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Dec 24 24
23 min read
The Iron-Willed

Iron Will

A course on willpower. New lessons coming.

The One Who Can

Rags-to-riches, repeat
Osmarden
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What is will-power, looked at in a large way, but energy of character? Energy of will, self-originating force, is the soul of every great character. Where it is, there is life; where it is not, there is faintness, helplessness, and despondency.
Let it be your first study to teach the world that you are not wood and straw; that there is some iron in you. Men who have left their mark upon the world have been men of great and prompt decision.
The achievements of will-power are almost beyond computation. Scarcely anything seems impossible to the man who can will strongly enough and long enough.
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One talent with a will behind it will accomplish more than ten without it, as a thimbleful of powder in a rifle, the bore of whose barrel will give it direction, will do greater execution than a carload burned in the open air.
Orison Swett Marden lost his mother at age three and his father at age seven. As an orphan and 'hired boy,' he worked for five successive families earning his keep.
In his teenage years, he came across a self-improving book by Samuel Smiles. He valued the book as if it were "worth its weight in diamonds" and committed the words to memory.
From this moment, he aspired to exit poverty. He spent his twenties working in hotels while earning degrees in law, science, and medicine.
In his thirties, he became a hotelier and wrote feverishly on how success is achieved. Then at 44, a fire took everything he had—his clothes, his hotel, his great manuscript.
One of his former employees, Margaret Connolly, described the event as follows:"Over five thousand pages of manuscripts – the fruit of all the spare time he had been able to snatch from nearly fifteen crowded years of business life – had gone up in smoke..."
Connolly continued:"Having nothing but his nightshirt on when he escaped from the fire, [Marden] went down the street to provide himself with necessary clothing. As soon as this had been attended to, he bought a twenty-five-cent notebook, and, while the ruins of the hotel were still smoking, began to rewrite from memory the manuscript of his dream book."
Now broke, Marden rented the cheapest room he could find. He wrote without rest. Within a few weeks, he had submitted two complete manuscripts for publication.
He’d write over 50 books in his career. Counted among his devoted readers were Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, Prime Minister William Gladstone, and the industrialists Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and J. P. Morgan. His self-improving magazine circulated with a half million subscribers.
This is a man who lived the rags-to-riches tale not once, but twice. In the subsequent episodes, we’ll use his book “Iron Will” to explore the most powerful trait any man or woman can ever possess: the ability to do what one commits to do.
Osmarden
O
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, Can circumvent, or hinder, or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; All things give way before it soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force Of the sea-seeking river in its course, Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait? Each well-born soul must win what it deserves. Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, Whose slightest action or inaction serves The one great aim.— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Obedient Sotiri

Obedience as will
Osmarden
O
"The education of the will is the object of our existence."— Ralph Waldo Emerson
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No man can ever estimate the power of will. It is a part of the divine nature, all of a piece with the power of creation. We speak of God's fiat "Fiat lux, Let light be."
Man has his fiat. The achievements of history have been the choices, the determinations, the creations, of the human will.
It was the will, quiet or pugnacious, gentle or grim, of men like Wilberforce and Garrison, Goodyear and Cyrus Field, Bismarck and Grant, that made them indomitable. They simply would do what they planned.
Such men can no more be stopped than the sun can be, or the tide. Most men fail, not through lack of education or agreeable personal qualities, but from lack of dogged determination, from lack of dauntless will.
"It is impossible," says Sharman, "to look into the conditions under which the battle of life is being fought, without perceiving how much really depends upon the extent to which the will-power is cultivated, strengthened, and made operative in right directions."
Osmarden
O
This is well illustrated by a report I have seen of the long race from Marathon in the recent Olympian games, which was won by the young Greek peasant, Sotirios Louès.
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There had been no great parade about the training of this champion runner.
From his work at the plough he quietly betook himself to the task of making Greece victorious before the assembled strangers from every land.
He was known to be a good runner, and without fuss or bustle he entered himself as a competitor.
But it was not his speed alone, out-distancing every rival, that made the young Greek stand out from among his fellows that day.
When he left his cottage home at Amarusi, his father said to him, "Sotiri, you must only return a victor!" The light of a firm resolve shone in the young man's eye.
The old father was sure that his boy would win, and so he made his way to the station, there to wait till Sotiri should come in ahead of all the rest.
When at last the excitement of the assembled multitude told that the critical moment had arrived, that the racers were nearing the goal, the old father looked up through eyes that were a little dim as he realized that truly Sotiri was leading the way. He was "returning a victor."
How the crowd surged about the young peasant when the race was fairly won! Wild with excitement, they knew not how to shower upon him sufficient praise.
Ladies overwhelmed him with flowers and rings; some even gave him their watches. The princes embraced him, and the king himself saluted him in military fashion. But the young Sotirios was seeking for other praise than theirs.
Past the ranks of royalty and fair maidenhood, past the outstretched hands of his own countrymen, past the applauding crowd of foreigners, his gaze wandered till it fell upon an old man trembling with eagerness, who resolutely pushed his way through the excited, satisfied throng.
Then the young face lighted, and as old Louès advanced to the innermost circle with arms outstretched to embrace his boy, the young victor said, simply: "You see, father, I have obeyed."

Single Pointedness

Fix your eye on a single purpose
The attainment of single pointedness requires returning our attention time and time again.In the same spirit, we'll return to our study of the topic itself. We'll start with a quote by the Indian sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and then continue with the words of Orison Swett Marden.
> You do not waste time and energy on other things. You are totally dedicated, call it will, or love, or plain honesty. We are complex beings, at war within and without. We contradict ourselves all the time, undoing today the work of yesterday. No wonder we are stuck. A little of integrity would make a lot of difference.— Nisargadatta Maharaj
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It is only by continued, strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after day, week after week, and month after month, that the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind to one subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion of everything else.
The process of obtaining this self-mastery -- this complete command of one's mental powers -- is a gradual one, its length varying with the mental constitution of each person; but its acquisition is worth infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever costs.
In this third installment on "Iron Will" by Orison Swett Marden, we hear from Henry Ward Beecher, a 19th century clergyman.
Beecher was one of the most prolific social reformers of all time. From his pulpit at Plymouth Church, he advanced three movements: abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage.He auctioned off church pews to fund the freedom of slaves and sent rifles—dubbed "Beecher's Bibles"—to anti-slavery settlers in Kansas. He advised presidents and wrote prolifically.
Osmarden
O
When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so much more than other men, he replied:"I don't do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in rumination. I do mine in actuality alone."
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This was by the intelligent exercise of Mr. Beecher's will-power in concentrating his mind upon what he was doing at a given moment, and then turning to something else.
Any one who has observed business men closely, has noticed this characteristic. One of the secrets of a successful life is to be able to hold all of our energies upon one point, to focus all of the scattered rays of the mind upon one place or thing.
The mental reservoir of most people is like a leaky dam which we sometimes see in the country, where the greater part of the water flows out without going over the wheel and doing the work of the mill.
Many a man would have been a success had he connected his fragmentary efforts. Spasmodic, disconnected attempts, without concentration, uncontrolled by any fixed idea, will never bring success. It is continuity of purpose alone that achieves results.
Osmarden
O
> Whatever name you give it: will, or steady purpose, or one-pointedness of mind, you come back to earnestness, sincerity, honesty. When you are in dead earnest, you bend every incident, every second of your life to your purpose...
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Were I called upon to express in a word the secret of so many failures among those who started out with high hopes, I should say they lacked will-power.They could not half will: and what is a man without a will? He is like an engine without steam. Genius unexecuted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.
The shores of fortune, as Foster says, are covered with the stranded wrecks of men of brilliant ability, but who have wanted courage, faith, and decision, and have therefore perished in sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making port.
Is it not possible to classify successes and failures by their various degrees of will-power? A man who can resolve vigorously upon a course of action, and turns neither to the right nor to the left, though a paradise tempt him, who keeps his eyes upon the goal, whatever distracts him, is sure of success.
Speak as temptation itself. What paradise can you promise to pull the mind left and right?In this scenario, you are the shoulder devil, the cacodemon, barbed tailed and cloven hoofed. Which defect of this particular mind will you exploit?
In previous lessons, we've seen how obedience contributes to an iron will. Later we'll examine how vigilance does the same.But let's inspect the anatomy of an iron will, which is one part decisiveness and one part follow-through.
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"The will in its relation to life," says an English writer, "may be compared at once to the rudder and to the steam engine of a vessel, on the confined and related action of which it depends entirely for the direction of its course and the vigor of its movement."
It is in one of Ben Jonson's old plays: "When I once take the humor of a thing, I am like your tailor's needle—I go through with it."
A "tailor's needle" is an uncommon metaphor for will. What can we learn about the nature of will that we wouldn't recognize from a more obvious metaphor like "bulldozer" or "juggernaut"?
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This is not different from Richelieu, who said: "When I have once taken a resolution, I go straight to my aim; I overthrow all, I cut down all."
History's most accomplished men and women often held the virtue of "resolution" as cardinal.Ben Franklin kept the precept: "resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve." The Rothschild's precept is nearly identical: "do without fail that which you determine to do."
YC President Michael Seibel explains what sets apart the greatest founders:"When I [meet] with a great founder, and they say they're going to do something, two weeks later they’ve done it. It doesn’t mean they're correct, it doesn’t mean they'll continue in that direction… but they never say 'oh we couldn’t do it or we did something else instead.' They figure out a way to get some version of it done and then learn from it."
This point is key. You must commit to big actions one week at a time. And in that time, should you encounter a "better" idea, you must leave it for the future.Once committed, you must follow through. William Gladstone taught his children to "accomplish to the end whatever they might begin, no matter how insignificant."
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It is irresolution that is worse than rashness. Irresolution is like an ague; it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit."
The man who is forever twisting and turning, backing and filling, hesitating and dawdling, shuffling and parleying, weighing and balancing, splitting hairs over non-essentials, listening to every new motive which presents itself, will never accomplish anything.
But the positive man, the decided man, is a power in the world, and stands for something; you can measure him, and estimate the work that his energy will accomplish.

"It Might Have Been"

Explore the timeless wisdom of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's "It Might Have Been". Unveil the power of action and self-determination. Learn how destiny is in our own hands.
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We will be what we could be. Do not say, "It might have been, had not this, or that, or this." No fate can keep us from the chosen way; He only might who is.
We will do what we could do. Do not dream Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve. I hold, all men are greatly what they seem; He does, who could achieve.
We will climb where we could climb. Tell me not Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height. What eagle ever missed the peak he sought? He always climbs who might.
I do not like the phrase "It might have been!" It lacks force, and life's best truths perverts: For I believe we have, and reach, and win, Whatever our deserts.

The Plaything of Chance

Explore the timeless wisdom of Orison Swett Marden's "Iron Will." Learn how self-reliance shapes destiny. Discover your inner strength now.
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The man without self-reliance and an iron will is the plaything of chance, the puppet of his environment, the slave of circumstances. Are not doubts the greatest of enemies? If you would succeed up to the limit of your possibilities, must you not constantly hold to the belief that you are success-organized, and that you will be successful, no matter what opposes?
You are never to allow a shadow of doubt to enter your mind that the Creator intended you to win in life's battle. Regard every suggestion that your life may be a failure, that you are not made like those who succeed, and that success is not for you, as a traitor, and expel it from your mind as you would a thief from your house.
There is something sublime in the youth who possesses the spirit of boldness and fearlessness, who has proper confidence in his ability to do and dare.
The world takes us at our own valuation. It believes in the man who believes in himself, but it has little use for the timid man, the one who is never certain of himself; who cannot rely on his own judgment, who craves advice from others, and is afraid to go ahead on his own account.
It is the man with a positive nature, the man who believes that he is equal to the emergency, who believes he can do the thing he attempts, who wins the confidence of his fellow-man. He is beloved because he is brave and self-sufficient.
Those who have accomplished great things in the world have been, as a rule, bold, aggressive, and self-confident. They dared to step out from the crowd, and act in an original way. They were not afraid to be generals.
Never admit defeat or poverty. Stoutly assert your divine right to hold your head up and look the world in the face; step bravely to the front whatever opposes, and the world will make way for you. No one will insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any. Believe you were made for the place you fill. Put forth your whole energies.

I Always Fight

Explore the power of unwavering determination with Orison Swett Marden's "Iron Will." Delve into insights on how a resolute spirit can shape destiny and overcome life's adversities. Discover the keys to transforming ambition into reality. Read more and be inspired to forge your path with an iron will.
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The world in its heart admires the stern, determined doer. "The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going." "It is wonderful how even the apparent casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to them, and yield to assist a design, after having in vain attempted to frustrate it."
"The man who succeeds," says Prentice Mulford, "must always in mind or imagination live, move, think, and act as if he gained that success, or he never will gain it."
"We go forth," said Emerson, "austere, dedicated, believing in the iron links of Destiny, and will not turn on our heels to save our lives. A book, a bust, or only the sound of a name shoots a spark through the nerves, and we suddenly believe in will. We cannot hear of personal vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh resolution."
FORCE OF WILL IN CAMP AND FIELD.Oh, what miracles have been wrought by the self-confidence, the self-determination of an iron will! What impossible deeds have been performed by it!
It was this that took Napoleon over the Alps in midwinter; it took Farragut and Dewey past the cannons, torpedoes, and mines of the enemy; it led Nelson and Grant to victory; it has been the great tonic in the world of discovery, invention, and art; it has helped to win the thousand triumphs in war and science which were deemed impossible.
The secret of Jeanne d'Arc's success was not alone in rare decision of character, but in the seeing of visions which inspired her to self-confidence--confidence in her divine mission.
It was an iron will that gave Nelson command of the British fleet, a title, and a statue at Trafalgar Square. It was the keynote of his character when he said, "When I don't know whether to fight or not, I always fight."

The Thunderbolt of War

Explore the indomitable spirit and strategic genius of Napoleon in Orison Swett Marden's "Iron Will". Delve into a lecture on resolve and courage with us.
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"What would you do if you were besieged in a place entirely destitute of provisions?" asked the examiner, when Napoleon was a cadet. "If there were anything to eat in the enemy's camp, I should not be concerned."
May 10, 1796, Napoleon carried the bridge at Lodi, in the face of the Austrian batteries, trained upon the French end of the structure. Behind them were six thousand troops. Napoleon massed four thousand grenadiers at the head of the bridge, with a battalion of three hundred carbineers in front.
At the tap of the drum the foremost assailants wheeled from the cover of the street wall under a terrible hail of grape and canister, and attempted to pass the gateway to the bridge. The front ranks went down like stalks of grain before a reaper; the column staggered and reeled backward, and the valiant grenadiers were appalled by the task before them.
Without a word or a look of reproach, Napoleon placed himself at their head, and his aids and generals rushed to his side. Forward again over heaps of dead that choked the passage, and a quick run counted by seconds only carried the column across two hundred yards of clear space, scarcely a shot from the Austrians taking effect beyond the point where the platoons wheeled for the first leap.
The guns of the enemy were not aimed at the advance. The advance was too quick for the Austrian gunners. So sudden and so miraculous was it all, that the Austrian artillerists abandoned their guns instantly, and their supports fled in a panic instead of rushing to the front and meeting the French onslaught. This Napoleon had counted on in making the bold attack.
"Is it possible to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard."Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits of possibility.""Forward, then."What was Napoleon but the thunderbolt of war?

An Excess of Animal Spirits

Discover the power of vitality in achieving life's greatest prizes with Orison Swett Marden's "Iron Will." Explore how discipline & robust health fuel success. Learn more!
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The great prizes of life ever fall to the robust, the stalwart, the strong,--not to a huge muscle or powerful frame necessarily, but to a strong vitality, a great nervous energy.
It is the Lord Broughams, working almost continuously one hundred and forty-four hours; it is the Napoleons, twenty hours in the saddle; it is the Franklins, camping out in the open air at seventy; it is the Gladstones, firmly grasping the helm of the ship of state at eighty-four, tramping miles every day, and chopping down huge trees at eighty-five,--who accomplish the great things of life.
To prosper you must improve your brain power; and nothing helps the brain more than a healthy body. The race of today is only to be won by those who will study to keep their bodies in such good condition that their minds are able and ready to sustain that high pressure on memory and mind, which our present fierce competition engenders.
It is health rather than strength that is now wanted. Health is essentially the requirement of our time to enable us to succeed in life. In all modern occupations--from the nursery to the school, from the school to the shop or world beyond--the brain and nerve strain go on, continuous, augmenting, and intensifying.
As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career. Stonewall Jackson, early in life, determined to conquer every weakness he had, physical, mental, and moral. He held all of his powers with a firm hand. To his great self-discipline and self-mastery, he owed his success.
So determined was he to harden himself to the weather that he could not be induced to wear an overcoat in winter. "I will not give in to the cold," he said. For a year, on account of dyspepsia, he lived on buttermilk and stale bread, and wore a wet shirt next his body because his doctor advised it, although everybody else ridiculed the idea.
This was while he was professor at the Virginia Military Institute. His doctor advised him to retire at nine o'clock; and, no matter where he was, or who was present, he always sought his bed on the minute. He adhered rigidly through life to this stern system of discipline. Such self-training, such self-conquest, gives one great power over others. It is equal to genius itself."I can do nothing," said Grant, "without nine hours' sleep."
What else is so grand as to stand on life's threshold, fresh, young, hopeful, with a consciousness of power equal to any emergency, -- a master of the situation? The glory of a young man is his strength.
Our great need of the world today is for men and women who are good animals. To endure the strain of our concentrated civilization, the coming man and woman must have an excess of animal spirits. They must have a robustness of health. Mere absence of disease is not health. It is the overflowing fountain, not the one half full, that gives life and beauty to the valley below.
Only he is healthy who exults in mere animal existence; whose very life is a luxury; who feels a bounding pulse throughout his body; who feels life in every limb, as dogs do when scouring over the field, or as boys do when gliding over fields of ice.

Empty Your Quiver on Me

"Ordinary origins, extraordinary willpower shape greats."
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Say what we will of genius, specialized in a hundred callings, yet the fact remains that no amount of genius has ever availed upon the earth unless enforced by will power to overcome the obstacles that hedge about every one who would rise above the circumstances in which he was born, or become greater than his calling.
Was not Virgil the son of a porter, Horace of a shopkeeper, Demosthenes of a cutler, Milton of a money scrivener, Shakespeare of a wool stapler, and Cromwell of a brewer?
Ben Jonson, when following his trade of a mason, worked on Lincoln's Inn in London with trowel in hand and a book in his pocket. Joseph Hunter was a carpenter in youth, Robert Burns a plowman, Keats a druggist, Thomas Carlyle and Hugh Miller masons. Dante and Descartes were soldiers. Cardinal Wolsey, Defoe, and Kirke White were butchers' sons.
Faraday was the son of a hostler, and his teacher, Humphry Davy, was an apprentice to an apothecary. Kepler was a waiter boy in a German hotel, Bunyan a tinker, Copernicus the son of a Polish baker. They rose by being greater than their callings, as Arkwright rose above mere barbering, Bunyan above tinkering, Wilson above shoemaking, Lincoln above rail-splitting, and Grant above tanning.
By being first-class barbers, tinkers, shoemakers, rail-splitters, tanners, they acquired the power which enabled them to become great inventors, authors, statesmen, generals.
John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle, James Hargreaves, who introduced the spinning-jenny, and Samuel Compton, who originated mule-spinning, were all artisans, uneducated and poor, but were endowed with natural faculties which enabled them to make a more enduring impression upon the world than anything that could have been done by the mere power of scholarship or wealth.
It cannot be said of any of these great names that their individual courses in life would have been what they were, had there been lacking a superb will power resistless as the tide to bear them upward and onward.
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.Dryden.