Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.

To be granted some kind of usable talent and to be able to use it to the fullest extent of which your are capable — this, to me, is a kind of joy that is almost unequaled.

In our personal friendships, we require peers who see and acknowledge the skills we bring to the table. It is perfectly fine to talk with friends about our career situations and our fiscal dilemmas, but if those friends are giving us advice from their own considerable professional acuity and attainment, that should get some small and nod from us, as ours hopefully does from them. This reciprocity of respect may be largely tacit, but it must be there. We deserve recognition and respect and acknowledgement for the actual worth of our investment of time, talent and keen observation.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.