1. Just Do It
1.1. "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education, is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson which ought to be learned.
1.1.1. Professor Huxley
1.2. "Irresolution is worse than rashness"
1.2.1. The man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling, hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything. But the positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for something; you can measure him, and estimate the work that his energy will accomplish."
1.2.2. Outwitting the Devil Within - Napoleon Hill
1.2.2.1. Drifting is the main cause of failure
1.2.3. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
1.2.3.1. Indecision is extremely dangerous
1.2.3.2. Make decisions quickly. Change them slowly
1.3. "He who waits for certainty never wins."
1.3.1. Many wait for the Perfect Opportunity or Chance
1.3.1.1. There is no perfect opportunity or chance
1.3.1.2. You have to make it as such
1.3.2. There are no guarantees
1.3.3. You have to take risks
1.3.4. You have to take a chance
1.3.4.1. Waiting for certainty ensures that you never take a chance
1.3.5. You can minimize your risk
1.3.5.1. But you still have to risk in order to get the reward
2. On Focus
2.1. Focus all scattered rays of Mind on one thing
2.1.1. "One of the secrets of a successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or thing."
2.1.2. "Many a man would have been a success had he connected his fragmentary efforts. Spasmodic, disconnected attempts, without concentration, uncontrolled by any fixed idea, will never bring success. It is continuity of purpose alone that achieves results."
2.1.3. "The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going."
2.2. Be the Best at What matters Most
2.3. Bruce Lee: A great Warrior is an average man with laser like focus
2.4. The One Thing
3. Grit
3.1. Less Capable but more Resolute
3.1.1. Foster
3.1.1.1. "The shores of fortune, are covered with the stranded wrecks of men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith, and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port."
3.1.2. Dr Theodore Cuyler
3.1.2.1. "It is astonishing, how many men lack this power of 'holding on' until they reach the goal. They can make a sudden dash, but they lack grit. They are easily discouraged. They get on as long as everything goes smoothly, but when there is friction they lose heart. They depend on stronger personalities for their spirit and strength. They lack independence or originality. They only dare to do what others do. They do not step boldly from the crowd and act fearlessly."
3.1.3. "A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements."
3.1.4. Benjamin Franklin had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree. When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carried his material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one room for his office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidable rival in the city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece of bread from which he had just eaten his dinner, he said: "Unless you can live cheaper than I can, you cannot starve me out."
3.1.5. "Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will."
3.2. "It is not so much brilliancy of intellect, or fertility of resource, as persistency of effort, constancy of purpose, that makes a great man. Those who succeed in life are the men and women who keep everlastingly at it, who do not believe themselves geniuses, but who know that if they ever accomplish anything they must do it by determined and persistent industry."
3.3. Emerson
3.3.1. "Poor fellow!" said Emerson, as he looked at his delicately-reared little son, "how much he loses by not having to go through the hard experiences I had in my youth."
3.3.2. "I know," he said, "no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that tenacity of purpose, which, through all change of companions or parties or fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart or hope, but wearies out opposition and arrives at its port."
3.4. Charles Fox
3.4.1. "It is all very well," said Charles J. Fox, "to tell me that a young man has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not succeeded at first, and has then gone on, and I will back that man to do better than those who succeeded at the first trial."
3.4.2. Similar to the way NASA picks its astronauts today
4. On Self Belief
4.1. The world takes us at our OWN Valuation
4.1.1. "The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man"
4.1.2. "Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals."
4.1.3. Prentice Mulford
4.1.3.1. "The man who succeeds, must always in mind or imagination live, move, think, and act as if he gained that success, or he never will gain it."
4.2. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
4.2.1. Act As If
5. On Adversity
5.1. Our antagonist is our helper
5.1.1. Edmund Burke
5.1.1.1. "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill: our antagonist is our helper."
5.1.2. The way of the Fight - GSP
5.1.2.1. Salute the opponent
5.1.2.2. The opponent makes me
5.1.3. Opposing circumstances create strength. Opposition gives us greater power of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us greater ability to overcome the next.
5.1.4. "It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles."
5.2. Defeat makes Heros
5.2.1. Henry Ward Beecher
5.2.1.1. "It is defeat," says Henry Ward Beecher, "that turns bone to flint, and gristle to muscle, and makes men invincible, and formed those heroic natures that are now in ascendency in the world. Do not, then, be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause."
5.3. Obstacle is the Way
5.3.1. "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way" - Marcus Aurelius
5.4. Wendell Phillips' dictum: "What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better."
5.5. The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.--Horace Bushnell.
5.6. Say what we will of genius, specialized in a hundred callings, yet the fact remains that no amount of genius has ever availed upon the earth unless enforced by will power to overcome the obstacles that hedge about every one who would rise above the circumstances in which he was born, or become greater than his calling.
6. Author
6.1. Founder of Success Magazine in 1894
6.1.1. Magazine is still around