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 Success
and Personal
Peace
Five Keys to Success
by Alan J. Folkman
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Several years ago I read a scripture that articulated a philosophy
of life that I've always believed. This scripture not only has become
my favorite passage but also my personal formula for success and
peace. It is found in Doctrine and Covenants 90:24.
"Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things
will work out for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the
covenants wherewith ye have covenanted one with another."
Although this was given in religious context, I think it applies
broadly to all areas of our lives. I want to focus today on five
ways we can apply this formula for success and personal peace. These
five applications are 1) be diligent, 2) pray always, 3) have faith,
4) walk uprightly, and 5) remember your covenants.
1. BE DILIGENT. Diligence
is making our best effort, working hard, and doing all we can. The
dictionary defines diligence as "earnest and persistent application
to an undertaking; steady effort."
President Calvin Coolidge said, "Nothing in the world can take the
place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than
unsuccessful men and women with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded
genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full
of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems
of the human race."
This should be encouraging to all of us because it suggests that
if we have not been born with natural beauty or talents, if we're
not geniuses, or if we do not have degrees from Harvard, Stanford,
or Wharton, we can still succeed with hard work, determination,
persistence, and diligence. In business after business I have seen
survivors rise to positions of responsibility and opportunity because
they've been persistent in their effort and reliable in their performance
over an extended period of time.
In the early 1980s, I met one of the country's greatest businessmen
and leaders. His name is Sam Walton; his company is Wal-Mart. He
was a dynamic leader who characterizes persistence and determination.
I recently read Forbes magazine featuring the richest four hundred
people in America. Bill Gates was number one with $63 billion. Larry
Ellison of Oracle was number two at $58 billion. Before Sam Walton
died in 1992, he divided his estate equally among his wife and four
children. Each one of them was noted in Forbes with $17 billion.
If you multiply $17 billion times five, that's $85 billion dollars,
meaning he created more wealth than the other two.
Let me share with you a couple of facts about his life that identify
some of the characteristics that made him successful. He graduated
from the University of Missouri and went to work for JCPenney in
the early 1940s. He worked eighteen months and then joined the army.
Once he was out of the army at age twenty-seven, he scraped together
enough money to buy a small Ben Franklin variety store in Newport,
Arkansas. His goal was to have the most profitable variety store
in Arkansas within five years. At the end of five years, it not
only was the most profitable store in Arkansas but also the most
profitable variety store in the six-state region. He made a mistake,
though. He didn't realize that he had signed a five-year lease that
could not be renewed. He became a merchant without a store.
Determined to succeed in retailing, Walton took the fifty thousand
dollars that he had saved and went looking for another store. Walton
found Bettonville, Arkansas—a sleepy little country town of three
thousand people—and opened Walton's Five and Dime. For the next
twenty years, he opened and operated several five-and-dime stores.
I think he got up to about nine stores by 1962 when he mortgaged
everything he had to open the first Wal-Mart store.
Wal-Mart today has one million employees and is the largest retailer
in the world. By the way, if you had invested two hundred dollars
when he went public in 1970, the stock would have been worth 2.6
million when Walton died in 1992.
Did Sam Walton have earnest and persistent application to an undertaking?
In his autobiography, he wrote:
"As I look back, I realize that ours is a story about the kinds
of traditional principles that made America great. It's a story
about believing in your idea, even when others don't, and sticking
to your guns. I think more than anything else it proves that there's
absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary working people can accomplish
if they're given the opportunity, encouragement, and set up to do
their best. That is how Wal-Mart became Wal-Mart. Ordinary people
joined together to accomplish extraordinary things."
Young people often have difficulty looking ahead to see how they
will reach their goals. Will I make it to college? Can I get the
grades I need to be competitive? Will I get the job I want? Will
I ever get out of debt? Sometimes it's hard to imagine how we will
get from where we are to where we want to be.
The realization of our goals often comes as a result of compounding.
"The miracle of compounding" is a familiar phrase in finance; it's
when you take an investment return of principle and interest and
let it build on itself. Simple interest is payment on principle
only; compounding is interest paid on accumulated principle and
interest.
A dramatic example of compounding is the 1626 Indian sale of Manhattan
Island in New York to a group of immigrants for $24 dollars in beads
and trinkets. For more than 350 years it's been held up as the craziest
sale in history. But let me tell you something about this $24. If
the Indians had invested that $24 at 6 percent, it would be worth
more than $35 billion today.
This is a result of compounding over a long period of time and doing
small things consistently. What if they had invested their $24 at
8 percent instead of 6? The investment would be worth $30 trillion.
It's amazing what rewards a little more effort produces over time.
What does compounding have to do with diligence and success? I believe
that the miracle of compounding applies to all areas of our lives.
Consistent and persistent effort in doing small things brings big
results over time. Building upon results and then building upon
what has accumulated is a powerful process. Compounding produces
more than simple isolated returns in everything we do.
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