After Lesson Thoughts

The Great Success Lessons That Can Be Learned From Reverses

 

An all-wise Providence has arranged the affairs of mankind so that every person who comes into the age of reason must bear the cross of FAILURE in one form or another.

 

Picture in your mind the heaviest and most cruel of all the crosses, POVERTY! Hundreds of millions of people living on this earth today find it necessary to struggle under the burden of this cross in order to enjoy the three bare necessities of life a place to sleep, something to eat and clothes to wear.

 

Carrying the cross of POVERTY is no joke! But it seems significant that the greatest and most successful men and women who ever lived found it necessary to carry this cross before they "arrived."

 

FAILURE is generally accepted as a curse. But few people ever understand that failure is a curse only when it is accepted as such. But few ever learn the truth that FAILURE is seldom permanent.

 

Go back over your own experiences for a few years and you will see that your failures generally turned out to be blessings in disguise.

 

Failure teaches men lessons which they would never learn without it. Moreover, it teaches in a language that is universal.

 

Among the great lessons taught by failure is that of HUMILITY. No man may become great without feeling himself humble and insignificant when compared to the world about him and the stars above him and the harmony with which Nature does her work. For every rich man's son who becomes a useful constructive worker in behalf of humanity there are ninety-nine others rendering useful service who come up through POVERTY and misery.

 

This seems more than a coincidence!

 

Most people who believe themselves to be failures are not failures at all. Most conditions which people look upon as failure are nothing more than temporary defeat.

 

If you pity yourself and feel that you are a failure think how much worse off you would be if you had to change places with others who have real cause for complaint.

 

In the city of Chicago lives a beautiful young woman. Her eyes are a light blue. Her complexion is extremely fair. She has a sweet charming voice. She is educated and cultured. Three days after graduating in one of the colleges of the East she discovered that she had negro blood in her veins.

 

The man to whom she was engaged refused to marry her.

 

The negroes do not want her and the whites will not associate with her.

 

During the remainder of her life she must bear the brand of permanent FAILURE. Remember, this is PERMANENT failure!

 

As this essay is being written news comes of a beautiful girl baby who was born to an unwed girl and taken into an orphanage, there to be brought up mechanically without ever knowing the influence of a mother's love.

 

All through life this unfortunate child must bear the brunt of another's mistake which can never be corrected. How fortunate are YOU no matter what may be your imaginary failures that you are not this child.

 

If you have a strong body and a sound mind you have much for which you ought to be thankful. Millions of people all about you have no such blessings.

 

Careful analysis of one hundred men and women whom the world has accepted as being "great" shows that they were compelled to undergo hardship and temporary defeat and failure such as YOU probably have never known and never will know.

 

Woodrow Wilson went to his grave altogether too soon, the victim of cruel slander and disappointment. Believing, no doubt, that he was a FAILURE.

 

TIME, the great miracle worker that rights all wrongs and turns failure into success will place the name of  Woodrow Wilson at the top of the page of the really great.

 

Few now living have the vision to see that out of Wilson's "FAILURE" will come such a powerful demand for universal peace that war will be an impossibility.

 

Lincoln died without knowing that his "FAILURE" gave sound foundation to the greatest nation on this earth.

 

Columbus died a prisoner in chains without ever knowing that his "FAILURE" meant the discovery of the great nation which Lincoln and Wilson helped to preserve with their "FAILURES."

 

Do not use the word FAILURE carelessly. Remember, carrying a burdensome cross temporarily is not FAILURE.

 

If you have the real seed of success within you a little adversity and temporary defeat will only serve to nuture that seed and cause it to burst forth into maturity.

 

When Divine Intelligence wants a great man or woman to render some needed service in the world, the fortunate one is tested out through some form of FAILURE.

 

If you are undergoing what you believe to be failure, have patience, you may be passing through your testing time.

 

No capable executive would select those whom he had not tested for reliability, loyalty, perseverance and other essential qualities. Responsibility and all that goes with it in the way of remuneration always gravitates to the person who will not accept temporary defeat as permanent failure.

 

"The test of a man is the fight he makes,

The grit that he daily shows. 

The way he stands on his feet and takes

Fate's numerous bumps and blows.

A coward can smile when there's naught to fear,

When nothing his progress bars.

But it takes a man to stand up and cheer,

While some other fellow stars."

 

It isn't the victory after all,

But the fight that a brother makes. 

The man who driven against the wall,

Still stands up erect and takes

The blows of fate with his head held high. 

Bleeding and bruised and pale,

Is the man who'll win in the by and by,

For he isn't afraid to fail.

​

It's the bumps you get and the jolts you get,

And the shocks that your courage stands 

The hours of sorrow and vain regret,

The prize that escapes your hands 

That test your mettle and prove your worth, 

It isn't the blows you deal,

But the blows you take on the good old earth,

That show if your stuff is real.

​

Failure often places one in a position where unusual effort must be forthcoming.

​

Many a man has wrung victory from defeat,

fighting with his back to the wall where he could not retreat. 

 

Caesar had long wished to conquer the British. He quietly sailed his soldier-laden ships to the British island, unloaded his troops and supplies then gave the order to burn all the ships.

 

Calling his soldiers about him he said: "Now it is win or perish. We have no choice." They won!

 

Men usually win when they make up their minds to do so. Burn your bridges behind you and observe how well you work when you KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO RETREAT.

 

A street car conductor got a leave of absence while he tried out a position in a great mercantile business. "If I do not succeed in holding my new position," he remarked to a friend, "I can always come back to the old job." At the end of the month he was back, completely cured of all ambition to do anything except work on a street car.

 

Had he resigned instead of asking for a leave of absence he might have made good in the new job.

 

The Thirteen Club movement, which is now spreading over the entire country was born as the result of a shocking disappointment experienced by its founder. That shock was sufficient to open the mind to a broader and more comprehensive view of the needs of the age and this discovery led to the creation of one of the most outstanding influences of this generation.

 

The Fifteen Laws of Success upon which this course is based, grew out of twenty years of hardship and poverty and failure such as rarely come to one person in an entire lifetime.

 

Surely those of you who have followed this series of lessons from the beginning must have read between the lines and back of them a story of struggle which has meant self-discipline and self-discovery such as never would have been known without this hardship.

 

Remember, as you take inventory of your own burdens that Nature's richest gifts go to those who meet FAILURE without flinching or whining. Nature's ways are not easily understood. If they were, no one could be tested for great responsibility, with FAILURE!

 

"When Nature wants to make a man 

And shake a man 

And wake a man 

When Nature wants to make a man

To do the Future's will 

When she tries with all her skill

And she yearns with all her soul

To create him large and whole

With what cunning she prepares him 

How she goads and never spares him 

How she whets him, and she frets him 

And in poverty begets him

How she often disappoints

How she often anoints

With what wisdom she will hide him

Never minding what betide him

Though his genius sob with slighting

And his pride may not forget

Bids him struggle harder yet

Makes him lonely

So that only God's high messages shall reach him

So that she may surely teach him

What the hierarchy planned

Though he may not understand

Gives him passions to command

How remorselessly she spurs him

With terrific ardor stirs him

When she poignantly prefers him

Lo, the crisis

 Lo, the shout

That must call the leader out

When the people need salvation

Doth he come to lead the nation

Then doth Nature show her plan

When the world has found - A MAN!"

 

There is no FAILURE. That which looks to be failure is usually nothing but temporary defeat.

Make sure that you do not accept it as PERMANENT!