Thursday, June 20, 2013

The Price of Success

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates

New Lisbon WI – By the end of the 1920s James Cash Penney owned 1,400 stores and was a part of the real estate and dairy business. In 1929 the stock market crashed. Broke, Penney owed 7,000,000 dollars in debt. With his health shattered, he was put into a sanitarium to die. He did not. Instead he recovered, paid off his debts, and rebuilt his money empire.
J. C. Penney stated: “It is a natural thing to want to succeed, but not all are willing to pay the price of success. Some folks have a wishbone instead of a backbone.”
It is not easy to be the richest man in the world. It is not easy to be the best at anything. If it was then being the best would have no meaning. Those that forge ahead, those that come first, those that take the risks no else wants to are the ones that are remembered, and they are the ones that make a difference.
But the price of success is high. That is why it is success, because you have overcome your obstacles. You must first rip your muscles in order to build them. Henry Ford, when he first began, failed. The Wright brothers tried many times before they were able to create a truly flying machine.
In the 1020s a young man attempted to go into business. He failed. He joined the army, but showed up late for the battle. He invented and patented a device, but could not get it commercialized. He ran for state legislature. He lost. One day however, he ran for president, and that was when he won. What would history have looked like if Abraham Lincoln had succeeded in business or inventing?
The cost of summiting the tallest mountains is very high, as is the failure rate. Many great men and women failed in the beginning, but a just man falls seven times and rises yet again.
 
Through His Strength We Will Conquer,
Andrew C. Abbott

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