The Young Man in Business

I know there are thousands of young men who feel themselves incompetent for a business career because of a lack of early education. And here might come in – if I chose to discuss the subject, which I do not – the oft-mooted question of the exact value of a college education to the young man in business. But I will say this: a young man need not feel that the lack of a college education will stand in any respect whatever in the way of his success in the business world. No college on earth ever made a business man. The knowledge acquired in college has fitted thousands of men for professional success, but it has also unfitted other thousands for a practical business career. A college training is never wasted, although I have seen again and again five-thousand-dollar educations spent on five-hundred-dollar men. Where a young man can bring a college education to the requirements of a practical business knowledge, it is an advantage. But before our American colleges become an absolute factor in the business capacities of men their methods of study and learning will have to be radically changed. I have had associated with me both kinds of young men, collegiate and non-collegiate, and I must say that those who had a better knowledge of the practical part of life have been those who never saw the inside of a college and whose feet never stepped upon a campus. College-bred men, and men who never had college advantages, have succeeded in about equal ratios. The men occupying the most important commercial positions in New York to-day are self-made, whose only education has come to them from contact with that greatest college of all, the business world. Far be it from me to depreciate the value of a college education. I believe in its advantages too firmly. But no young man need feel hampered because of the lack of it. If business qualities are in him they will come to the surface. It is not the college education; it is the young man. Without its possession as great and honorable successes have been made as with it. Men are not accepted in the business world upon their collegiate diplomas, nor on the knowledge these imply.

There are a great many young men in business to-day who grow impatient. They are in a position for a certain time; they are satisfactory to their employers, and then, because they are not promoted, they grow restless. These young men generally overlook a point or two. In the first place, they overlook the very important point that between the years of twenty and twenty-five a young man acquires rather than achieves. It is the learning period of life, the experience-gaining time. Knowledge that is worth anything does not come to us until we are past twenty-five. The mind, before that age, is incapable of forming wise judgment. The great art of accurate decision in business matters is not acquired in a few weeks of commercial life. It is the result of years. It is not only the power within him, but also the experience behind him, that makes a successful business man. The commercial world is only a greater school than the one of slates and slate-pencils. No boy, after attending school for five years, would consider himself competent to teach. And surely five years of commercial apprenticeship will not fit a young man to assume a position of trust, nor give him the capacity to decide upon important business matters. In the first five years, yes, the first ten years, of a young man's business life, he is only in the primary department of the great commercial world. It is for him, then, to study methods, to observe other men – in short, to learn and not to hope to achieve. That will come later. Business, simple as it may look to the young man, is, nevertheless, a very intricate affair, and it is only by years of closest study that we master an understanding of it.

The electric atmosphere of the American business world is all too apt to make our young men impatient. They want to fly before they can even walk well. Ambition is a splendid thing in any young man. But he must not forget that, like fire and water, it makes a good servant but a poor master. Getting along too fast is just as injurious as getting along too slow. A young man between twenty and twenty-five must be patient. I know patience is a difficult thing to cultivate, but it is among the first lessons we must learn in business. A good stock of patience, acquired in early life, will stand a man in good stead in later years. It is a handy thing to have and draw upon, and makes a splendid safety-valve. Because a young man, as he approaches twenty-five, begins to see things more plainly than he did five years before, he must not get the idea that he is a business man yet, and entitled to a man's salary. If business questions, which he did not understand five years before, now begin to look clearer to him, it is because he is passing through the transitory state that separates the immature judgment of the young man from the ripening penetration of the man. He is simply beginning. Afterward he will grow, and his salary will grow as he grows. But Rome wasn't built in a day, and a business man isn't made in a night. As experience comes, the judgment will become mature, and by the time the young man reaches thirty he will begin to realize that he didn't know as much at twenty-five as he thought he did. When he is ready to learn from others he will begin to grow wise. And when he reaches that state where he is willing to concede that he hasn't a "corner" on knowledge in this world, he will be stepping out of the chrysalis of youth.

There is another point upon which young men are often in doubt, and that is, just how far it pays to be honest in business. "Does it really pay to be honest in business?" they ask, and they are sincere and in earnest in the question.

Now, the simple fact of the matter is that a business success is absolutely impossible upon any other basis than one of the strictest honesty.

The great trouble with young men, nowadays, is that their ideas are altogether too much influenced by a few unfortunate examples of apparent success which are prominent – too prominent, alas! – in American life to-day. These "successful men" – for the most part identified in some way with politics – are talked about incessantly; interviewed by reporters; buy lavish diamonds for their wives, and build costly houses, – all of which is duly reported in the newspapers. Young men read these things and ask themselves, "If he can do it, why not I?" Then they begin to look around for some "short cut to success," as one young fellow expressed it to me not long ago. It is owing to this practice of "cutting across lots" in business that scores of young men find themselves, after awhile in tight places. And the man who has once had about him an unsavory taint in his business methods rarely, very rarely, rids himself of that atmosphere in the eyes of his acquaintances. How often we see some young man in business, representative of the very qualities that should win success. Every one agrees that he is brilliant. "He is clever," is the general verdict. His manner impresses one pleasantly, he is thoroughly businesslike, is energetic, and yet, somehow, he never seems to stick to one place. People wonder at it, and excuse it on the ground that he hasn't found the right place. But some day the secret is explained. "Yes, he is clever," says some old business man, "but do you know he isn't – well, he isn't quite safe!" "Quite safe!" How much that expresses; how clearly that defines hundreds and hundreds of the smartest young men in business to-day. He is everything else – but he isn't "quite safe!" He is not dishonest in any way, but he is, what is equally as bad, not quite reliable. To attain success he has, in other words, tried to "cut across lots." And rainbow-chasing is really a very commendable business in comparison to a young man's search for the "royal road to success." No success worth attaining is easy; the greater the obstacles to overcome, the surer is the success when attained. "Royal roads" are poor highways to travel in any pursuit, and especially in a business calling.

It is strange how reluctant young men are to accept, as the most vital truth in life, that the most absolute honesty is the only kind of honesty that succeeds in business. It isn't a question of religion or religious beliefs. Honesty does not depend upon any religious creed or dogma that was ever conceived. It is a question of a young man's own conscience. He knows what is right and what is wrong. And yet, simple as the matter is, it is astonishing how difficult it is of understanding. An honest course in business seems too slow to the average young man. "I can't afford to plod along. I must strike and strike quickly," is the sentiment. Ah, yes, my friend, but not dishonestly. No young man can afford even to think of dishonesty. Success on honorable lines may sometimes seem slower in coming, but when it does come it outrivals in permanency all the so-called successes gained by other methods. To look at the methods of others is always a mistake. The successes of to-day are not given to the imitator, but to the originator. It makes no difference how other men may succeed – their success is theirs and not yours. You cannot partake of it. Every man is a law unto himself. The most absolute integrity is the one and the only sure foundation of success. Such a success is lasting. Other kinds of success may seem so, but it is all in the seeming, and not in the reality. Let a young man swerve from the path of honesty, and it will surprise him how quickly every avenue of permanent success is closed against him. It is the young man of unquestioned integrity who is selected for the important position. No business man ever places his affairs in the hands of a young man whom he feels he cannot unhesitatingly trust. And to be trusted means to be honest. Honesty, and that alone, commands confidence. An honest life, well directed, is the only life for a young man to lead. It is the one life that is compatible with the largest and surest business success.

And so it is easy enough for any young man to succeed, provided he is willing to bear in mind a few very essential truths. And they are:

Above all things he should convince himself that he is in a congenial business. Whether it be a trade or a profession, – both are honorable and profitable, – let him satisfy himself, above everything else, that it enlists his personal interest. If a man shows that he has his work at heart his success can be relied on. Personal interest in any work will bring other things; but all the other essentials combined cannot create personal interest. That must exist first; then two-thirds of the battle is won. Fully satisfied that he is in the particular line of business in which he feels a stronger, warmer interest than in any other, then he should remember:

First – That, whatever else he may strive to be, he must be absolutely honest. From honorable principles he never should swerve. There can be no half-way compromise.

Second – He must be alert, alive to every opportunity. He cannot afford to lose a single point, for that single point may prove to be the very link that would make complete the whole chain of a business success.

Third – He must ever be willing to learn, never overlooking the fact that others have long ago forgotten what he has still to learn. Firmness of decision is an admirable trait in business. The young man whose opinions can be tossed from one side to the other is poor material. But youth is full of errors, and caution is a strong trait.

Fourth – If he be wise he will entirely avoid the use of liquors. If the question of harm done by intoxicating liquor is an open one, the question of the actual good derived from it is not.

Fifth – Let him remember that a young man's strongest recommendation is his respectability. Some young men, apparently successful, may be flashy in dress, loud in manner, disrespectful to women and irreverent toward sacred things. But the young man who is respectable always wears best. The way a young man carries himself in his private life ofttimes means much to him in his business career. No matter where he is, or in whose company, respectability, and all that it implies, will always command respect.

If any young man wishes a set of rules even more concise, here it is:

Get into a business you like.

Devote yourself to it.

Be honest in everything.

Be cautious. Think carefully about a thing before you act.

Sleep eight hours every night.

Do everything that means keeping in good health.

Don't worry. Worry kills more men than work does.

Avoid liquors of all kinds.

If you must smoke, smoke moderately.

Shun discussion on two points, – religion and politics.

Marry a good woman, and have your own home.