ss. The great failure army is
full of people who have tried to get square with their employers for
the small salary and lack of appreciation.

No one can respect himself or have that sublime faith in himself which
makes for high achievement while he puts half-hearted, mean service
into his work. The man who has not learned to fling his whole soul
into his task, who has not learned the secret of taking the drudgery
out of his work by putting the best of himself into it, has not learned
the first principles of success or happiness. Let other people do the
poor jobs, the botched work, if they will. Keep your standard up. It
is a lofty ideal that redeems the life from the curse of commonness and
imparts a touch of nobility to the personality.

No matter how small your salary, or how unappreciative your employer,
bring the entire man to your task; be all there; fling your life into
it with all the energy and enthusiasm you can muster. _Poor work
injures your employer a little, but it may ruin you_. Be proud of your
work and go to it every morning superbly equipped; go to it in the
spirit of a master, of a conqueror. Determine to do your level best
and never to demoralize yourself by doing your second best.

Conduct yourself in such a way that you can always look yourself in the
face without wincing; then you will have a courage born of conviction,
of personal nobility and integrity which have never been tarnished.

What your employer thinks of you, what the world thinks of you, is not
half as important as what you think of yourself. Others are with you
comparatively little through life. _You have to live with yourself day
and night through your whole existence, and you can not afford to tie
that divine thing in you to a scoundrel_.

CHAPTER XLIII

EXPECT GREAT THINGS OF YOURSELF

"Why," asked Mirabeau, "should we call ourselves men, unless it be to
succeed in everything everywhere?" Nothing else will so nerve you to
accomplish great things as to believe in your own greatness, in your own
marvelous possibilities. Count that man an enemy who shakes your faith
in yourself, in your ability to do the thing you have set your heart upon
doing, for when your confidence is gone, your power is gone. Your
achievement will never rise higher than your self-faith. It would be as
reasonable for Napoleon to have expected to get his army over the Alps by
sitting down and declaring that the undertaking was too great