Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-07-15
HINDRANCES TO SUCCESS
BY H. Addington Bruce


IN Monday Morning, they tell me, you
are starting to work for the first time
~ The position you have obtained does
not pay much, but you are hopeful that it
will lead to bigger things.
Well, whether it will not depends
mostly on yourself.
It is not the particular position a young
man obtains SO much as the way he fills
that position that counts for his business fu-
ture. The greatest hindrances to success
are always personal hindrances.
If you set out to work with the feeling
that things are now going to be much
easier and pleasanter for you than they were
in school, you are not likely to advance
either rapidly or far.
The fact is that from the outset the bust
ness world will make heavier demands on
you than the school world ever made. And
one reason so many young men stagnate in
business is because they do not appreciate
this.
In effect they say to themselves, "My
study days, thank heaven, are over. I need
never gain trouble myself to study any
Actually business requir5 them to study
harder than the school teacher required
them to study. 1t bids them keep per-
petually alert to solve the problems it per-
petual1y presents.
Many of them, however, seem to shut up
shop mentally the moment they leave school
and enter some field of active business eff
fort.
In a mechanical, almost automatic way,
they tackle the jobs given them. They are
content to get them done "well enough.
What little thinking they do relates
chiefly to plans for amusement in their
leisure hours. They use up no gray matter
whatever in planning to excel at their work
itself.
Wherefore, however, possible it might be
for IN win do oP Al how
stay in the ranks of the CO crowd. Promo
tion is not for them, tor the sufficient rea-
son that they do not deserve promotion.
Other young men, perhaps really keen
while at work, handicap themselves by cher
ishing the stupid delusion that outside of
working hours their time is absolutely their
own, to do with as they please.
This leads, in too many cases, to unfor-
tunate living habits. A drain on the vitality
results, lowering their efficiency perhaps to
the point of incompentency.
A stubborn. irritable frame of mind
mistakenly described as "an independent
Spirits another common hindrance to
success.
The young man afflicted with it is likely
to be also, of a smoewhat conceited, self
satisfied turn. He does not begin his bust
ness career in the receptive attitude every
beginner should show.
When he makes mistakes-and all begin
ners make mistakes-he resents having his
attention called to them. He takes crit
icisms insults. Hence he soon Becomes
impossible an employe and intoIerable
as an associate.
Equally his own worst enemy is the
young man who starts business life with no
adequate sense of personal responsibility.
Lacking this, he promises but fails to per-
form. He makes appointments and is either
late for them or forgets them altogether.
He is Indifferent to business details, per-
haps to the extent of causing his employer
serious loss
Be sure that such young man is forever
under the necessity of hunting new place.
Talent will not save him. Talent, for that
matter will not save any man who is seri-
ously deficient in character.
Which. above all else, is what you, about
to engage in the competitive struggle, ought
to remember.