He may get started in the wrong line and this will make him discontented. The discontent will cause him to try another tack, and so long as discontent makes him change he will finally get into the right line by the process of eliminating those callings which make him discontented.
Time after time we find in reading the stories of successful business men that they have floundered around in the beginning of their career from one business or calling to another. Discontented with each of them they changed and changed and changed until they finally struck the thing best suited to them, and all the changes they made in the past were distinctly beneficial because of the experience they obtained.
If it were not for discontent many of the leaders in the business world today would still be on the farm or clerking in a country store.
Keep busy, young man, do the first thing that comes handy. Change your job if you are discontented, for no one can do his best work if his heart is not in it. When discontent causes you to change frequently you may be sure that some day you will strike your gait, and then ambition will fire you to stick at it.
When you get on the right track and are not discontented you have struck it right.
The Generalist
The chapter on "The Specialist" is almost inseparable from this chapter. One is the positive, the other the negative. What we have said about the specialist we could repeat by taking the opposite of the question for the generalist.
This one point, however, we wish to make clear, even at the risk of repetition. Do not be a generalist in business. If you divide your efforts your results will surely be divided. The business man who goes in many outside ventures will not get along as far in the matter of wealth as the man who does one thing well.
We hear about "The jack of all trades," but the aftermath of the jack of all trades is "master of none."