Only one concern in fifty succeeds in business, therefore it calls for your best efforts if you wish to succeed. It calls for a singleness of purpose.
If you make more money than is necessary in your business put out the money in some form of investment that will require little of your attention. Buy mortgages or real estate. Get stuff that you can put in the green box in the safety deposit vault and not have to worry about.
The stockbroker has a lot of unwritten history about the business man who divides his energies between his office and the ticker. The business man who is trying to make more progress than his competitor in business and at the same time trying to beat out the stock market is dividing his energies, and between the two occupations he is likely to fail. Be a generalist in pleasure and recreation, but not in business.
Our Aches and Pains
When we work hard with our body all day our backs ache and our muscles ache. This is all right, for Nature has given us sweet refreshing slumber to drive away the aches and pains so that on the morrow we are ready for the fray.
In proportion as we have endured these backaches and pains and are patient in our occupation, the aches will lessen until finally we have laid up a store of energy so that the aches will not bother us.
The backaches and muscle-aches and headaches we have, when they come from honest work performed for the benefit of those we love, are sweet aches and pains. They represent sacrifice, these aches and pains do, and sacrifice brings happiness. The only way to be truly happy is to do something for somebody, and doing something for somebody is making a sacrifice for somebody.
The aches and pains we have endured in performing labor for those we love is the best evidence of genuine sacrifice.
We gladly suffer when our efforts are appreciated, and when those for whom we work are grateful, but there is one pain that never lessens, and it is the pain that kills. That pain is a heartache, and the heartache comes from ingratitude.