Magical Thinking - A Research conducted a large-scale study to determine "what it takes to ....

A Research conducted a large-scale study to determine "what it takes to become an executive?".

Leaders in business, government, science, and religion were questioned. 

Over and over again in different ways these researchers' kept getting one answer:

The most important qualification for an executive is the sheer desire to get ahead.

Remember this advice, "A man is not doing much, until the cause he works for possesses all there is of him."

Desire, when harnessed, is power.

Failure to follow desire, to do what you want to do most, paves the way to mediocrity.

I recall a conversation with a very promising young writer on a college newspaper. 

This fellow had ability. 

If anyone showed promise for a career in journalism, it was he. 

Shortly before his graduation I asked him, 

"Well, Dan, what are you going to do, get into some form of journalism?" 

Dan looked at me and said, 

"Heck, no! I like writing and reporting very much, and I've had a lot of fun working on the college paper. But journalists are a dime a dozen and I don't want to starve."

I didn't see or hear from Dan for five years. 

Then one evening I chanced to meet him in New Orleans. 

Dan was working as an assistant personnel director for an electronics company. 

And he was quick to let me know that he was quite dissatisfied with his work. 

"Oh, I'm reasonably well paid. I'm with a wonderful company, and I've got reasonable security, but you know, my heart isn't in it. I wish now I'd gone with a publisher or newspaper when I finished school."

Dan's attitude reflected boredom, uninterest. 

He was cynical about many things. 

He will never achieve maximum success until he quits his present job and gets into journalism.  

Success requires heart-and-soul effort, and you can put your heart and soul only into something you really desire.

Had Dan followed his desire, he could have risen to the very top in some phase of communication. And over the long pull he would have made much more money and achieved far more personal satisfaction than he will find in his present kind of work.

Switching from what you don't like to do, to what you do like to do, is like putting a five-hundred-horsepower motor in a ten-year-old car.

All of us, have desires. 
All of us, dream of what we really want to do. 
Instead of surrendering to desire, we murder it.
But few of us, actually surrender to desire.