1. Success
What is Success?
The definition of success varies with each person asked. For some it is money, for
others fame, for still others, success is a matter of family strength and stability. The
underlying element in all definitions, though, includes the ability to reach set goals,
accumulate victories, progress with desired projects, and accomplish desired
results with excellence.
The core of success, then, is rooted in the deep soil of ability and accomplishment,
backed by abiding will and determination. No individual can be thought entirely
successful whose victories are a matter of luck, chance, charity from others, or
coincidence. As delightful as good luck and fortune can be, they lack the sense of
accomplishment and security needed for a true feeling of success. Without the
underlying ability to continue generating success, there is an inevitable lack of
confidence, both in yourself, and demonstrated by those around you.
Success involves the ability to set goals, develop skills, and maintain a course in
the face of opposition and obstacles. Success involves the ability to alter your
course, too, when presented with new information and new opportunities. The
successful man is one who looks to the future and sees possibilities to be pursued.
He accepts setbacks as nothing more than challenges to overcome.
Successful people focus on excellence: For a successful person, the old saying,
“Any job worth doing is worth doing well,” is a watchword. Where many people
draw the line at “good enough,” the successful person will ask himself whether his
work couldn’t be just a bit better. A successful tailor will take just a bit more time
on the fitting; a successful cook will ask himself whether there’s not some old
favorite dish seldom offered outside a mother’s kitchen that might become a new
star on his menu. The successful student will put in the extra hours of study, and
will pay the necessary money to ensure his carefully written papers are properly
edited.
Yet this pursuit of excellence is restrained by caution and good sense. The
successful person will choose to pursue excellence while always judging what
methods of that pursuit are too costly in time, or too far from the primary line of
effort to be worth consideration. The father, raising children, will choose a good
school for them, but not always the costliest or the best known, aiming for superb
education and admirable social ties, but not always for the greatest prestige. He

2. will do this in the knowledge that prestige is seldom worth knowledge and good
associates, in the long run, especially if, instead of prestige, a father can then offer
a small fund of saved money to give a young man or woman a good start in life. A
father so wise is a success as a father, and works to ensure that his children, too,
will be successful.
Success, however, isn’t just something one reaches. Success is also the road one
walks to attain a successful outcome. Indeed, in the long run the greatest success is
the success of constant effort, and unending goals. A person with one more goal
than they can achieve in their given lifetime has just enough goals for the perfect
life.
How can this be so? What is the value of a life of striving, with no end in sight but
the grave? Imagine the other option – to have too few goals. All of us have seen
the truest failures: The shambling men and bitter women who ran out of hopes and
plans before they ran out of life. No wealth, no fame, no victory is sufficient to
overcome the despair of a life which has lost its challenge, and which offers no
more goals.
This, of course, means that success is based on no single goal, or any particular
victory; success is a life-skill, not a single skill aimed at one primary challenge.
He who would succeed must first learn to live, and live a life that is grand in its
scope and majesty. That need not mean that your life must be lived on a large
scale, but it does demand that it be lived on a deep and profound scale. The
successful man is like an ancient king or sage; many such men never travelled
more than a few miles from the places of their birth. The ancient wealth and
wisdom available to them would look like poverty and ignorance to those of us
living in the modern world.
Yet these great ones accomplished successes we still read of, and offered wisdom
we still turn to. Their joys and contentment speak to us across the ages, reminding
us that we, too, can learn success at the feet of great and wise leaders.
The man who would be a success must, at some point, accept this call to a deep
and complexly fulfilling life. Smart people can see what “success” without roots
can bring. The modern papers show us daily the results of shallow success
accomplished by small-souled people who were unprepared for life’s challenges.
The rock star who dies young, poisoned by his own dissolute habits; the politician
who falls as a result of his own arrogance and vanity; the holy man whose holiness
is shown to be merely advertising hiding a life of petty hedonism and spite. All are

3. proofs offered daily that “success” isn’t a matter of brief fame or fortune, but a
matter of lasting integrity and preparation.
To achieve success, a man must learn to live success. He must rise successful,
greet his good wife successfully, and embrace his children successfully. He must
plan his day’s work with his soul centered in the heart of successful living.
Breaking Down the Stages
The first stage in accomplishing success is, perhaps, the sweetest for many people,
for the first stage of success is to imagine and to dream. The first step in success is
to develop dreams, goals, and objectives. They may be simple, or complex, short-
term or long-term, but the goals must exist. Even those who choose to live
meditative, silent lives have chosen a challenging goal – for humans, the silent,
meditative life is, perhaps, the most challenging form of success to pursue.
The first thing you need to do is reserve some time and space to pursue the idea of
your goals and desires. Find a place you can relax – in your room, in a park, at a
nearby library. Find someplace you will feel safe and comfortable letting your
mind roam. Bring a pad of paper and a pencil, because you’ll be taking lots of
notes. Get to your safe place, settle down, and let yourself relax for a few minutes.
Then just ask yourself what things you really want that would define a “successful
life” for you.
Next, you will imagine what you wish for in your life. Do you want wealth?
Write it down on your piece of paper. “I want wealth.” What about a family? “I
want to have a family, with strong and beautiful sons and daughters.” Do you want
the respect of your community? Put that down on your piece of paper, also. Add
things you know you want to do your whole life: “I want to play football with the
local team for all my life, no matter what else I do.” “I want to entertain often, and
to be known as a generous and joyful host.” “I want a happy marriage with a
partner I can honor and who will honor me.”
Whatever you’ve put down should be the things you want the most ... the very
most. It’s easy to come up with a random list of things we like, but right now you
want to list the things that matter enough to live for, and die for. The list you
develop should focus on things you are willing to work for, change your habits for,
and put years into developing; only things that are worth that much to you will ever
give you the true feeling of success; unless, in rare cases, they come to mean that

4. much to you over a lifetime. Don’t ignore that – some things you never dreamed
of can become your most cherished successes. Leave some wiggle room in your
mind and heart for the unexpected sources of success.
In the meantime, though, start planning your life around the things you know you
want, and want deeply. Make your list. Think about it. Ask yourself what parts of
the list fit together well, and what parts don’t seem to fit. Ask whether you can
design a life that includes all the parts – how would it work? What would you
have to do to keep all the parts you care about? What would you have to do to
make room for the unexpected, the uncontrollable, and the unpredictable?
As you ask those questions, you should be beginning to get ideas. Perhaps you
want to be a doctor, with a family, living in the country, and writing books in your
free time. You can start thinking through all the elements: Having to get a medical
degree, finding a spouse who is willing to make the sacrifices doctor’s spouses
suffer. Finding a home and a community that gives you a practice and still gives
you countryside. Choosing a specialty that might actually give you weekends free
for writing. Each thing you want clarifies the demands you will have to make, and
refines the kind of life you can lead.
You’ll find yourself sadly setting some choices aside; they won’t fit the life you’re
planning. Don’t give them up, though. Make a category of “things for someday.”
Many people in modern times have more than one career over a lifetime, and
choose more than one kind of life. Leave yourself room for that.
Once you’re fairly sure you know what your central choices are, though, it’s time
for another list. You now have to work out the steps it will take to accomplish
those goals. To go to medical school you’ll have to get good grades in high school
and college. If you’ve already failed to do that, you’ll have to find a way to do
remedial work, and bring your academics up to an acceptable level. You have to
find ways to raise money for your education, and work to support you while you
study. Each step is there, waiting to be approached. Line them up in order and list
for yourself how long they might take. Be pessimistic: Assume they may take you
longer than you hoped. A medical degree might take you decades to earn. Begin
to prepare yourself for a long process. If that sounds intimidating, remember,
you’re not just preparing for one success, you’re preparing for a successful life.
Examine yourself, too. What do you have to change in yourself to accomplish your
goals? Are you, like many of us, inclined to procrastinate? Are you willing to quit
when things are “good enough,” and not bother with the fine details that are the

5. hallmarks of excellence? Do you cut corners? Try to take short cuts? Are you
angry at being expected to work harder, or inclined to whine?
The effort to change these things will become part of your daily discipline. Make
no mistake: Success demands discipline. There’s a reason to choose goals you
love, if you possibly can. The joy and pride you will gain in excelling in something
you love, and the comfort and delight of working daily at something you care
about can provide a great deal of reward to make up for the cost of self-discipline,
exacting standards, and hard work.
Moving Forward
Once you’ve chosen goals and made plans, the hard part starts: Living the life.
Success is never a gift given, or even a reward earned. Instead, success is a road
you’ve walked to a destination you’ve dreamed of. The destination is only a
fraction of success itself, though.
Think about that metaphor. A long road walked, one step at a time, each step
taking seconds, the seconds adding up to minutes, minutes slowly accumulating
into days, weeks, months, and years. Each day more steps. At last you reach the
destination – and the trip is done. Once there, you’ll have to choose new
destinations, and walk new roads. The victory lasted a brief second. The trip lasted
a small eternity.
True success isn’t found in the destination; it’s found in the trip. That’s true in
many, many different ways. The first we’ve already discussed – you must value the
destination enough, to make the trip worthwhile. But there are more ways to
consider.
Look at the plans you’ve made to reach your goals. You’ve already realized that
most of your biggest goals demand that you progress in stages, learn skills, and
accomplish certain secondary goals on the route. You’ve realized the willpower,
dedication and commitment the process will demand from you.
Have you planned for the joy it should also bring?
Think about what was said previously. The road to success lasts far longer than the
moment of victory. If you will spend years of your life reaching your goals, you
must find a way to make the years themselves worth living; otherwise your final
victory can never compensate for the years of misery along the way. Have you

6. planned a route in such a way that there will be pleasures, pride, and
accomplishment along the way? Will you have time for friends, family, and for
your community? Will you retain the energy and resources to contribute to the
world as you move along?
A life empty of these things may end in victories, but it will never be considered a
true success. There have been many driven men and women throughout history.
Some have accomplished incredible things. Some are even called successful. Yet,
when you read the biography of a man or woman who gave up a full, rich life to
win a brief victory, it can be hard to understand why they’re seen as successful.
Only if they loved the route to their victories as much as they loved the outcome
can they truly be held successful in life.
There are, of course, special cases. In all traditions, religious and philosophical,
there are men and women who have made amazing and inspiring sacrifices to
accomplish great feats. There is no culture without a narrative of a man who gave
his entire life to some great deed, or a woman who sacrificed everything – youth,
love, wealth, health, and happiness – to give some great gift to the future. There are
people we consider “successful” in these senses whose success is impossible to
fathom in terms of joy or delight in the path taken. And yet...
It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s Jesus of Nazareth, giving up the life of a solid
craftsman or scholar to become a preacher, and ultimately to die, or a medic dying
to drag the wounded from the field, or a fireman who dies saving lives. Each of
these “successes” lived a life that showed great joy and passion, even in the
moment of loss and hardship. Each was rewarded by the very path they took to
accomplish their goals.
Your life must reward you, and it must reward you with more than just the ultimate
accomplishment. Look at your plans, and decide if you can endure them, and
ultimately find delight in them. If not, revise your plans.
Then, begin the process. This is harder than it sounds.
It’s a proverbial truth that most small businesses fail in their first year. Similarly,
child mortality rates indicate that the most dangerous time in a child’s life is the
first year.
The most dangerous time in the road to success is the beginning. Your path to
success is a form of resolution to yourself – and, like the millions of New Year’s

7. resolutions made, started, and dropped every year; most people fail to pursue their
path to success more than a short way. If you’ve chosen a path with regular
rewards and pleasures, your odds are higher – but the most vital element in these
first days is to greet each new day you continue on the path as a success in its own
right. Each time you fulfill an obligation, carry through on a commitment, put in
that extra effort to accomplish excellence, you need to congratulate yourself, and
permit yourself a moment of pride, for each time you do this you have succeeded.
Most people know the story of the Little Red Hen. She decides she wants bread. So
she sets out to accomplish that. There is a field to plough, grain to sow, weeds to
pull, wheat to harvest, threshing to be done. The grain must be ground, the flour
must be made into dough, and at last the bread must be made. Each step of the
way, the hen asks her friends for help – and, yet, oddly, no friend is willing to help
until it’s time to eat the bread.
The hen had to do the entire process alone, without help, without praise, without
support. If she were like most people, she would have spent the first round or so
getting angrier and angrier, concentrating on the failure of being unable to get
helpers, the difficulty of the job, and the fact that step after step in her progress, she
still had no bread.
Most of us allow things like this to stop us in our trip to success. We become
frustrated; we forget that the process has to play out. We get angry that we don’t
receive more help – or more recognition. We give up early, because rewards are so
slow coming in. Most of all we fail to pace ourselves, and we fail to reward
ourselves for each step completed.
I believe that the Little Red Hen succeeded, because as angry as she may have
been when no one would help, and as tired as she may have been, she was a wise
old hen. I think she knew it was a long way from an unploughed field to a baked
loaf of bread. I think she knew that help is rare – though always worth asking for.
I think that, after a hard day walking behind a plow, she stopped, stretched, and
said to herself, “Henny, old girl, look at that! You got a quarter of the field
ploughed! Not bad for an old chick!” I think she took herself home, read a good
book, and went to sleep proud that she’d done well for the day, instead of lying in
bed fuming that it would be months until she had hot bread.
I even think she may have found ways to enjoy the grueling work. Maybe she
looked up into the sky as she ploughed, enjoying the sun and the clouds. Maybe

8. she sang as she pulled weeds, and listened to her voice rise up in the quiet country
ai r.
One way or another, she prepared herself for the process of success, and set out in
such a way that she could keep on going. There are so many old sayings that apply
to this sort of situation. “Begin as you mean to go on.” “Never put off ‘till
tomorrow the things you can do today.” “Beginning is half done.” When you
begin, begin as though every day was worth new commitment, and every step
worth enjoyment. Congratulate yourself on every victory, even if the only victory
is getting homework completed well, and on time.
The People Around You
While the Little Red Hen may have had neither help nor hindrance from the people
around her, you’re not likely to be so lucky. People around you can help or hinder
your search for success, and will do so in many ways.
Many people can serve as agents of interference, often in ways that are quite
innocent. It is important, for example, to realize as quickly as possible that those
you compete with are not your enemies. Indeed, they may prove to be your best
friends, if you can bring yourself to accept them with joy, respect and humility.
None will ever understand your struggle as your competitors do, nor understand
the love you have for your shared calling. You may attract enmity, and you may
find one or two true hostile rivals, but in many ways you can and should look to
those who travel the same path you do for friendship and close associates.
Make those alliances. They will enrich your life, and ultimately they will
strengthen you in your efforts to achieve success. Have the courage and humility to
admire others, recognize their abilities, praise them both publically and privately –
not excessively, but when true admiration moves you. It doesn’t matter what areas
you seek to succeed in; in any realm, from the simple and pragmatic skill and craft
of many professions to the vague and abstract aspects of spiritual or philosophical
attainment, you will find people around you who excel, and whose performance
outstrips your own.
Even if you wish to work to equal the ability of these others, don’t do so out of
rage or frustration. Take the time to admire them, enjoy their ability, and cherish
their success. These are your great friends and teachers; to be among them is a
mark of success in its own right.

9. Value yourself enough to face others’ abilities without envy. Learn from them,
make them your role models, take pleasure in the chance you have been given to
watch skill and talent. Whether another man is a better husband and father, a better
craftsman, a better entrepreneur, his actions and abilities can’t reduce your own.
He is no threat to your ability, only to your pride, and while you must take pride in
your competence and achievement, that pride need not be gained by surrounding
yourself only with fools and failures – or by destroying serious competitors in
envy.
The Challenge of Good Friends and Family
It may surprise you to find that your most dangerous associates aren’t your rivals,
or your enemies, but your old friends and family. It’s true, though; those who you
love, and who love you in return, are the most likely to sabotage your efforts to
achieve success.
They won’t sabotage you on purpose. Indeed, they are far more likely to sabotage
you by trying to help, or at least while they think they’re helping. The trouble is,
friends and family are complicated people with too much power over you, and too
little real understanding of what you face in your life. Worse, they are capable of
all the mixed up, muddled, emotionally charged reactions you might originally
have ascribed to rivals and enemies.
Consider this: You have set yourself the goal of being the first in your family to
attend college, get a degree, and become a professional in one of the more highly
valued realms of work. Your mother and father are, of course, thrilled. They want
their son (or daughter) to progress and prosper. But their own lives have been filled
with another reality entirely. Your decision will draw you, a step at a time, from
the paths they know and understand. If you aren’t very careful, you will become a
stranger to them, and even an envied rival.
Imagine your mother and father greeting you at the end of your first day of school.
Instead of lingering and talking, or leaving to take part in local pastimes they know
and understand, you must excuse yourself and go study in your room. You must
turn your back on them, and on all they’ve done or experienced, to transform
yourself into something new they don’t understand.
Your mother will worry you don’t get out enough. Your father will be concerned,
for he knows that a man must have the support of his generation’s peers – he

10. “knows” you have to spend time with the other young men in the neighborhood,
living as they do, laughing at their jokes. Both will balance on the fence, wanting
to encourage your studies, but unable to stop fretting that the new life you are
leading in their own home is alien to all they have known. A man working for
success immediately cuts himself off from the world of those who aim for no more
than “fitting in.”
Every step of the way, you will find those you love sending you mixed messages –
wanting you to excel, but also wanting you to remain “like them.” As you begin
actually achieving the success you hunger for, it will actually become worse, for
even friends and family can feel envy, or shame, as they look at their own lives and
successes in comparison with yours.
It can be hard to deal with the mixed blend of love and resentment, pride and
shame, delight and anger that your friends and family can offer as you advance in
your goals. You’re almost certain to face unexpected fights, pressure to stop
behavior that is necessary to achieve your goals, criticism, and most of all, constant
accusations of vanity and conceit. A common cry of the envious is that “you think
you’re better than us.”
There is little you can do to change this, and it’s almost impossible to avoid being
hurt by it, even if you know it’s inevitable. Here you are, trying to become all the
worthwhile things parents, friends, and spouses are supposed to desire you to be,
and instead of being thrilled, proud and excited, your friends and family are
criticizing you, trying to take over your life, and rolling around in profound envy
and shame.
What’s a man to do?
Love them anyway, and understand that it’s often not about you – it’s about them.
These odd reactions are the responses of people who feel threatened by changes,
and shamed by success. At the very least, if you are taking a different course than
your loved ones have taken, you will be presented with the fear they feel at seeing
you enter into unknown territory. At the worst, if you’ve accidentally set off a
serious sense of failure on their part, they may be unable to stop the flood of anger,
shame and regret that rises up in response. The father who left school young will
see his son gain a degree – and wonder, bitterly, what he might have been had he
had the chance, or the ability, to remain in school. The mother who chose marriage
over a career may feel as though a professional daughter is a reproach to the

11. choices the mother made. Each is reacting to their own sense of failing, far more
than they’re responding to your success.
Love, them, honor them, praise them if you can – and let it go.
Equally hard can be the war over bad advice. Your friends and family will offer
you a universe of advice about your field. Unless they share your profession and
your world, there is a very good chance that much of the advice they offer will
either be outrageously obvious – so obvious even outsiders can see it – or
outrageously bad.
All this, too, you must let go. The obvious advice you must accept, and actually
use just as you would have in any case; and you should thank your advisors, even
if they are not geniuses. A man who gives you a single penny gives you a gift, and
it may be the greatest gift he has to offer. Your friends and family may be giving
you the least precious of recommendations, but they have worked hard and thought
long to provide you with the gift.
You must also be gracious and thankful for bad advice. It is similarly offered in
good faith and with good will, and it is a gift of love. Thank your friends. Then
consider the advice. Learn from it. A few things that look stupid actually turn out
to be very good advice, just unexpected and unusual. The rest you must simply
study, think about, and let go.
It can be very hard dealing with this sort of thing, and it can all come as a sudden
and shocking surprise. Success attracts troubles as a lit candle attracts moths:
When you shine your light to the world, the world reacts in a million ways, and
some are not what you’d choose. To carry on in the face of envy, confusion, false
fears, bad advice, and more, you must be strong, and you must be generous.
Yes, indeed, you must be generous. Remember, these are friends and family who
are being disconcerted, mixed up, and worried by the changes you’ve brought into
their lives. Your choices are altering their world, whether you wish it to or not.
You live with them and among them, you are held dear in their hearts. For all the
anger, loss, grief, rage, envy, shame, and even outright stupidity they may show,
the driving motive behind it all is love. It will be a struggle, but you must have the
courage and conviction it takes to keep loving them, even as you protect yourself.
Admire them for what they are, and hope in time they will learn to understand,
love, and admire you for what you are becoming.

12. Surviving Your Own Success
Perhaps the biggest mistake people make is failing to plan for their own success, or
planning badly. Again, we can see the results of lack of foresight every time we
read a news article or watch a news show. So many achieve success, and so few
manage to retain it. It takes a level head and good sense to live as a successful
person.
Some of the most obvious victims of their own success can be found in the world
of entertainment. Music, movies and television are businesses with an endless
hunger for the young and talented. These professions take some of the best,
brightest, most talented and beautiful young people our many cultures offer, raise
them to success at an early age, often with little training and preparation, and
expose them to all the temptations and tribulations of fame and fortune.
Far too many entertainers have relatively little training and grounding, and fewer
still have training in how to cope with success. There are rare cultures that seem to
prepare their young talents well: England shows a strong tendency to demand its
young performers get superb technical training, while holding up an ideal of
professionalism that can provide a secure anchor for newly successful youngsters.
English actors as a whole have tended to promote an ideal of performance as
nothing more than a job – a job that can and should be done well, with respect and
style, but not as something magical and glorious that proves the performer is
special.
As a result, the English seem to regularly present the world with modest, capable,
level-headed performers who deprive the gossip columns of much of the tattle and
melodrama found in other nations. England prepares its young performers for
success by teaching them that success is just another part of the business.
Conversely, one can look at other cultures and see the fallout of poorly prepared
and grounded “successful” performers who fall to pieces and destroy their own
success. Rather than treating their victories as simply business, one step in a
lifetime of steps, they believe that their first victory is permanent, exceptional, and
that it proves them to be special ... outside the realities of other, lesser mortals.
Soon it becomes clear, though, that without the grounding, the foresight, and the
modest attitude, these stars are doomed to fall.
Success is a daily thing – something you will work at your whole life. Only when
you are on your deathbed will you be able to say, calmly, that your life was a

13. success. Victories achieved along the way should certainly be enjoyed, but never
seen as your ultimate destination – just a pleasant stop along the way. Therefore,
plan your life to take success into account, as well as the inevitable failures. Be
ready for both, and have plans in place to move beyond both.
Nonetheless, there comes a time when a man must concede to himself that, no
matter how many goals are not yet achieved, and how many victories are yet to be
won, he is among the victors in the great game of life. If you have planned well,
worked hard, persevered, and not been crippled by overwhelming misfortune, there
will come a time when you can examine your life and feel that the successes you
hoped for at the beginning of your voyage have come to pass.
How a man deals with success is as revealing as how he deals with defeats and
setbacks. A true, great man, a complete success, becomes greater even in victory
than he was when he struggled. Such a man is in the position of the great kings of
legend – able to develop a legacy that can last for centuries, even millennia.
Andrew Carnegie, whose life is both praised and reviled, ultimately chose to be
known for the greatness of his gifts. As a philanthropist, he created a legacy of
educational funds, museums, and libraries whose effect has lived long after his
death. Bill Gates, at one time the most wealthy man in the world – indeed, the
most wealthy man ever – made the choice to become perhaps the most extensive
philanthropist ever, throwing his great fortune into matters of health, education,
and prosperity for people around the world. Oprah Winfrey, whose success has
shattered records for her gender and her race, has chosen to pour her wealth and
her prestige into schools, grants, and gifts that are changing lives.
It is to be hoped that you have given back to the world throughout your path to
success. It is more vital than ever, though, that having achieved success, you
determine how to invest some portion of that success back in the world around
you.
Your success has been in many ways a thing of your own creation. You have
chosen your goals, plotted your path, endured your trials, dealt with rivals and
enemies, as well as with friends and loved ones. Your skills, your reputation, and
your victory are yours. Yet, they are also granted to you by the world itself. What
you have won, you have won at others’ expense. What you have held, you have
held as much through luck as through your own virtue. If you doubt that you need
only look at a refugee camp, or a rival who died young, or a brilliant fellow student

14. whose family had to call him back to help support them, to understand that your
victories are also a gift given you by good fortune.
In many cases, it is also a gift given you by the support of your family, the
endurance of your friends, the patience of your superiors, the generosity and
excellence of your teachers. No man achieves success without having, in some way
and at some point, been given great support and great resources to draw from. It is
in victory and in the heart of success that we can most gloriously give back that
gift.
Paying it Forward
There’s a phrase that has been made famous in Western culture, used long before it
was popularized by a book using the phrase as a title. “Pay it forward” is a byword
for many.
The phrase means that the most powerful, generous, effective gift you can give is a
gift to the future of others. In many cases, that is interpreted as a gift to the young.
Just as often, it’s interpreted as a gift to anyone coming up the path of success
behind you. Regardless, the phrase always refers to an investment in the future
success of others. Where you have succeeded, you now reach out to help others
succeed, drawing them up the path to stand, in time, where you stand.
That act of generosity is, perhaps, the greatest victory of all, for it allows you the
pleasure of your own success, and the certainty that your success will in time
become in some sense a fragment of more success that may last down through the
ages. How, though, shall you give this great gift? How will the successful man
“pay it forward”?
There are many ways. For some, who are natural teachers, the best way is to take
students and teach. Whether you do so within the setting of schools, or as a mentor
within your own profession and business, you will have the joy and the
responsibility of serving as the guide to future generations. The wisdom, strategy,
and skill you’ve mastered over your life can be passed on to others. As your
students develop, you may very well come in time to consider their successes your
own greatest victories. The pride and joy you may feel seeing one of your finest
students step into your own place, as you step aside to enjoy your own old age,
may be the deepest pleasure a man can experience.

15. If you have neither the skill nor the patience to teach, however, that is no shame or
defeat. Not all people are given that gift or develop those skills. There are other
ways to pay it forward. You can help develop schools, you can plan or manage
grants and trust funds, or you can even create great and lasting prizes, like the
Pulitzer or the Nobel Prizes. The existence of such mechanisms has done enormous
good, ensuring the world will have a continuing stream of creative genius pouring
their brilliance out for the good of all.