Taming Tribulation Podcast

By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Enthusiasm is what happens to a man when on taking invoice, he discovers that his Heart and Head and Determination have finally welded into and become a part of “the Main Chance.”

Enthusiasm is a process — not merely a condition. Most everybody has a Head and Heart and Determination — but it’s the folks that have sufficient sense to get these together in the same spot at the same time for the same purpose that start things and move on the progress of the times.

Enthusiasm is the spark that starts the Action that moves the Man that finds the Cows and brings them home. Enthusiasm is what makes a fellow “get there.” Get Enthusiasm and you will “steam on.” Nobody can stop you.

Enthusiasm is what goes through stone walls, bores miles under great rivers, wins battles and lays out cities and towns and nations.

Enthusiasm changes maps and makes History possible. You at your desk, at your plow, at your broom, at your axe, at your bat, at your pen-— you, no matter who or where you are — take heart and hope and — Enthusiasm.

For Enthusiasm starts things, shapes things — does things. Start to-day to mix Enthusiasm in your blood. Then keep it there!

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Have Faith.

First, Faith in yourself, then Faith in the thing you set out to do — then Faith in the result. Faith is the ability to believe you have won before you have. It’s the art of beating the enemy, the obstacles, or the plan of your opposers, before they have securely organized. For Faith is to take victory in hand at the start.

Have Faith. The great stories of Success from the beginning of time are but narratives of men and women doers — who had Faith. Faith feeds the hungry in adversity — clothes and warms the needy in temporary failure. For Faith builds. It cannot destroy.

Have Faith. Your success is limited only by your Faith. The results from Faith live limitless. Take heart.

Have Faith. The only time people fail is when they lose Faith. The Pitcher in a ball game, the Soldier on a battle-field, the Leader in Politics, the Executive at the head of a task or business — the humblest Toiler — each goes ahead and does his best only as he is inspired to it by Faith. First, as he has it — then as those about, under or near him have Faith in him.

Have Faith. And make it a vital part of your determination to Win, to-day. The most obscure worker is entitled to as great credit for results in proportion, as the man who commands — so long as he has and uses all the Faith he can muster. So, remember to keep a good stock of Faith on hand constantly.

All this day long — Have Faith.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Stick. Just Stick.

This is the essence — the beginning and ending — of Success. Stick. The Sticker is the “getthere” man.

Stick. Everybody begins — but not all Stick. Yesterday you failed, maybe, but to-day you can Win — if you Stick it out. All achievers wear a badge labeled “STICK.”

You Stick — to-day. When you fed like quitting — Stick! If the other fellow is getting the best of you — Stick. He will if you don’t. Stick. The great successes of business and life are but repetitions of the same story — the story of men who knew HOW to Stick.

Stick. You may not like your job, but think before you change it. So few know HOW to Stick. So few learn WHEN to Stick. So few care WHERE they Stick. You think it out with patience. Then — whether it be a job or a task — Stick it out.

Stick. To-day — start things and Stick to each until finished — completed in the best way you know how.

Just Stick.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Learn to be a Fighter.

Not with fists or clubs or swords — but through the noble mastering of the Forces at your command — generated by your own Brain. For great are victories gained from the everyday battles of life over the endless difficulties that almost hourly face such a Force.

Learn to be a Fighter. Then fight! Fight face to the front — fiercely yet fairly. And when everybody looks upon you as a loser and calls you whipped — that’s your cue to finish the fight — and WIN!

Learn to be a Fighter. You will not always win, but never admit it. Half the so-named failures of all time lie in Conquerors’ graves. And the flowers of God, and the winds of undying Fame cool and smooth the sleeping souls that didn’t know HOW to die!

Learn to be a Fighter. What is your work to-day? Make it a battle front! Muster the best that is in you and go out to meet and vanquish every obstacle that seeks to keep this day from being the one you will most prize as the one of all your days most worthwhile — to other people and to yourself. Fight every inch of the way. Give no quarter — and accept none. Go to your bed with the spirit and satisfaction of a Conqueror.

Learn to be a fighter!

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Have courage.

Courage is the art of sitting calmly in your seat without stirring and without getting excited when the Brass Band of Popularity, or Temporary Success or Ridicule goes by your house and turns around the corner.

Courage steps out of the crowd. It stands alone. Courage is native Nerve — refined. Courage is neither bulldozing nor bare bluff — it’s not related to either. Courage isn’t physical merely, but moral — mostly.

Courage is naked Right put through fire and brought out uncracked and unbroken. Courage is heartworth making itself felt in deeds. It never waits for chances; it makes chances. A day without some Courage sprinkled in it is a day little worthwhile. For Courage makes the Man — and there never was a real Man that didn’t have Courage.

Courage is a thing born in you — but it is also a thing much lustered by use and cultivation. To-day, to-morrow — and every day — have Courage. It makes the heart glad and the soul strong. It starts smiles in the system and stirs up the kind of circulation in a man that makes him go out and do his best at the most humble undertaking.

You can never fail if you have Courage — but you can never win without it.

Have Courage!

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Be Loyal. To be Loyal is to be square with yourself. And you cannot be square with yourself without being a pretty good sort of a Boss — of yourself. The trouble with the people that fail is that they let someone else run their shop-Then dis-loyalty creeps in and sours and sucks and saps the life of a man away from himself.

Be Loyal. You know your own possibilities better than any living being. Get next to them without delay and learn to be Loyal to them. It’s a quality beyond price — this Loyalty.

Be Loyal. The Loyal man oft times is of all men with discouragement tempted. But the fellow who sticks to his Faith and is Loyal — is the man that finally feels Growth and Equipment and Power becoming a part of himself.

Be Loyal. Loyalty means sacrifice. But sacrifice means Success! Be Loyal. The steps of Achievement and Honor and Satisfaction are all rock riveted to Loyalty — Loyalty to your Work, and to your Friends.

Be Loyal. Benefits redound to the fit and worthy. Your work to-day may seem mean and obscure indeed to yourself. But “the gods see everywhere” and the least neglect or slight to what you hold in hand to-day, may reflect and loom large in the completed work. Loyal attention from the start to the finish is the safest, fairest and surest path for you to pursue. Do but this and Results will take jealous care of you.

Be Loyal.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Opportunity is a Something — not a nothing; also, something Real — not a Phantom. And, too, Opportunity is an Ever-present — here to-day and here to-morrow. By moments, hours, days, weeks, months — years, she hovers about, unseen and unheard — except as her Spirit is felt and — seized!

Opportunity is the hand of Progress to the alert, and the “handwriting on the wall” of Failure, to the groggy and the slothful. For of all Messengers of Light she — Opportunity — is the one most patient, most fair, most just and most considerate.

Opportunity is no respecter of persons or of seasons. She is ever on the job and she ever waits and waits and waits. The man may fall forever asleep — but Opportunity — never. At this actual minute she stands before YOU. All through the livelong day she will be at your call. Lightning-like she flashes her Messages to all — but her sole appeal is — to you. Think! How about it? “Stop, look, listen” — can you see, hear, feel, grip her hand? Make the most of what she holds this day for you. Think — think, think! Then ACT.

For Opportunity, converted into a Fact, is the taking hold on the simplest task at hand — and doing it to a finish in the best way you know how. It’s picking up the pins of Priceless Minutes that the other fellow passes heedlessly over. It’s doing your work BETTER than you are paid for, and tackling bigger jobs than you may think you are capable of handling.

Great is the rise of the man who makes an early friend of Opportunity and takes her with him through the paths of the common everyday.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

People are paid, ambition is achieved, success comes only in the measure that a man Thinks.

Think. All great Doers were and are great Thinkers.

Think. Mistakes, Confusion, Consternation are rare callers at the brain of the man who Thinks.

Think. But think to a definite purpose. Systematize your ideas. Plan out the acts of each of your minutes, and hours — and days.

Think. Napoleon was a Thinker. Sought out one day in one of the crises of France, he was found in an obscure garret, studying the streets of Paris and Thinking out his best moves for the morrow.

Think. Be your own Silent partner.

Think. Be responsible to your own Intellectual Force.

Think. Forge from the anvil of your own hard fights and failures, the Deeds of Doing that can only come after the most rigid and pains taking Thoughts. Think.

Start this day with the resolve to Think out each act you perform, knowing that the largest and most useful Results follow the man who Thinks!

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Be an Observer. Let nothing new appear without first clinching its value, studying its meaning, and absorbing its lesson.

Learn. Find Out. Learn from Nature, People, Happenings. Read the thought of each day as far as you can fathom. Then apply your Knowledge. Learn all the time from everything you can — everywhere. Investigate the Mysteries, master the Difficulties.

Find Out.

Right now — a paragraph from History. John Milton — a word from you. “I am blind, past fifty, but I am completing my ‘Paradise Lost’.”

Michael Angelo — your testimony. “Though seventy years of age, I am still learning.”

John Kemble — what have you to say? “Since leaving the stage, I have written out Hamlet thirty times. I am now beginning to understand my art!”

You who have eyes, and ears, and mouths to talk with — Learn. Find Out.

Your work to-day may look useless. You may be “only a Clerk.” But you will always be one if you fail to Learn. For the Path of advancement marks the Way of the man.

Learn. Find Out. Leadership comes solely to those who KNOW. Knowledge is surely Power. The Diners at the Table of the Feast of Success are no favored folk — none other than those who took the time to Learn. You — if you would Win — Learn!

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Concentrate.

With steadiness, courage, dare-determinedness burn a hole into things. No matter what the thing at hand may be. Concentrate. The Wheel of Action and of Business moves by steady turns around one central hub. In Success, Rim, Spoke, Hub hold tight together, and as though human, Think, Plan, Move as one.

Concentrate. Results come always to the persistent. Opportunity goes out of its way to get hold of the hand of the Sticker. The eye of the Boss is drawn irresistibly to the desk of the Doer.

Concentrate. Draw the details together. Formulate your day’s Plan. Strike a pace. Make every minute and every move count.

Concentrate. And the finished Job will be the day’s Goal — twenty-four hours of life well worthwhile.

Concentrate.

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