Enthusiasm is the dynamics of your personality.
Without it, whatever abilities you may possess lie dormant, and nearly every man has more latent power than he ever learns to use. You may have knowledge, sound judgment, and good reasoning faculties; but no one, not even yourself, can know it, until you discover how to put your heart into thought and action.
Enthusiasm is a wonderful quality to develop.
It is too often underrated as an excessive and useless display of feeling, lacking in real value. This is a huge mistake. You cannot go wrong in applying all the genuine enthusiasm that you can stir up within you; for it is the power that moves the world. There is nothing comparable to it, in the things it can accomplish.
What can it accomplish?
We can cut through the hardest rocks with diamond drills and melt steel with fire. We can tunnel through mountains and make our way through any physical obstruction with tools. We can checkmate and divert the very laws of Nature with science, but there is no power in the world that can cut through another man’s mental opposition except persuasion. And persuasion is reason plus enthusiasm, with the emphasis on enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is the art of high persuasion.
Did you ever stop to think that your progress is commensurate with your ability to move the minds of other people? If you are a salesman this is pre-eminently so. Even if you are a clerk, it is the zest which you put into your work that enkindles an appreciation in the mind of your employer. If you have a good idea do not think that other people will immediately recognize it. Columbus had a good idea, but he didn’t get “across” with it without much use of this high persuasion.
If you would like to be a power among men, cultivate enthusiasm.
People will like you better for it, you will escape the dull routine of a mechanical existence and you will make progress wherever you are. It cannot be otherwise, for this is the human life. Put your soul into your work, and not only will you find it pleasanter every hour of the day, but people will believe in you just as they believe in electricity when they get into touch with a dynamo.
And remember this – there is no secret about this “gift” of enthusiasm. It is the sure reward of deep, honest thought and hard, persistent labor.
Source: Enthusiasm, by Jonathan Ogden Armour
Cover image: Kheel Center
