Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

PERSONALITY AS A SUCCESS ASSET

There is something about one's personality which eludes the photographer, which the painter can not reproduce, which the sculptor can not chisel. This subtle something which every one feels, but which no one can describe, which no biographer ever put down in a book, has a great deal to do with one's success in life.

It is this indescribable quality, which some persons have in a remarkable degree, which sets an audience wild at the mention of the name of a Blaine or a Lincoln,—which makes people applaud beyond the bounds of enthusiasm. It was this peculiar atmosphere which made Clay the idol of his constituents. Although, perhaps, Calhoun was a greater man, he never aroused any such enthusiasm as "the mill-boy of the slashes." Webster and Sumner were great men, but they did not arouse a tithe of the spontaneous enthusiasm evoked by men like Blaine and Clay.

A historian says that, in measuring Kossuth's influence over the masses, "we must first reckon with the orator's physical bulk, and then carry the measuring line above his atmosphere." If we had discernment fine enough and tests delicate enough, we could not only measure the personal atmosphere of individuals, but could also make more accurate estimates concerning the future possibilities of schoolmates and young friends. We are often misled as to the position they are going to occupy from the fact that we are apt to take account merely of their ability, and do not reckon this personal atmosphere or magnetic power as a part of their success-capital. Yet this individual atmosphere has quite as much to do with one's advancement as brain-power or education. Indeed, we constantly see men of mediocre ability but with fine personal presence, superb manner, and magnetic qualities, being rapidly advanced over the heads of those who are infinitely their superiors in mental endowments.

A good illustration of the influence of personal atmosphere is found in the orator who carries his audience with him like a whirlwind, while he is delivering his speech, and yet so little of this personal element adheres to his cold words in print that those who read them are scarcely moved at all. The influence of such speakers depends almost wholly upon their presence,—the atmosphere that emanates from them. They are much larger than anything they say or do.

Certain personalities are greater than mere physical beauty and more powerful than learning. Charm of personality is a divine gift that sways the strongest characters, and sometimes even controls the destinies of nations.

We are unconsciously influenced by people who possess this magnetic power. The moment we come into their presence we have a sense of enlargement. They unlock within us possibilities of which we previously had no conception. Our horizon broadens; we feel a new power stirring through all our being; we experience a sense of relief, as if a great weight which long had pressed upon us had been removed.

We can converse with such people in a way that astonishes us, although meeting them, perhaps, for the first time. We express ourselves more clearly and eloquently than we believed we could. They draw out the best that is in us; they introduce us, as it were, to our larger, better selves. With their presence, impulses and longings come thronging to our minds which never stirred us before. All at once life takes on a higher and nobler meaning, and we are fired with a desire to do more than we have ever before done, and to be more than we have been in the past.

A few minutes before, perhaps, we were sad and discouraged, when, suddenly, the flashlight of a potent personality of this kind has opened a rift in our lives and revealed to us hidden capabilities. Sadness gives place to joy, despair to hope, and disheartenment to encouragement. We have been touched to finer issues; we have caught a glimpse of higher ideals; and, for the moment, at least, have been transformed. The old commonplace life, with its absence of purpose and endeavor, has dropped out of sight, and we resolve, with better heart and newer hope, to struggle to make permanently ours the forces and potentialities that have been revealed to us.

Even a momentary contact with a character of this kind seems to double our mental and soul powers, as two great dynamos double the current which passes over the wire, and we are loath to leave the magical presence lest we lose our new-born power.