To Become More We Must Become More

By David deFord

We can accomplish much good if we have the right motivation. This motivation often springs from a defining moment in which we say, "Enough!" However, motivation alone will not carry us to our goals. We must employ vision, planning, action, and discipline. We must build within ourselves the right skills to succeed in our chosen areas.

Skill-building
Imagine setting a goal to double your income in five years. Many paths can lead you to achieve your goal: changing jobs; starting a business; and writing books. You could choose dozens of actions to help you double your income. Most likely, you'll need to build new skills. You will need to improve and broaden your existing abilities.

Balanced learning
To enhance your opportunities, you can spend your entire life obtaining learning. It's never too late to learn new skills and ideas. Study a variety of subjects. Don't confine yourself to one area of learning. If you develop broad knowledge in a variety of areas you can adapt your career to meet the market demands. Also, through balancing your study, you will become a more engaging conversationalist. Your understanding of world events will grow.

Perseverence
Be resolute like Heber J. Grant. Mr. Grant, a great religious leader in the western United States, loved hymns. Unfortunately, he could not carry a tune. Daughter Frances says of her father, "He had no sense of pitch at all. You could play a note on the piano then play a note four notes higher, and he could not tell if it was higher or lower."

At age ten, he joined a singing class and the professor told him that he could never learn to sing. Some years later, a man told Grant that he could learn to sing, but the man said he would like to be forty miles away while Heber practiced. But Grant persevered. "He would practice," Frances recalled, "just playing a note on the piano with one finger and practice and practice. Of all his accomplishments he was proudest of learning to sing."

Grant said, "The most I ever worked was to sing 400 songs in four days." It may also have been the most work for Rudger Clawson and J. Golden Kimball too. On a trip with these two, Grant asked if they had any objection to his singing 100 hymns that day.

"After I had sung about forty tunes," he recorded, "they assured me that if I sang the remaining sixty they would be sure to have nervous prostration." He sang the full 100. Heber J. Grant often quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: "That which we persist in doing becomes easy to do; not that the nature of the thing has changed, but that our power to do has increased."

Building a library
Business philosopher Jim Rohn encourages us to leave three important legacies for our families: our life in pictures, our life written in our journals, and an abundant library. Building a library is a wonderful labor of love. We not only lift ourselves, but we also elevate our families. I would suggest, for example, the following sections:

• History
• Philosophy
• Biographies and autobiographies
• Law
• Fine literature
• Accounting
• Economics
• Culture (art, music, dance)
• Spirituality
• Business
• Personal development

As you build your skills, seek balance in your learning, and build great libraries, you position yourself for success in all areas of your life: your personal life, your family life, your spiritual life, your professional life, and your financial life. As you learn new skills and ideas, you will become one who can succeed in the areas of your choosing. Balanced success through balanced learning.