
Stiffen your Backbone.
It is a great thing to have a big Brain, a fertile Imagination, grand Ideals, but the man with these, bereft of a good Backbone is sure to serve no useful end.
Stiffen your Backbone.
There is a little vine that starts at the base of great trees. Then it climbs and twines about until it squeezes and saps away unto death the tree around which it clings. It has not a Backbone — no vital individual strength of its own, so it seeks out to tear down and kill where there is strength, power and life. That is what Backbone-less people do.
Stiffen your Backbone.
Use it to stand alone with. Use it to bolster up your own individual resources. Use it to strengthen weaker Backbones than your own. Use it for the working out of your entire Character. Then Deeds Done, will gather about you in Battalions, and Opportunity will stand around anxious to introduce you to her friends.
Stiffen your Backbone.
Use your Backbone at your job to-day — you who clerk, you whose fingers pound the type keys, you whose brains formulate plans, distribute details and master problems. For