Vocations

I was recently sent an article that hit home with me so much that I opened my presentation about the importance of training at our Dealers Conference. It was striking to me that in 1941 the World was at War and the job market was tough. Similarly we have found ourselves in a similar situation.

This article was written in 1941for the Bliss College Go Getter by Elmer Wallace Parsons. It speaks to the heart of what I have always stressed, that training is important to get a head of coworkers and your competition.

 How much more complex has the question of choosing one’s vocation become in the last quarter of a century? The chances of climbing high on the ladder of achievement in the business and professional world without specialized training are indeed slim.

 Of course, you cannot entirely overlook the factors of luck and “pull”. These factors are un questionably a great asset in the enabling one to make a start but though you have the native ability you will find that you need to be trained well-in some particular line of work. This is the essential if you are to compete with the thousands of others seeking the very type of position you desire. You can no longer be content with being as good as the next person. You must be better. Employers today are looking for those who can do the best work not those who are just average. And specialized with the large number being trained for specialized work in every line of employment you might mention, concerns can well afford to be particular.

 For a second point, don’t let the stiff race and amount race and amount of unemployment defeat your own self confidence. You must be sure of yourself! If you have no confidence in your own self, how can you expect others to have confidence in your own self, how can you expect others to have the confidence in you? Don’t be mistaken or mislead. Self-confidence carried to a particular self-sustaining point is not conceit. It is an essential characteristic.

 Lastly, don’t be discouraged. You must have “stick-to-itiveness.”

 Advancement will not come with a snap of the finger any more than Rome was built in a day. It is a slow process dependent upon your past achievements and your general attitude toward your position and your associates. I believe Longfellow brought out this point aptly in the last stanza of “A Psalm of Life”.

   “Let us then be up and doing,

    With a heart for any fate;

    Still achieving, still pursuing,

    Learn to labor and wait.”

Written by the late Elmer Wallace Parsons Co-Editor and my Grandfather.