During the uninhibited days of the California gold rush, the only rule was that the gold was where you found it. The very term, "strike it rich," was indicative of the large part luck played in one's success. Of two men working the same creek within feet of each other, one could emerge a rich man and the other a pauper though both were applying the same amount of energy and talent to the job. And just to keep things interesting, lucky men are still finding gold in sizable amounts entirely by accident. Nevertheless, few are the modern mining companies that include luck as a major asset in the annual report to stockholders.
Today geology, mineralogy, and geo-physics are the sciences that have greatly reduced, though not entirely eliminated, the element of luck in our search for buried wealth. Aerial photographs reveal geological formations that the Forty-Niner couldn't suspect though he dug and picked his way over the terrain foot by foot. Electronic devices suspended below helicopters probe the earth like super-powered mine detectors, registering the presence of minerals far below the surface. Explosives are detonated to send shock waves into the earth, and sensitive devices record the echoing waves returned by different types of minerals and barren rock. When all of this data is patiently compiled, and then compared with the data supplied by mines of known productivity, the modern gold seeker has but to dig at the spot his scientific aids indicate as most likely.
The same principle is used by the modern navigator who uses gyro-compasses, radio compasses, Loran, Shoran, and radar to keep him safely on course through fogs that would leave helpless the navigator of only a few years ago. Man can see a port through solid fog, and make blind landings when, to use an airman's description, "even the birds are walking." He can see through solid rock, and find wealth the Forty-Niner wouldn't have recognized had he seen it on the surface. But what can he see of his own goal in life? And what does he know of the wealth contained in his own buried achievements?
Dr. Harlow Shapley, whose highly technical articles on astronomy have made him world famous, made this observation on humans during the long course of his observations of outer space: "Man has a deadly enemy at his throat, one that may succeed in returning the planet to the clams, kelp, and cockroaches. The enemy is, of course, himself. Man's worst foe is man."
What the celestial philosopher was driving at is that while man is perfectly willing to tackle the most dangerous forms of external exploration, from the explosive content of the invisible nucleus to the reaches of limitless space itself, he is extremely reluctant to face inward exploration. Wrote Dean Roy Pearson of the Andover Newton Theological School, "Whatever our fears of meeting other people, none is quite as great as our fear of meeting ourselves."
I am not going to discount the fact that this fear is fatal for early worms, and hundreds of others can be equally treacherous when wrongly applied.
Not Where to Go, But How to Get There
Instead, we begin by looking into your past to become better acquainted with that unique," successful person who is yourself. This is by no means an easy task. If you are like most, you have been acting parts for so long, and adapting yourself to roles provided by changing circumstances that sometimes the roles become more real in your mind than your actual self. As Hitler's propaganda chief, Paul Goebbels, proved, a he repeated often enough takes on the appearance of truth, and when that distortion takes place, conflict results. Not that you were lying when you adapted yourself to changing roles any more than the chameleon is lying when he changes color from place to place, but he may have some conflict in deciding what color he really is.
What we are looking for in your past are your achievements. That should be a pleasure, but immediately we encounter our old bugaboo, tradition. I know I have dwelt over-long on tradition, but you have no idea how much too long tradition has dwelt in you. A few phrases, no matter how often I repeat them, do not easily overcome beliefs so firmly planted by the centuries that they are akin to instinct. You may want to look for your achievements, but as I warned earlier, your first reaction is to shy away from anything that might make you look "conceited," or "too big for your britches." Forget it Successful companies spend millions of dollars a year in advertising to proclaim the merits of their products, and what is good for companies is good for individuals when the claims are based on merit.
So let's get organized; an obvious suggestion leading to more complications. Recently I visited a friend who had become the chief adviser and organizer to the president of a $100,000,000 firm. On my previous visit I found him with a desk so neatly stacked with papers real. I have seen it too often. I have also seen its cause. Almost without exception, man fears to look back .at what he was. The mistakes he made are still too painful. The first look at the past produces a wince, and a deeper look produces only a deeper cut. Instinctively, like the burnt child recoiling from the hot stove, he snaps his thoughts back to the endurable present, and assures himself that it is better to "let sleeping dogs lie."
That is like saying it is better to let the fog-bound ship crash, and the modern miner sink his pick in solid rock. It is the same old tired theory that a man profits from his mistakes. If one's past contains painful mistakes, it likewise contains rewarding achievements. If the Comstock Lode was one of the most richly rewarding strikes in history, Mount Davidson on which it is located is as big a pile of barren rock as one would care to contemplate, Hundreds of men dug into it and found laborasca-only the rock. But the Comstock is not famed for the thousands of failures. It is famed because from its wealth sprang railroads, and telegraph lines, and a substantial part of San Francisco. Who looked at a mountain of failure when the thin vein of success was what counted?
In the same way, why should you look into your past at the painful failures when it is your accomplishments that count? Merely because thousands of years teach that ships must crash in a fog doesn't make our modern navigators refuse scientific navigational aids. Merely because the search for gold was conducted for thousands of years on a hit-or-miss basis doesn't mean our modern gold-seeker must reject the scientific aids available today. And merely because the centuries teach that we must profit from our mistakes-a feat the centuries notably failed to accomplish-doesn't mean that you must work without the career development aids discovered in recent years.
No longer do you have to flounder around in a confusion of conflicting proverbs made authoritative only because they seem to have stood the test of time. Enough of those old sayings have been coined to fit almost any situation, but the" same one that works for early birds that the neatness itself was awesome. "I've got everything organized in order of importance,'' he had assured me, "In one second I can find any paper I need."
This time, not to my complete astonishment, I found him with a clear desk, while in his hands he held one manila folder. "You were right," he admitted wryly. "Those neat piles I was so proud of were distracting. As long as they were there, they reminded me of what I had to do, and I couldn't concentrate on the one job that was urgent. So I cleared everything off the desk except the job I was working on, and I've been able to concentrate like fury ever since."
Before my friend could select the one job for his immediate attention, he had to concentrate -first on some job planning. He had to familiarize himself with the values of all the papers before he could determine the order in which they were to be tackled one by one. Steeped in company policy as he was, the job-planning offered no great difficulty.
On the other hand, how do we concentrate on the over-all job-planning of a career when we don't know what course the career might take?
The traditional "rules for success" have no answer for that question. They would have you "set a goal" and "work hard", until you get there. The logic seems sound, and many determined men have achieved "success" that way, but just as often the results can be tragic. That distant goal selected at the age of 20 can turn out to be a dead end at 40, especially if the goal was one selected as the result of well-meant advice from parents, friends, teachers or employers. And then, tradition would have you believe, it is too late to start over.
