Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to
burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can
one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a BURNING
DESIRE TO WIN, essential to success.
The morning after the great Chicago fire, a group of merchants
stood on State Street, looking at the smoking remains of what had
been their stores. They went into a conference to decide if they
would try to rebuild, or leave Chicago and start over in a more
promising section of the country. They reached a decision—all
except one-to leave Chicago.
The merchant who decided to stay and rebuild pointed a finger
at the remains of his store, and said, “Gentlemen, on that very spot
I will build the world’s greatest store, no matter how many times it
may burn down.”
That was more than fifty years ago. The store was built. It
stands there today, a towering monument to the power of that state
of mind known as a BURNING DESIRE. The easy thing for Marshal
Field to have done, would have been exactly what his fellow
merchants did. When the going was hard, and the future looked
dismal, they pulled up and went where the going seemed easier.
Mark well this difference between Marshal Field and the other
merchants, because it is the same difference which distinguishes
Edwin C. Barnes from thousands of other young men who have
worked in the Edison organization. It is the same difference which
distinguishes practically all who succeed from those who fail.
Every human being who reaches the age of understanding of
the purpose of money, wishes for it. Wishing will not bring riches.
But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession,
then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and
backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize
failure, will bring riches.
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IN EVERY chapter of this book, mention has been made of the
money-making secret which has made fortunes for more than five
hundred exceedingly wealthy men whom I have carefully analyzed
over a long period of years.
The secret was brought to my attention by Andrew Carnegie,
more than a quarter of a century ago. The canny, lovable old
Scotsman carelessly tossed it into my mind, when I was but a boy.
Then he sat back in his chair, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, and
watched carefully to see if I had brains enough to understand the
full significance of what he had said to me.
