Self-promotion

“ He never thought of self-assertion for his own sake, or for the sake of honor or promotion, but he had in him a kind of push and an earnestness of purpose—you might almost say audacity—that somehow stirred him and prompted him always to be in the place of greatest advantage at a given time for the service of others. ”

“ Suppose you had sold yourself into the very opportunity you want, suppose you had won the coveted job or promotion, how would you celebrate? It has been said that a man shows his real self either in the moment of his failure or in the moment of his success. ”

“ A Private Corporation must have protection! Self-preservation is the first consideration, the first law. I am full of little formulas of both manner and speech—they afford me ample protection. Make-talk is the complete salvation of the female Banker (social) . I never disdain the use of a promoter, no matter how trivial it may be. Promoters help you to float heavy, stupid men, and save you from a complete wreck on the shores of stupidity; and they act as most excellent elicitors when applied to clever men—draw out the very best in them. ”

“ Unless we like our work, we can do neither it nor ourselves justice. In a word, the calling must be congenial. Only if our vocations are congenial, only if duty and pleasure can be harmonised in them, can we adopt the attitude of loyalty towards them. And unless we are loyal to our vocations we cannot hope to fulfil them well. But, it may be asked, what does loyalty to vocation imply? In being loyal to my vocation, must I practise self-denial, or may I make my vocation the means to my own self-assertion? ”

“ The more correctly attired person at his right, with the beak of a hawk and lips so thin that his big white teeth gleam through them when they are yet shut, he is what he calls himself a promoter. He has made sundry efforts to promote myself. ”

“ The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. ”

“ Competition is good, but it has its danger side. There is a tendency to sacrifice real worth to mere appearance, to have seeming rather than reality. But the true competition is the competition of the individual with himself,—his present seeking to excel his past. This means real growth from within. Self-reliance develops it, and it develops self-reliance. Let the individual feel thus as to his own progress and possibilities, and he can almost create his life as he will. ”

“ Suggest, rather, that it is only incidental to your all-around fitness for the job you want.
Self-Respect
Use what you know without pandering to the lower motives of your new employer. Impel him to like you for what you are, and not merely for what you bring. Open his eyes to your better nature, not to the worst side of you. He will see in you the better qualities of himself and appreciate them. Have your own motives right; then there will be no danger that you will appeal to the wrong motives of the other man. ”

“ This is easy enough to do, for there is always work, and when you think of getting the work done instead of finding a title to fit a man who wants to be promoted, then there is no difficulty about promotion. The promotion itself is not formal; the man simply finds himself doing something other than what he was doing and getting more money. ”

“ I was sent to exercise my judgment, and to exercise it was my fixed determination; being instructed by even an imperfect acquaintance with mankind, that self-approbation is the only true reward which a political career can bestow, and that popularity would have been but another name for perfidy, if to secure it, I had given up the freedom of thinking for myself. ”

“ In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the price paid for distinction; excellence of any sort being invariably placed beyond the reach of indolence. It is the diligent hand and head alone that maketh rich—in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even when men are born to wealth and high social position, any solid reputation which they may individually achieve can only be attained by energetic application ”

“ And if such research be made in the proper spirit of generous self-devotion to his duty, he may essentially advance the cause of good discipline, by transferring the credit of success, which might be his own due, to those with whom he happens to be co-operating, and without whose companionship and attention to details, though unseen and unknown to the world, he might never have gained his point. ”

“ The men of their acquaintance who have been successful, have attained wealth and position, not as a rule through their mastery of technique or their skill in a trade; they have not come by their promotion merely on account of good workmanship, but through influence. ”

“ Direct incentives will be such native reaction as ambition, pride and pugnacity; will be love of racing, love of play; love of personal recognition; will be the outcome of self-confidence and interest, and so on. ”

“ The very reputation of always trying to improve yourself in every possible way, of being dead in earnest, will attract the attention of everybody who knows you, and you will get many a recommendation for promotion which never comes to those who make no special effort to climb upward. ”

“ If the men who serve under your direction, Red, are not allowed to grow—if their ambition is not aroused to a point where they fit themselves with your help to take your job, or jobs like it, you cannot hope to gain promotion. ”

“ You always have—each time you get your step—that's one of the chief points about promotion! You may have been schoolmastering for fifteen years, but you've got to learn your place even in your own house when you get one. ”

“ And this development has come, as it must, to a sound, capable people under the most powerful of all inspirations—the inspiration of a noble, proud, national self-esteem. It is with a nation as it is with an individual; self-respect is character.
In the struggle of business competition there are two kinds of business policy which are indicative of the character of the business man and of the business he is engaged in. ”

“ These theories, excellent in many particulars, apparently do not rate at full value the fact that education and love can and do modify the self-interest of the individual, and at the same time direct the attention of the individual toward unselfish service. In stressing service through achievement and production, they neglect to emphasize achievement through service. Competition in rendering unselfish service is underrated. ”

“ You must tout for the affections of the influential sections of the Inner Social Ring.
If you’re anxious for promotion, you must early get a notion of the qualities commanders prize;
You must learn to play at polo, strum a banjo, sing a solo, and you’re simply bound to rise! ”

“ In coming to this decision, let me admonish you to look well to the motives that prompt your choice. If you feel a selfish regard to your own advancement in the world, struggle against and repress it; for, though by this you may attain wealth and a name, it will never bring you happiness, and that highest of all honors, the reputation of having accomplished some good for your fellow men. Have, therefore, in choosing a profession, regard to the good you may be able to do, as well as the good to yourself that you wish to obtain. ”

“ This concession may proceed from various causes,—from confidence in superior talents—from confidence in great worth,—most generally from the respect or deference which all men feel for great possessions. This is frequently founded in self-interest and expectations of advantage; but it is natural to man, and perhaps springs from our instinctive sympathy with the satisfactions of others—we are unwilling to disturb them, and even wish to promote them. ”

“ Such a man is ever on the watch for an opportunity to gain some leverage by which he may raise himself to a level with older-established or richer competitors. If he be a good employer his workmen enter into the spirit of the competition, feeling that promotion will follow on any services they may render. ”

“ If you ask a decision as a personal favor, your prospect will lose confidence in the true weight of the ideas on your side that you have already registered in his mind. You are much more likely to hurt than to help your chances for success by making a personal plea. Even if it should prove effective, what you get that way would be alms given to a beggar, and not the earned prize of good salesmanship. Never buy success at the cost of self-respect. To be a successful beggar is nothing to feel proud of. ”

“ Loyalty to vocation—this unites the attitudes of self-denial and self-assertion; and this harmonises duty and inclination. In loyal devotion to vocation the self attains its highest development. But this self-assertion depends on the fact that at every stage in its moral progress the interests of the lower aspects of the self have been denied. ”

“ Such persons by native ability and hard work often attain to high positions of honor and trust in the various professions, and win for themselves the title of 'self-made.'
"Yet because a man by his brains, energy, and pluck carves out his own fortune, putting himself in a prominent position, is it not very desirable that he should also cultivate the courtesies of life so that the talent be not hidden by roughness and uncultivated bearing." ”

“ Even though he were in part right, and a tinge of self-esteem or love of applause crept into the Man's benefactions, they remain benefactions no less, costing him as much money, and reaching the same goals. ”

“ The men, it is true, are encouraged to invent improvements, but though these undoubtedly influence their promotion it is currently reported that the men receive no direct reward. The general feeling, moreover, that promotion is due to favoritism, lessens the stimulus to study and work up. ”

“ Were I only to consult my own happiness, I would say, 'Come at once.' But your interests are as dear to me as my own, and I see no immediate prospects for you which could make good the advantages which you are voluntarily surrendering. I know that your talents, your name and your industry will never leave you in want of the first necessities; but in all that I see more fame than fortune. Your education, your habits, demand some little expenditure. ”

“ Men of generous nature will gain the power which to-day is in the hand of jobbers. Self-devotion will spring up, and noble deeds beget their like; even the egoists will think shame to hang back, and will be drawn in self's despite to admire, if not to imitate, the generous and brave. ”

“ To be modest, gracious, dignified during the engagement, to continue one's social duties faithfully, neither neglecting one's friends nor becoming self-consciously enthusiastic, to be self-possessed and unaffected even while one is the center of much lively interest and animated discussion—this is the end to be desired, and the young man and woman who have accomplished it are indeed fortunate. ”

“ They knew that success in any form was to be paid for, and they were willing to pay. They would work hard without complaining, and they were willing to sacrifice, and ever came to disdain the pleasures and amusements of life. They had been taught that it was of no use to complain, and they did not complain. But they made amends for this by refusing to be gracious, by a reserved and proud manner. They knew that competition was the law of life, and they were none too gentle in dealing with their competitors. ”

“ Every one is sensible of this cumulative advantage in living. All the good days behind him are sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent, pay for him when he has no money, introduce him where he has no letters, and work for him when he sleeps. ”

“ It must be the ultimate resource for self-training in efficiency for the promoter with his appeal to the cupidity and imaginations of men as surely as for the artist in his search for poetic inspiration. ”

“ The self-possession and certainty stamped upon the face of a man who inherited, or won for himself, the sure and perfect armor of good-breeding, is but the outer stamp of the man himself.
Manners are profitable as well as pleasant. They carry with them a measureless weight of influence. A gentleman once brought into his library a costly subscription book. ”

“ This he considers as advisable as it is just for the proper encouragement of the staff generally. As long as promotion acts as an impetus to work and an ideal to attain to, so long will there be a jealous striving after efficiency. ”

“ Put such a quality into your work that anyone who comes across anything you have ever done will see character in it, individuality in it, your trade-mark of superiority upon it. Your reputation is at stake in everything you do, and your reputation is your capital. You cannot afford to do a poor job, to let botched work or anything that is inferior go out of your hands. Every bit of your work, no matter how unimportant or trivial it may seem, should bear your trade-mark of excellence ”

“ The genial employer has so often found that a strange process comes into operation in young and old, which turns the honey of praise into the poison of self-conceit, rendering those to whom it is given disagreeable, and ere long insufferable, that he learns to be very chary in the administration of the said honey, lest subordinates think themselves indispensable, and even neglect the very virtues which earned them the praise. ”

“ But just as then, when we wished to explain the meaning and bearing of our bounty, we were studying the common good and not seeking an opportunity for self-boasting, so now in the matter of publication we are afraid lest people should think that we have had an eye not so much to the benefit of others as to our own glorification. ”