AFTER PREPARING FOR SUCCESS,EXPECT IT

AFTER PREPARING FOR SUCCESS,EXPECT IT

After Preparing for Success, Expect It:

Let your bearing be modestly confident, but most of all be modestly confident within. Over-confidence is bad, but to tolerate premonitions of failure is worse, for a bold man may win attention by his very bearing, while a rabbit-hearted coward invites disaster.

Humility is not the personal discount that we must offer in the presence of others, against this old interpretation there has been a most healthy modern reaction. Any man who thoroughly knows himself must feel True humility but it is not a humility that assumes a worm like meekness; it is rather a strong, vibrant prayer for greater power for service, a prayer that could never have uttered.

Washington Irving once introduced Charles Dickens at a dinner given in the latter’s honour. In the middle of his speech Irving hesitated, became embarrassed, and sat down awkwardly.Turning to a friend beside him he remarked, “There, I told you I would fail, and I did.” If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will. Rid yourself of this I-am-a-poor-worm-in-the-dust idea. You are a god, with infinite capabilities. “All things are ready if the mind be so.” The eagle looks the cloudless sun in the face.

Assume Mastery Over Your Audience: In public speech, as in electricity, there is a positive and a negative force. Either you or your audience are going to possess the positive factor. If you assume it, you can almost invariably make it yours If you assume the negative, you are sure to be negative. Assuming a virtue or a vice vitalises it. Summon all your power of self-direction, and remember that though your audience is infinitely more important than you are, the truth is more important than both of you, because it is eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership, the sword will drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appal you as being colossal impudence, as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be courageous.

BE courageous, it lies within you to be what you will.MAKE yourself be calm and confident. In facing your audience, pause a moment and look them over, a hundred chances to one they want you to succeed, for what man is so foolish as to spend his time, perhaps his money, in the hope that you will waste his investment by talking dully?