7 Must Read Success Lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson - by Dumb Little Man

Start Small

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”

It’s okay to start small. What’s small today will one day be enormous, if you stay consistent. Don’t be concerned with your current size; be concerned with the direction that you’re traveling in. If you’re going in the right direction, you will eventually get to your goal. You will eventually become, what you were destined to become. At last your greatness will be revealed.

Keep Good Friends

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

A large part of success is having good friends. A good friend is someone who you can be yourself with.

You don’t have to put on a show, and you don’t have to be smart for a good friend. In the words of Emerson, “you can afford to be stupid with them.” Recognize your good friends, mark them, they are a part of your success.

Action Trumps Theorizing

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

It’s easy to sit around and theorize, but the reward is in the action. It’s imperative that you’re in action! Don’t just discuss your theories, test them, and test them today.

Action always trumps inaction, get in motion, have some failures, and it time, success will be yours.

Thoughts Become Things

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.”

Anyone who has successfully changed a bad habit knows that right thinking is the foundation for change. This person knows that to the degree their thinking has changed is to the degree their desires have changed. Desires are birth from thoughts. What are you thinking about? Whatever it is, it is creating your life.

What you ponder you become! Thoughts of success will produce success, and thoughts of failure will perpetuate failure. To change your life you must change your thinking. Thoughts are the root of all change.