Three Important traits
By: Ray Capp
Ray Capp is the current National Chairman of the Order of the Arrow. His comments were given in December of 2009 to the Mowogo Lodge #243 at the University of Georgia.
When I was asked to make a few comments I began by looking at some quotes that I hung up on walls around my house. I guess these quotes are clues to understanding my philosophy of life, since I cared enough to framed and hang them. They describe three important traits I would like to discuss with you today.
They are: Persistence
Boldness
And Servant Leadership
In addition to telling you the quotes, I will also share with you a secret that I have learned in the past 40 years, which I pray may be helpful to each of you as you make your way in life,
Let’s go first to Persistence.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more
common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost
a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But it is not; it takes patience, it takes commitment and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid failure. You will not! The real test is whether you let failure harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you persevere and choose to learn from the hard times.
You have heard another quote from another president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, He reminded us that “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot are hang on!” Truly enough, success often seems like a matter of hanging on after so many have already decided to let go.
There is a story, which may be apocryphal or not, Thomas Edison reputedly said that he knew more than 10,000 ways NOT to make an electric light bulb, because he experiments failed that may times before he found the ONE way that worked.
The Secret is to apply your persistence to an idea, a strategy, or a goal, not a tactic. Edison was trying to make light. He did not originally use an inert gas in a vacuum tube with a filament that resisted electrical current. He arrived at the configuration after 9999 tries! The point is that his commitment and perseverance or determination or persistence was not about a particular type of filament or the use of a glass shell, or a light emitting filament. The goal was about artificial light. He was committed to that goal. He was not committed to any particular material or method. And he tried thousands of different tactical approaches until his goal was ultimately met.
And this applies to you… because if your goal is to do a certain something, then, you should spend some time thinking about that goal and what is really “is” at its core. Not get bogged down in the specific tactics or materials or whatever unimportant side issues may deviate your attentions.
I behoove you, as you strike out to achieve your aims, persist, persist indeed. But try different ways of going about it until you find the right combination. It is out there. Stay with that goal, but substitute the methods with ready abandon.
A second, mini secret, is that as we persist, doing so becomes easier. It’s not that our task or goal gets any easier…the secret is that persistence helps us increase our knowledge, improve our problem solving skills, and stimulate our creative juices.
A few years ago, I wrote a book and one of the chapters is entitled:
“If you are barking up the wrong tree, more yelp won’t help.”
The idea is not to give up when you are out on a limb. It is to persist. But, please share this secret with everyone. If the squirrel ain’t up that tree anymore, more carrying on won’t help. If you are barking up the wrong tree, and the squirrel isn’t there, don’t stop trying but stop tying yourself to a particular tree and go find the squirrel!!! - That’s what you went into the woods to find!
I have a second quote framed in my office: and it’s in the form of a question by an unknown author:
“What would you attempt to do, if you knew you could not fail”
If persistence is a main ingredient of success, boldness is not far behind.
Boldness isn’t crazy-ness. There is a big difference between courage and stupidity. I am not taking about throwing caution to the wind and rushing in where the angels fear to tread. I am talking about managing your life so that you can take bold action when the time is right.
I’m saying that there are a lot of very ordinary people out there in this big world who have become highly successful, because they spent time and resources to build a life and a lifestyle that allowed them to seize opportunity when the time was right.
I am talking about people who do not let them be enslaved by fears, real and imagined. I’m talking about people who recognize that the greatest failure, the greatest cause of misery, is doing too little, not too much.
But being courageous is not being crazy. I am not talking about taking uncalculated risks or unfocused adventures, or such things that have big downsides for little gain, or are long shot gambles. I’m talking about organizing your life so that you can make bold commitments. Go to college and get a degree; that creates new options for you. Keep working on your foreign language skills, go out and volunteer to serve others. Both will expand your horizons.
It is important that you have your personal accounting in order and your powder dry for when you need it. And prepare yourself to be able to make use of new opportunities without disrupting the other things that are important to you, once you figure out what those are! Save a few dollars so you can do bold things. Plan, organize and create a personal inventory of skills and assets. Avoid commitment beyond your means or you abilities, until you are prepared for success in making a marriage work, or buying a house, or having kids.
Courage is the queen of the virtues, without it, you will not maximize your opportunities to use any of your other positive traits.
And a rigorous commitment to boldness informs our approach to persistence.
Bold, persistent experimentation is what built our country. Of course, try not to fail. But don’t fail to try, and do try boldly. The timid approaches have been mostly tried already. Of course, protect yourself from the negative effects of failure. Set enough aside to make it thru…and then try BIG, try BOLD…and try with all your might. When failure comes – not if, but when – be ready to try again.
Fortune favors the bold. Chance favors the prepared. Opportunities will come, but you have to recognize them – and you have to be ready. So get ready. There is no such thing as dumb luck…but there is such a thing as serendipity.
-If you get yourself in a position to take advantage when luck strikes…that’s serendipity.
I remember being in middle school and one of the nuttiest things they made us read was a story about Charles Goodyear, who invented the vulcanization of rubber, by heated a mixture of rubber and sulfur in back in 1839. The story goes that he was LUCKY! - I say that he was bold and persistent. He was studying ways to make rubber less sticky so that it could be more easily formed in molds, without the gooey mess. The story goes that he was lucky because he heated his mixture over a pot belly stove and it got too hot…(by getting too hot, it allowed the chemical reaction to work). I say that he was bold and persistent. He was the one who put it on the stove!!! Serendipity is putting rubber on a stove and getting lucky!
My secret.. go boldly. If you are tentative, if you hold back, you will suffer, no matter what else you do, from the appearances of hesitancy, timidity, and partial effort. And this is the death blow to bold initiative.
You know about commitment don’t you? This morning when you had ham and eggs, let me just say that the chicken was involved, …but the hog was committed!
And until you have that kind of “all in” commitment – so long as you hold on to a chance to draw back – people will be able to tell. Your hesitancy will surely belie your intentions. It’s an elementary truth that a lack of commitment kills countless ideas and turns splendid vision into sterile plans. No one follows the timid.
And yet, once you come to look chance in the eye and commit, all of heaven and earth will move with you. A whole whirlwind of events begins to unfold, issuing forth from your relationships and your vigorous passion…people come out of the woodwork to help. They believe…you believe, and the work that comes out can be sheer poetry. All manner of unforeseen “luck” happens when the bold first prepare, then act with gusto. The world will help you: it will open up to you. And your family, friends, and community will also believe.
I know these things, - I’ve lived these things, - and I’m a product of these things!
The third topic is: Service to Others.
The final quote goes like this:
“For he who serves his fellows, is of all his fellows, greatest”
Many of the lessons we teach in the Scouts are based on American Indian lore and legends, especially in the Order of the Arrow. There is a story we tell, sometime attributed to the notes of James Fennimore Cooper as he prepared for his masterpiece, The Last of the Mohicans. It involves Uncas and his father, Chief Chingachgook.
Chief Chingachgook heard of the plight of a neighboring village that had lost the ability to make fire. The men, women and children of the village were in danger of freezing and starving. So Chief Chingachgook called his three fastest braves, including his son Uncas, to a council. Chief Chingachgook gave each of the braves a clay pot and asked each one to fill the pot with hot coals and carry it to the neighboring village, so that they might once again have fire.
The three braves set out, running as fast as they could.
The first brave came upon an elderly woman. Alone in the woods and with wet clothing, she was struggling to keep warm. The brave told her that he was in a hurry and couldn’t stop to help.
The second brave took a slightly different route. In his journey, he came across an elderly man that was badly in need of a fire in order to cook his meal. The second brave told the man that he was in a hurry and could not stop to help.
The son of Chief Chingachgook, Uncas was also given a pot that was filled with hot coals. He also came upon the same elderly woman struggling to keep warm. Brave Uncas gathered a supply of wood and using his pot of coals, easily started a fire for the old woman. He then gathered some new coals from the cheerful fire and continued on his journey.
Uncas then came upon the elderly man. Brave Uncas easily started a fire for him as well, again gathered some fresh coals, and set off for his destination.
Upon arriving at the village, Uncas and the villagers found that only he, Brave Uncas, had arrived with hot coals. The other braves had arrived shortly before him, but their coals had become cold ashes. Only Uncas, who had stopped to help others and thus he refreshed his coals along the way, had arrived with what the village needed.
The wise Chief Chingachgook knew the lesson. Only by helping people along the way, can you reach your own destination. And that is the last secret. By helping others, you benefit yourself. There are many other Uncas stories and each one says he was a bold and persistent warrior. There were many other brave, bold and persistent Native Americans. But Uncas has been known down thru the generations because of the love of his people – and they loved him because of the wisdom, generosity and service he showed that day.
“For he who serves his fellows, is of all his fellows, greatest”
-Go out with bold hearts into the world.
-Persist along your path of service to others; in that service you will find purpose and
meaning, which in themselves are the greatest reward in life.
-May peace be with you on your journey.