Taming Tribulation Podcast

By George Matthew Adams (1913)

In the private office of the President of one of the greatest of American concerns are these two letters in big, black type on a framed card — U. S. These letters might stand for a great many things. But this is what they actually abbreviate — Universal Spirit. They also mean to —

Co-operate.

The Universal Spirit makes men Trust each other, makes you want to be Loyal to yourself, to your friends, to your ideals and to your business connections. And, after all, the Universal Spirit is but the great desire to help make things run along smoothly — to get things done without a lot of useless bickering.

Co-operate.

Fear, Friction, Discouragement, Distrust, Disloyalty — each is but the backfiring of a lack of the Universal Spirit. You won’t have any strikes in your shop if its motto is the Universal Spirit. To get it, start with the Golden Rule.

Co-operate.

Believe that you have a composite part in what goes to make up the finest part of happiness and you won’t need to use the dictionary to define the meaning of the Universal Spirit. It is just to —

Co-operate.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Kick to Grow.

But Kick ahead and not behind. Kick to get Something and to get Somewhere. Kick to a good purpose. For to rightly Kick is to be Somebody. Kick to Grow. France Kicked itself into the French Revolution and cleared the Political map of Europe for centuries to come; Wendell Phillips Kicked against human Slavery and helped free a Race; Disraeli Kicked against a great horde of Kickers and it landed him Prime Minister of England. History favors Kickers.

Kick to Grow.

Kick with a Smile on your Face and Determination in your Heart. For the Kicking Business fares badly with Bitterness and Revenge taking tickets at the Gate. Kick the hardest against your own Faults and Defects. Also, Kick against everything useless — Time wasting, cheap Gossip, aimless People — Habits that sap away your Power.

Kick to Grow.

Kick for recognition when you have real Worth to show. Kick for Knowledge. Kick for Principle. Kick for a place on which to stand squarely and honestly. But in all your Kicking, remember that the Kicking is the Means and not the End. And after you have Kicked your Kick — pass on, and achieve your Task.

Kick to Grow.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Hope is Heart — in full health. When Hope begins to dicker away, then’s the time to flash C. Q. D. Accumulate Hope. It is just as easy to become a bankrupt in Hope as to become a bankrupt in Money. Hope is a mixture. It is made up of equal parts of Courage, Will, Work and Faith. Innoculate your system with these things and Hope will hover about you, lead you on, defend you — make you a Factor in the work of the world.

Accumulate Hope.

Perhaps you are one of the people who measure Hope in mere Money, crude Ambition, and flabby Fame. Hope is not material. Hope is Eternal, just like the Stars. And if you are not digging away at a job that has an Ever-living Atmosphere to it, then change your job without delay.

Accumulate Hope.

Hope brightens the Eye, squares the Jaw and stiffens the Backbone. Hope is the invisible picture of Success. Hope, Hope, Hope —

Accumulate Hope.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

There are two ways of Seeing. One with the Eyes and one with the Mind. Helen Kellar recently stated in a public address that there were many people more Blind than she. She was right. The Blind are those who WILL NOT see.

Keep your Eyes and Mind wide Open.

Joseph Pulitzer, the late Blind Editor of the New York World, made his newspaper great not until after he became Blind. Prescott wrote his greatest Histories with Sightless Eyes. P. S. Henson, the great Preacher, with but one Eye, has Seen more and learned more than most people would with a dozen Eyes. The Blind many times See most.

Keep your Eyes and Mind wide Open.

Use your Eyes. See Things. And after you See them, make Friends out of them. No two people See Things exactly the same. Watt saw latent Power in the Steam that came out of his mother’s Tea Kettle. Franklin saw another kind of usefulness snapping from the tail of his Kite. The followers of these men saw enough to adapt and force Civilization ahead by scores of years.

Keep your Eyes and Mind wide Open.

Many of the really Big Things in this world have not yet been Seen. You, at your humble task To-day, may See some of them, or shadows of them. And if you do, persist in Seeing. There is always this one great way to Learn and Grow — to resolve on Seeing everything that can be Seen. But your Eyes are only half. To See with your Mind is the other half.

Keep your Eyes and Mind wide Open.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

You who read this little talk, have Things locked up in your Brain that nobody else on earth has or ever has had. And you hold the Key, too. Although the Almighty is in a big business, creating millions of Human Beings, year after year, nobody has ever yet discovered a duplicate Human Being. Every Human Being is an “original.” So, if there is any Envying to be done, let the other fellow do it. YOU —

Be too Big to bother with Envy.

Now, Envy is begrudging some other fellow his Good Fortune. To be Envious is to stagnate your own growth. The Envy that you have for the Winning of somebody else takes away in just that measure Winning on your own part. Envy is Self-robbery.

Be too Big to bother with Envy.

Call to your own mind the Big doers. Are they Envious people? No — they are too Busy to Envy. If they took the time to Envy they could not have used their best abilities to Achieve.

Be too Big to bother with Envy.

You would never Envy if you would but realize the Accumulated Power that comes by profiting from the Success of other people. Be glad of the Big Luck of somebody else. Be wise enough to let its Inspiration lift you up. Individual Success is not stationary. It has no limitations. Congratulate your friend to-day and he may be put in the position to congratulate you to-morrow and be happy of the chance.

Be too Big to bother with Envy.

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Excuses are little Knock-out Drops that a man uses to Dumbfounder and Bedazzle his own conscience on special occasions.

An Excuse never Excuses an Excuse.

People never try to Excuse things that they themselves believe to be right. When you do your Best you are conscious of a Contentment that the very act itself produces. If there is any chance for an Excuse, the thing excuses itself.

An Excuse never Excuses an Excuse.

Your Brain may be unschooled — but the Brain is there. Elihu Burritt probably never was inside a college, but he became famous as the “Learned Blacksmith.’’ He found time in his shop to learn forty languages! He offered no Excuses for an untrained mind. The word Excuse is not in the dictionary of the Willing and the Determined.

An Excuse never Excuses an Excuse.

Did you ever use an Excuse as a prop that it did not fall down? Excuses hamper. Excuses form Stumbling Blocks over which you are sure to fall unless you kick them aside and forget them. Excuses are Unnatural. They wear false faces. They never look to you as they really are. And an excuse never answers anything. The next time you feel yourself making an Excuse — don’t! For —

An Excuse never Excuses an Excuse.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Put your Dreams to Work.

The right kind of a Dream is the Advance Agent of a Deed. Dreams are Pictures of things in the mind that the man of Initiative works out and completes. The world’s Doers have always been Dreamers.

Put your Dreams to Work.

But when you Dream, Dream near home. Castles in Cathey can be of no use to you. Dreaming of your neighbor’s nicely piled woodshed doesn’t saw up your own wood in your own yard.

Put your Dreams to Work.

Plan out your Dreams. And as you have them index them so that you will know where to find them when you want them. Sandpaper them so that you will see what they are made of more clearly. Get them in both your hands and hold them up squarely in front of your face so that you may get their full measure. Then give them a Pick or a Shovel or a Pen. Get them into Action.

Put your Dreams to Work.

Forget your Dreams of Yesterday. Get your Dreams of To-morrow into work To-day. Then To-morrow they will have grown into Deeds.

Put your Dreams to Work.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

There are people who actually believe that the best Opportunities have all been lassoed, haltered, and hitched for life to somebody else’s front doorpost. But the truth is, nobody can corner Opportunity. For —

Opportunity is Everywhere.

A story is told of a Cup of many Handles. So many handles, in fact, that no matter from what direction a person would approach it, there was a handle to greet him. All that was necessary was to step up and TAKE the handle. like unto this Cup is Opportunity.

Opportunity is Everywhere.

Opportunity is the Cup — and there is a handle in your town. You can grasp it if you will but reach for it. And you need have no fear that somebody else will beat you to your handle — for there is a handle for every single person in your town.

Opportunity is Everywhere.

Not in New York, or Chicago, or San Francisco alone, but in Kokomo, Indiana, Reading, Michigan, and Tacoma, Washington. The handles are everywhere. Just hunt them out and GRASP one and don’t let it get away from you. And after you have a handle, lift The Cup and drink from its priceless contents.

Opportunity is Everywhere.

Think of The Cup. Think of its many Handles. When something comes up that ought to be done but that you don’t want to do — DO it. That’s a Handle. When something happens that takes you from your planned out Task — have no fear. That’s a Handle. Get a GRIP upon it. Always look for one of the Handles. And get in the habit of using them. This is the way to learn that —

Opportunity is Everywhere.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

God never put Brains into human heads for mere Fixtures. Brains are just like Continents. They were created to be Explored and Used — to be populated with Ideas. But before you start out on your expedition of Exploration, be sure that you — Get a Viewpoint.

For next to actual Brains to Work with, there is nothing so important as to have an individual Viewpoint. It is everything to a man. From out of it rises the very Image of a man’s life Plan and Ideal. Explore.

Get a Viewpoint.

One man gathers together and puts ready for instant use, the thousands upon thousands of words that make up a Language. We can’t forget Webster. He shaped and sharpened the tools — and put them in order. Then Emerson came along. Poe arrived. Dickens, Mao-Caulay, Scott — and scores of others stepped up and delved into the tool chest of Webster. Each with his own Viewpoint shaped a literary Career. Explore. Find out.

Get a Viewpoint.

The whole World is beginning to bare its head to the genius of O. Henry. But marvelous as his words read, they are as nothing to his almost superhuman worked-out Viewpoint. His Pictured People in the cycle of the Humdrum and the Forgotten, will never die until print perishes. He was always Exploring — Exploring.

Get a Viewpoint.

Search, Think, Sacrifice, Study, Travel, Read — get the spirit of Exploration worked into your system. But remember that it is what you GET from Exploring that makes your Expeditions worthwhile.

First — Get a Viewpoint.

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By George Matthew Adams (1913)

Take the Chip off your Shoulder.

One of the surest evidences that this is a time of great Progress is that we are beginning to dig out with great zest from the trunks in our garrets the old-fashioned, dust-covered principles that used to keep us mighty happy before we began to get prosperous.

The package labeled “Arbitrate,” for instance. The meanest human being likes to pride himself on his sense of fairness. It is a fundamental and primitive principle. It was not until somebody got unjust and unfair that Wars and Fighters and Disagreements started.

It has always been true that those who “talked it over” in the open soon had things settled and all went back to work. Arbitrate means to Weigh and Divide. That is, to Weigh the Dispute and Divide the Blame — and then to forget the Dispute.

Fools always fight. Wise people always Arbitrate. Because to fight is to Waste and to Arbitrate is to Save. Sometimes it is money saved, sometimes human beings — but always Character, whether the dispute is between you or somebody else or between a dozen nations. Arbitrate. Always Arbitrate.

It always pays to Arbitrate. Here’s something important. Disputes can never be without Individual Consent. If every person concerned — if YOU — refuse to fight, and the other or others take your “cue,” it has to be — Arbitrate.

If people would only just think before they get ready to dispute, they would not dispute. Try out this suggestion YOURSELF.

Take the Chip off your Shoulder.

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