A Success Secret – Sunday, May 24, 1981
There’s an old Babylonian proverb that says, “If a man be lucky, (you can) pitch him into the Euphrates and like as not he will swim out with a pearl in his hand.”1 Some modem writers have also suggested that there are those who continually stumble into prosperity, in spite of themselves. And so it seems that some people have all the luck. Success follows them as surely as noon follows morning. They are the ones who rise through the ranks of any group to emerge as the leader; who have full checking accounts; whose dreams don’t turn to dust in their hands. Or so it seems.
Too often, our attempt to be like one of them, to move into a more satisfying life, is actually no attempt at all. We wait, thinking some lucky break will come our way, changing our life. We think something will arrive in the mail or someone will notice our hidden talent and then we’ll move ahead. Or we wait for tomorrow, believing it will feel different than today—and when it comes and it doesn’t, we wait another day.
But the truly successful have a different approach—quite the opposite from waiting. It is action. When an opportunity comes their way, they grasp it. If they have a good idea, they believe in it, and won’t shake loose. An eminent medical pioneer is said to have a sign on his desk that reads, “I’ve been lucky. The harder I work, the luckier I get”.2
In sum, what the truly successful seem to do is to crush the spirit of procrastination which haunts them as it does every human being. They have learned that a hesitant heart will lead them nowhere. They have discovered that the security which comes from never risking failure is no security at all.
Earth, after all, is not a safe place to be and the safety-seeker who procrastinates his best intentions and his best dreams for fear of failure must soon realize that he is not safe anyway. Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing.
We must trample that voice which suggests to us that tomorrow would really be a better day to try. We must crush the whispers that say, “you can’t”, and ignore those who say, “You’re not capable.”
Those who seem lucky are really those who put aside their fears and doubts, and with the secret knowledge of their own inadequacies, gather together the determination to start today to be what they really want to be.
1 Clason. George S., The Richest Man in Babylon, Hawthorne Books, Inc. New York, Pg. 55.
2 Ochsner, Dr. Alton, New Orleans, as quoted by Dr. Jerome I. Simon, St. Louis.
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May 24, 1981
Broadcast Number 2,701