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ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS IN BUSINESS
In order to succeed in business life, it is necessary to cultivate and
develop certain qualities and traits of character. These are a portion
of the capital of the successful man, and a more essential portion
than money or goods.
HONESTY.
"Sharp practice" may bring a temporary gain but in the long run of life
that man will be far ahead who deals squarely and honestly at all times.
A thoroughly honest clerk will command a higher salary than one of
equivocal habits, while the merchant who has a reputation for honesty
and truthfulness in regard to the quality and value of his goods, will
on this account he favored with a considerable custom. The business man
whose "word is as good as his bond" can in any emergency, control large
amounts of capital, the use of which brings him a rich return, while the
man who sells his neighbor's good opinion for a temporary gain, will
find that he has discounted his future success, but taking an advantage
at the cost of ten tines its value.
INDUSTRY.
No other quality can take the place of this, and no talents of mind,
however excellent, will bring success without labor; persistent
systematic labor. The young man who expects to find some royal road
to success with little or no effort, or who imagines that his mental
abilities will compensate for a lack of application, cheats and ruins
himself. Horace Greeley probably never said a grander thing than this:
"The saddest hour in any man's career is that wherein he, for the
first time, fancies there is an easier was of gaining a dollar than
by squarely earning it.
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