HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN, AN IRON WILL & PUSHING TO THE FRONT. Orison Swett Marden
greatest men in history never discovered themselves until they lost everything but their pluck and grit, or until some great misfortune overtook them and they were driven to desperation to invent a way out of their dilemma.
Giants are made in the stern school of necessity. The strong, vigorous, forceful, stalwart men who have pushed civilization upward are the products of self-help. They have not been pushed or boosted; but they have fought every inch of the way up to their own loaf.
They are giants because they have been great conquerors of difficulties, supreme masters of difficult situations. They have acquired the strength of the obstacles which they have overcome.
Many of our giant business men never got a glimpse of their real power until some great panic or misfortune swept their property away and knocked the crutches out from under them. Many men and women never discovered their ability until everything they thought would help them to success had been taken away from them; until they had been stripped of everything that they held dear in life. Our greatest power, our highest possibility, lies so deep in our natures that it often takes a tremendous emergency, a powerful crisis, to call it out. It is only when we feel that all bridges behind us are burned, all retreat cut off, and that we have no outside aid to lean upon, that we discover our full inherent power. As long as we get outside help we never know our own resources. How many young men and young women owe their success to some great misfortune, which cut off a competence—the death of a relative, the loss of business or home, or some other great calamity, which threw them on their own resources and compelled them to fight for themselves!
Responsibility is a great power developer. Where there is responsibility there is growth. People who are never thrust into responsible positions never develop their real strength. This is one reason why it is so rare to find very strong men and women among those who have spent their lives in subordinate positions, in the service of others. They go through life comparative weaklings because their powers have never been tested or developed by having great responsibility thrust upon them. Their thinking has been done for them. They have simply carried out somebody else’s programme. They have never learned to stand alone, to think for themselves, to act independently. Because they have never been obliged to plan for themselves, they have never developed the best things in them,—their power of originality, inventiveness, initiative, independence, self-reliance, their possible grit and stamina. The power to create, to make combinations, to meet emergencies, the power which comes from continuous marshaling of one’s forces to meet difficult situations, to adjust means to ends, that stamina or power which makes one equal to the great crisis in the life of a nation, is only developed by years of practical training under great responsibility.
There is nothing more misleading than the philosophy that if there is anything in a youth it will come out. It may come out, and it may not. It depends largely upon circumstances, upon the presence or absence of an ambition-arousing, a grit-awakening environment The greatest ability is not always accompanied by the greatest confidence or the greatest ambition.
There is at this moment enough power latent in the clerks or ordinary employees in almost any of our business houses to manage them as well as, or better than they are being managed to-day, if the opportunity and necessary emergency to call out this dynamic force should arise.
But how can clerks who remain behind counters, measuring doth, selling shoes or hosiery, year in and year out, ever know what latent power for organization, what executive ability or initiative they possess? It is true that some of the more ambitious and courageous get out and start for themselves, but it does not follow that they are always abler than those who remain behind. Sometimes the greatest ability is accompanied by great modesty and even timidity. Then, again, employees conscious of great ability are often deterred from taking the risk of launching out for themselves because of possible disaster to those depending upon them for daily bread. But thrust great responsibility upon a man, drive him to desperation, and the demand will bring out what there is in him. It will call out his initiative, his ingenuity, his resourcefulness, his self-reliance, his power to adjust means to ends. If there are any elements of leadership in him, responsibility will call them out. It will test his power to do things.
I have in mind a young man who developed such amazing ability within six months from the date of a very important promotion, that he surprised everybody who knew him. Even his best friends did not believe that it was in him. But the great responsibilities, the desperate situation, thrust upon him brought out his reserve power, and he very quickly showed of what stuff he was made. This promotion, and a little stock in the concern, which had been given him, aroused his ambition and called out a mighty power which before he did not dream that he possessed.
Tens of thousands of young men and young women to-day are only waiting for a chance to show themselves, waiting for an opportunity to try their wings, and when the opportunity, the responsibility, comes they will be equal to anything that confronts them.
Proprietors of large concerns are often very much exercised by the death of a superintendent or lieutenant who has managed with exceptional ability. They are fearful that very disastrous results may follow, and. believe it will be almost impossible to fill his place; but, while they are looking around to find a man big enough for the place, some one, perhaps, who was under the former chief, attends to his duties temporarily, and makes even a better manager than his predecessor.
Young men and young women are rising out of the ranks constantly, everywhere, who fill these positions oftentimes much better than those who drop out and whose places it was thought almost impossible to fill. Do not be afraid to pile responsibility upon your employees. You will be amazed to see how quickly they will get out from under their load and what unexpected ability they will develop.
Many employers are always looking for people outside of their own establishment to fill important vacancies, simply because they cannot see or appreciate a man’s ability until he has actually demonstrated it; but how can he demonstrate it until he has the chance?
There are probably to-day scores of young men in every one of our great business houses who are as capable as the present heads. There is no position that cannot be filled as well or better than it is being filled now, by someone who is still in the ranks and who has not yet been heard from in any distinctive way.
When some great statesman falls, the people often look about, to find that there is apparently no one to fill his place; but from an unexpected source—perhaps from a little out-of-the-way town, from the common ranks—there comes a man who is equal to the emergency.
The way to bring out the reserve in a man is to pile responsibility upon him. If there is anything in him this will reveal it.
Some of us never quite come to ourselves in fullness and power until driven to desperation. It is when we are shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe upon an island, with nothing but our own brain and hands, nothing but resources locked up deep in ourselves, that we really come to complete self-discovery. A captain never knows what is in his men until they have been tested by a gale at sea which threatens shipwreck.
That there are great potencies and power possibilities within us which we may never know is proved by the tremendous forces that are aroused in ordinary people in some great crisis or emergency.
The elevator boy may never have dreamed that there was anything heroic in his nature. He may never have thought there was a possibility of his rising in the world to the importance of the men whom he lifted to their offices; but the building takes fire and this boy, who was seldom noticed by anyone, who did not show any special signs of ability, in a few minutes develops the most heroic qualities. He runs his elevator up through the burning floors when choked with smoke, the hot cable blistering his hands, and rescues a hundred people who, but for him, might have lost their lives.
A ship is wrecked at sea, and a poor immigrant becomes the hero of the hour, commanding a lifeboat, and giving orders with calmness, authority, and force, when others have lost their heads.
A hospital takes fire and the delicate, timid girl invalid develops into a heroine almost instantly and does a giant’s work.
In fires and wrecks, in great disasters or emergencies of all kinds, are enacted deeds of ‘daring and of sublime heroism which, before the great test