The boy who has business talents and tastes will, of course, be far better able to rise and command positions if he possesses an education. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that a college education, just because it is a college education, will make a business man of you from the start. Of two boys having equal business talents the one whose mind has been trained to think and who has mixed with all sorts of fellows at college, will probably have advantages for getting along that the non-college boy does not possess. But unless your father or someone back of you has money to spare, I believe that the average boy with commercial instincts does better in the end by getting into business early in life. He gets a better fitting for his career.
Now I think you can readily understand the first rule for becoming a successful man. Find out what your talents are, then fit yourself so that you can utilize all these talents. There are schools now being established where every boy can have this done. But he must work with pleasure. If you find you have made a mistake in your choice—and you will know this by being constantly dissatisfied—get out and try something else. Keep trying until you find some vocation or trade which you go at with increased pleasure every day. When this state of mind has arrived you have found yourself.
[CHAPTER VIII]
ENVIRONMENTS AND DISEASES WHICH RUST BRAIN-TOOLS
We now reach the most important details concerning the keeping of the brain in activity and vigor. Having brought you to an understanding of the body, how to take care of it, of all that belongs at the start to make up a successful man, we must put ourselves in a position to know how to live and act so that throughout adult life and up to the age of many years, but not old age, we can get out of us all that is possible.
I speak of living many years, but not getting old. I mean exactly what I say. There is no reason why a man should be old at sixty, no, not at seventy. I do not imply that a man should be able to do the same amount of physical work at seventy that he can at thirty, but I do mean to say that all his mental forces should be under his control at seventy years of age, although he will naturally have to use them with care. A man who has not injured his brain forces should retain them up to the last moment of his life, but as he has not the repairing powers of the younger man, he should be careful of the strain put upon them.
In this latter fact lies the only difference.
Having started well in your vocation, trade or profession, with your fine brain-tools edged to their best, you may now proceed to success or gradual failure. For, of course, just having the training and education does not mean that everything else comes along your way. Not a bit of it. In fact, you will find at first that the care of the working instruments you now have will take a good lot of self-control and the formation of certain necessary habits.
It all depends upon how you keep your brain-tools what your future will be. Whether you neglect them once in a while so that they have to be sharpened again, whether you leave them to rust and finally become useless, whether you lay them aside in good condition and take them up again in perfect order, all these matters go for success or failure. If it is only occasionally you neglect the brain-tools, you must remember that each new act of resharpening them leaves a less keen edge. Resting your brain, taking time to recuperate tired cells and enjoying some kind of sport or pleasure that is a benefit instead of an injury to your thoughts, is necessary for every man.