CONQUERING AN ENEMY CALLED AVERAGE.

Conquering an Enemy Called Average -John Mason

Nugget #1:  “Know your limits,  and then ignore them!”  
“Be a history maker and a worl d shaker.” -Art Sepulveda

Nugget #2: “None of the secrets of success will work unless you do.”  
What the free enterprise system really means is that the more enterprising you are, the
more free you are.  What this country needs is less emphasis on free and more on
enterprise.  Listen to Shakespeare:  “Nothing can come of nothing.”  A belief is
worthless unless converted into action.  The word ‘work’  is not an obscure biblical
concept; it appears in the Bible 564 times.  Often the simple answer to our prayers is: 
Go to work!  
“Striving for success without hard work is  like trying to harvest where you haven’t
planted.” –David Bly Pg 17

Choice, not chance, determines destiny.  Too many people go through life not knowing
what they want but feeling sure they don’t have it.  Herbert Prochnow  said, “There is a
time when we must firmly choose the course which we will follo w, or the relentless
drift of events will make the decision for us.”  Pg 19

“Until you make peace with who you are,  you will never be content with what you
have.”  -Doris Mortman  

“It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.”  -Elizabeth Kenny

“When your chances are slim and none…go with slim.” –Stemmons

“I encourage boldness because the danger of seniority and pension plans tempts a man
to settle in a rut named security rather  then find his own rai nbow.”  -Conrad Hilton

“Refuse to join the cautious crowd that pl ays not to lose.  Play to win.”  -David
Mahoney

Nugget #7:  “Do More…”  Pg 27-28

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what
you have now was once among the things only hoped for.”  -Epicurus

“Almost everything comes from al most nothing.”  -Henri Amiel

“I cannot do everything, but I still can  do something; and because I can not do
everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.”  -Edward Hail



Doing the best at this moment puts you in th e best place for the next moment.  When
can you live if not now?  All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds of today.  Seneca
said, “Begin at once to live.”  Ellen Melcalf remarked, “There are many people who are
at the right place at the right time but don’t know  it.”  It is okay to take time to plan, but
when the time of action has arrived, stop thinking and go for it!  Pg 31

Today, well lived, will prepare you for bo th the opportunities and obstacles of
tomorrow.  Pg 32

“You need not choose evil; but only fail to choose good, and you will drift fast enough
towards evil.  You do not need to say, ‘I will be bad’, you only have to say, ‘I will not
choose God’s choice’, and the choice of evil is already settled.”  WJ Dawson

Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?  Pg 34

When it comes to excuses, the world is full of great inventors.  Some spend half their
lives telling what they are going to do, and  the other half explaining why they didn’t do
it.  Pg 35

“If you think education is expensive – try ignorance.”  -Derek Bok

Nugget #13:  Status Quo.  Latin for “The mess we’re in” Pg 39
The fact is, the road to success is always under construction.  Yesterday’s formula for
success is often tomorrow’s recipe for failure.  You cannot become what you are
destined to be by remaining what you are.  John Patterson said, “Only fools and dead
mean don’t change.  Fools won’t.   Dead man can’t.”

There are people whose watch stops at a certain hour and who remain permanently at
that age.”  -Sante Boeve

Nugget #14:  Get ahead of yourself.  Pg 41
“Our business in life is not to get ahead of ot hers, but to get ahead of ourselves- to break
our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by today, to do our work with more force
than ever before.”  (Stewart Johnson).  If you would like to know who is responsible for
most of your troubles, take a look in the mirror.  If you could kick the fellow responsible
for most of your problems, you wouldn’t be able  to sit down for three weeks.  It’s time
for us to stay out of our own way.”

“Nothing worthwhile comes easily.  Half  effort does not produce half results.  It
produces no results.  Work, continuous work and hard work is the only way to
accomplish results that last.”  -Hamilton Hoyt



The truth is one thing for which there are  no known substitutes.  There is no acceptable
substitute for honesty.  There is no valid excuse for dishonesty.  Pg 45

Nugget #17:  The world belongs to the enthusiastic.  Pg 47-48
“Enthusiasm is nothing more or less than faith in action.”  -Henry Chester
There is a direct correlation between our passion and our potential.  If you live a life of
negativity you will find yourself s easick during the entire voyage.

Nugget# 18:  If you chase two rabbits both will escape.

Nugget# 22:  A true friend is the best possession.  Pg 59
Tell me who your friends are,  and I will tell you who you are.  The less you associate
with some people, the more your life w ill improve.  If you run with wolves you will
learn how to howl.  But, if you associate with eagles you will learn how to soar to great
heights.  The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you
closely associate – for the good and the bad.   Almost all of our sorrows spring out of
relationships with the wrong people.  “Keep out of the suction caused by those who drift
backwards.”  -EK Piper

“When I hear somebody say that ‘Life is hard’, I am always  tempted to ask, ‘Compare
to what?”  -Sydney Harris

Nugget #24:  Don’t measure your success by what others have and haven’t done.  
If you think you are doing better than the aver age person, you’re an average person. 
Why would you want to compare yourself with someone average?  Pg 63-64

Anger is a boomerang that will surely hit you harder than anyone or anything at which
you throw it.  Pg 66

Great minds discuss ideas, good minds discu ss events, and small minds discuss other
people.  Pg 68

God often gives us a little, in order to see what we will do with a lot.  Pg 82

What you put off until tomorrow, you’ll probably put off tomorrow, too. Success comes
to the man who does today what  others were thinking of doing tomorrow.  The lazier a
man is, the more he is going to do tomorrow.  “Some day” is not a day of the week. 
Hard work is usually an accumulation of eas y things that should have been done last
week.  Pg 83-84

The truth is, more people worry about the future than prepare for it.  Pg 94



“Turn your doubts into questions; turn your questions to prayers; turn your prayers to
God.”  -Mark Litteton

“The purpose of life is a lif e of purpose” -Robert Byrne

Nugget #41:  Do you count your blessings or think that your blessings don’t count? 
If we stop to think more, we would stop to thank more.  “Greed is a bottomless pit
which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching
satisfaction.” (Erich Fromm).   “Happiness always looks  small while you hold it in your
hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”  -Maxim Gorky
Pg 99-100

“Blessed are those who can give without reme mbering and take without forgetting.”  -Elizabeth Bibesco

A lot of people are willing to give God the credit, but not too many are willing to give
him the cash.  Pg 104

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”  -Abraham Lincoln

If your lips would keep from slips;
Five things observe with care;
To whom you speak, of whom you speak;
And how, and when and where.  Pg 112

“Keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the
world.”  -George Bernard Shaw

“Faith is a sounder guide than reason.”  Reason can only go so far, but faith has no
limits.”  -Blaise Pascal