The Willingness to Outwork Others

This theme will win me no points for originality, but I may be able to shed some light on why it's importance cannot be underestimated. Without acting on the conviction that outworking others
is indispensable, success will elude us.
If one studies the lives of those who have have been able to make a mark on history, it becomes clear that they all possessed a prodigious work ethic. Napoleon Bonaparte has been much maligned for being a megalomaniac and worse, I am hard pressed to think of anyone i have have studied who had a more voracious appetite for work. During his military career he shared a common characteristic with Alexander the Great, namely, both men did not indulge themselves in the luxury of gloating over battles won. They both possessed an incessant drive to win and then to continue pushing forward into the next battle.
Later in his life as the all-powerful Emperor of France he discharged his responsibilities with equal passion and drive. It was his good luck, no doubt, but equally important was his ability to
press forward well beyond normal limits of endurance that distinguished the brilliant monarch. A few hours of sleep at night was all he required to sustain him. And the body of work he left behind was so vast that it forms the foundation of the modern day French legal system.
The individual whom I chose to as my mentor in life when I was twenty- two leads the world's largest peace organization of some twelve million people in one hundred and ninety two countries and territories. The organization was only about one thousand members when he joined it at the age of nineteen. Today, at eighty-one years of age he maintains a very busy schedule, in my estimation, like the leader of a corporation about thirty years his junior. He said that he would dedicate the final chapter of his life to education. Having founded the Soka Education System (soka- meaning value creation) with schools around the world, he has received a total of over two hundred-forty honorary doctorates from colleges around the world, a world record. And this is all in perfect accord with the work ethic he has maintained since he became the third president of this organization in 1960. Pushing on with a weak physical constitution due to chronic tuberculosis he has outlived his doctors predictions by over fifty years. He has stated on numerous occasions that his devotion and daunting workload to achieve a lofty objective are the source of his long life.
In any field of endeavor, be it politics, medicine, economics, technology, etc it is those who are willing to wage a death defying struggle that shape history. And there is no reason that we should not emulate such models. Just as the hull of a ship will experience many waves crashing against it as it moves powerfully forward, we will experience obstacles of all kinds which we should strive to calmly view as proof that we are moving vigorously on the path of total victory.