So you want to be successful in life? Every normal person does. But what is success? Using your own definition, what would it take for you to be successful in life?
The truth is: If you believe you will succeed you will; if you do not believe you will succeed, you won’t! What your mind can conceive, you can achieve. It also helps to know that God wants you to succeed.
You cannot stumble into success any more than you can stumble into the gates of heaven. Success is not a destination – it is a lifelong journey. You will never have what you are not willing to pursue. Success always comes as a conquest – not as a bequest. The ingredients that lead to any desired goal are planning, preparation, persistence, and sometimes also pain.
Multitudes of people in our world define success as having lots of money. If you are among those who believe that, you need to consider these facts:
- Money can buy you a multi-million dollar house, but it cannot buy you a home filled with love, or earn for you the respect of your family members.
- Money can buy you the services of the finest physicians and hospitals in the land, but it cannot buy you the God-given gift of health.
- Money can buy you an almost endless amount of material things, but it cannot buy you a single minute of rest or inner peace.
- Money will attract legions of people to you, but it cannot buy you a true friend.
- Money has the power to buy enough books to fill a huge library, but it cannot give you the desire to read them and profit from the knowledge they contain.
- Money can buy a crucifix to wear around your neck, or perhaps a pew in your church, but it cannot buy you a ticket to heaven.
- The person who has no money is considered poor; the person who has nothing but money is poorer still.
In 1923 a group of the world’s most successful financiers met at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Collectively, they controlled more wealth than was in the United States Treasury at that time. By the world’s standard they were considered very successful, but there is more to the story.
Twenty-seven years later this is what had happened to seven of them:
- Jesse Livermore, the greatest bear on Wall Street, committed suicide.
- Leon Fraser, the president of the Bank of International Settlement, committed suicide.
- Ivar Kruegar, the head of the world’s greatest monopoly, committed suicide.
- Charles Schwab, the president of the largest independent steel company, lived on borrowed money the last five years of his life and died penniless.
- Arthur Cutten, the greatest wheat speculator, died abroad insolvent.
- Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, had just been released after having served time in Sing Sing Prison.
- Albert Fall, a member of a president’s cabinet, was pardoned from prison so he could die at home.
The Paper Pulpit 
Leave a Reply