The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 4 (August 24, 1926)

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[In our May issue we published an outline of an address prepared by Mr. M. L. Bracefield, Officer-in-Charge, N.Z.R. Training and Correspondence School. The following is the text of the second lecture delivered to cadets.—Ed. N.Z.R.M.]

Remember your job is your best friend. If you ask any successful Railway Officer the reason for his making good, he will tell you that first and foremost it is because he likes his work. He is entirely inseparable from his work, and that is what every man worth his salt ought to be.

Want of perseverance is the cause of more failures than incapacity, or want of opportunity, and what is wanted to ensure more success is not so much special skill, genius or even opportunity, as Energy. There is a certain happiness to be found in the most disagreeable duty when we stop to realise that we are getting it out of the way.

Many young Officers in our great service put solid barriers in front of themselves and then wonder why they do not succeed as they think they should; many to-day worry far too much about the amount of salary they receive and think far too little about what they truly earn.

Be energetic and enthusiastic.

A large number of men are dwarfed solely by their indolence, and some, possessed even of inferior powers are, by contrast, giants in Railway affairs, because they are men in earnest, whose lives are full of the most persistent endeavours to secure the ends which they have set before them and resolutely pursued.

If we get nothing else but disappointing experiences from life we may rest assured that the fault is in large measure, our own; we are not sending out the right kind of mental stuff.

Many say that to study or train is wasted effort; that they are not as clever as some; they say “I can't!” “I can't!”

Say “I Can and I Will”.

Read this from “Sparks Fortnightly”:—