end to follow, of my own accord, for the
sheer joy of it, the =kinds of activity= demanded by this vocation
which I am contemplating?_

If you do not you will never succeed in this line of work.

Thought it Would Do Him Good

One incident will serve to illustrate the foregoing test. A young man
asked us if he could succeed as a public speaker. He had decided to
become a lecturer and had spent two years studying for that work.

"Do you enjoy talking? Do you like to explain and expatiate? When out
with others do you furnish your share of the conversation or a little
more?" were the questions we put to him.

To all of the questions he answered "No."

"But I thought this was just the line of work I ought to go into," he
explained, "I have always been diffident and I thought the training
would do me good."

Life Pays the Producer

Expecting the world to pay you handsomely while remaking you is
short-sighted, to say the least. The public schools are free, like
life's education, but you don't get a salary for attending them.

To be a success you must PRODUCE something out of the ordinary for the
world. And you will produce nothing unusual save what your particular
organism was built to produce. To know what this is, classify the kind
of activities you "take to" naturally. You can be a star in some line
that calls for those activities. You will never succeed in any calling
which demands the opposite kinds of activities or reactions.

The Worst Place for Her

A few years ago, in San Francisco, a young woman came to us for
vocational advice. She had decided to find an opening in a
silk-importing establishment, for none of whose duties she was
qualified. When asked how she happened to hit upon the thing for which
she unquestionably had no ability, she said:

"I thought it would give me a world outlook (which I need); compel me to
learn fabrics (something I think every woman ought to know); force me to
attend to details (which I have always hated but which I must learn to
master); and because it would bring me into contact with people (I
dislike them but think I should learn to deal with them)."

When Considering a Position

When a position is being considered the questions an applicant should
be asking himself are, "What must I do in this position? Am I qualified?
Can I make good? Do I like the activities demanded by this position?"

But ninety-nine out of every hundred applicants for a vacancy