"Concentration of Purpose"

During a visit to his plantation a few years ago, I asked Mr. Bernard Baruch to tell me the one success factor that he considered outstanding. I was anxious to find out what this statesman, financier and advisor to a long list of Presidents of the United States would say. Mr. Baruch explained to me that concentration of effort was an outstanding key to success. "Too many people today scatter their energies," he went on to say. Whey try to do too many different things in too many different directions."

Once you have established your goal let all of your energies be concentrated upon that one objective. Concentration of purpose is a concentration which never scatters its forces. This power to bring all of one's scattered forces into one focal point makes all the difference between success and failure.

The sun might blaze out upon the earth forever without burning a hole in it or setting anything on fire; whereas a very few of these rays concentrated in a magnifying glass would transform a diamond into vapor. While the highest ability accomplishes but little if scattered on a multiplicity of objects, on the other hand, if one has but a thimbleful of brains, and concentrates them upon the thing he has in hand, he may achieve miracles. 

Andrew Carnegie once said, "One great cause of the failure of young men in business is the lack of concentration." It is not a matter of doing many things indifferently, but of doing one thing supremely. He who scatters his efforts in this intense concentrated age cannot hope to succeed.