Outline:
- Personality is the root of success
- The examples of two singers
- Different concepts of personality in different ages
- Labour is the great schoolmaster of the race
- Wonders of a sunny soul
- Example of a young lawyer, physician and businessman
It is impossible to overrate the power of personality, which is the root of all success. It is a great asset. Without it, men and women are failures. Parents will spend a lot of money on educating their children which is often nothing more than cramming the mind of the child and the youth to suffocation with facts which have little bearing on actual life. Personality, silent influence is felt and acknowledged wherever it may be found. It needs not to talk much. It needs not to try to impress itself upon any. For it says in its majestic silence all that is necessary to convince and to vindicate itself under all conditions and in all circumstances. It is the master of will and the creator of the way. It sheds its strength and grace upon everyone with whom it comes in contact. And see how graciously personality bestows honour upon elders. How sweetly and entirely it can abandon itself to the happiness and joy of parents, friends and associates. How readily men acknowledge the power of personality in all departments.
Two singers, well trained in their art, applied for the same position in a famous concert party. The one was weak and effeminate in appearance and influence. He lacked personality, he carried neither grace nor power with him as he walked on to the platter, but his voice was magnificent. The other, with a much weaker voice, lacking much of the finer tone of his competition had a fine personality, but not a fine physique. He was a man who carried weight and self-command in every respect. The glance of his eyes even impressed the audience with a sense of self-reliance. He was a man of personality and he secured the position at once, while the man with the finer voice and no personality went away disappointed. “Deficient personality has its revenge everywhere”. We see everywhere that it is the men and women with personality who win.[the_ad id=”17141″]
How often one has heard it said of men and women of position and affluence. “He is a man with a personality”. “He is a woman with a personality.” Wealth, titles, birth name, everything that is considered to carry power and influence goes down before personality. In the middle ages wealth may have meant power indeed, we might say that the power of wealth was felt even nearer our own time than that, but there came a time when, no longer, valued wealth or set it in high places. Then came the power of scholarship and the man with the greatest knowledge of things was considered more powerful than the man of wealth. For sometime, now, we have seen the growing power of real education as distinct from the scholarship. The man with a long string of letters after his name and wearing the robes of certain colleges deserves, indeed, all honour, but for all that he may not be a truly educated man in the real sense of the world, for scholarship and the passing of examinations do not always mean truly culture and education. But the power of personality. To say it is the men and women of personality who have the greatest power in the world.
The man is rich with a great personal value that knows what it is to act and to work. The man becomes a man with the blessed glow of labour.[the_ad id=”17142″]
The source of life is closed to him who works not, for work is human destiny. Labour is the great schoolmaster of the race. It is the grand drill in life’s army without which we are only confused and powerless when called into action. It is the strongest of moral tonics. It is the most vigorous of mental medicines. Without work, life is empty, useless and unhappy. No man can be happy who does not work. It is the source of all perfection. No man can accomplish without work. It is the grand cure for all maladies and miseries. There is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work. The man works day and night till his eyes become dim and heavy is blessed with the splendid personal value.
How glad we all are to welcome a sunny soul! We are never too busy to see him. There is noting we welcome so much as sunshine. It is a priceless gift to be able to possess a calm. serene, sweet soul with soothers, enriches which is a perpetual balm to the hurts of the world. These souls reassure us.
We seem to touch power and sympathy when they are with us. We love to go near them when in trouble. They breathe a medical balm that soothes the wounds and hurts of the heart. They go through life with a smiling face. They scatter the flowers of kindness on ever hand. The habit of feeling kindly towards everybody, of carrying about a helpful manner, and expression of love, of kindly disposition, needs no introduction but is welcomed everywhere.
There is nothing wanted so much in the world as sunshine, and the greatest wealth is a cheerful disposition. This is a riches, which bless not only the possessor but also everyone with whom he associates.
No young man starting in life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit. They will support him in every great effort.[the_ad id=”17150″]
A young lawyer starting in practice often has plenty of time to cultivate friends and that is the wisest thing he can do. Every one who knows him is trying to help him to success. His friends tell others that he will be sure to make his mark. They would not be surprise to see him in the · legislature, or perhaps on the Supreme Court bench. No matter, how able or how brilliant he may be or how well versed in the niceties of the law, very few will be willing to entrust cases to an inexperienced young man if he is not supported by this mouth-to-mouth recommendation of friends. So winning friendship is a great personal value in the modern world.
It is the same with a young physician trying to get a start. All his friends are anxious to lend him a helping hand. They know how difficult it is for one untried, even if thoroughly prepared, to establishing sufficient confidence in his skill to induce people to trust him in preference to experienced practitioners. They praise his skill they tell how sick they were and how quickly he aided them. In a short time, he gets patients.
The case of a young merchant beginning with small capital differs only in kind from that of an author, lawyer or physician. No matter how honest he may be or how square in his dealing, he is unknown and untried. He has to win his way to the favour of the general public. The business maxim, “A pleased customer is the best advertisement,” is a tribute to the commercial value of friends, – for one must feel friendly to recommend a store and its goods.
