Mark Rutland - Most Likely To Succeed: The Graduates Guide to True Success in Work and in Life

MOST LIKELY

to SUCCEED

MARK RUTLAND

WITH TRAVIS RUTLAND

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MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED
by Mark Rutland with Travis Rutland
Published by Charisma House
A Strang Company
600 Rinehart Road
Lake Mary, Florida 32746
www.charismahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked ASV are from the American Standard Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Cover Designer: studiogearbox.com
Executive Design Director: Bill Johnson

Copyright 2008 by Mark Rutland
All rights reserved

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Rutland, Mark.

Most likely to succeed / Mark Rutland with Travis Rutland.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-59979-251-4

1. Success--Religious aspects--Christianity. 2. High school graduates. 3. College graduates. I. Rutland, Travis. II. Title.

BV4598.3.R88 2008

248.4--dc22

2007037937

08 09 10 11 12 987654321
Printed in the United States of America

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE WITH GRATITUDE THE vital contribution of my son, Travis Rutland. Without his capable and creative editorial work this book would not have been possible. It is humbling to find yourself impressed by your children, yet I am awestruck by all my children. In this work, as in all he undertakes, Travis was insightful, diligent, detail oriented, and able to keep the vision of the work clear. This is my son, my only son, in whom I am well pleased.

CONTENTS

CHARACTER
THE KEY OF SUCCESS

A mans character is his fate.

HERACLITUS

F IND AN OLD YEARBOOK, YOUR PARENTS perhaps. Dont the clothes look funny? How about the hairdos? They look quaint and old-timey to you, but they were cool back then, way cool.

What is hard to imagine is that someday your kids, or wilder still, your grandkids, will giggle their way through your yearbook. They will shriek in laughter at your funny clothes and howl at your weird hair.

Did you wear that?

Tell me you didnt really go out of the house like that!

You think they wont. You are thinking, My style will never go out of style. But I am here to tell you that all the things that are so now, fifty years from now will be so then that your grandchildren will find them hysterical.

Now turn back to that same old yearbook of your parents. Find the Senior Superlatives or whatever they call the page with all those Bests and Mosts.

THERE ARE SOME KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL LIVING THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO YOU, WHOEVER YOU ARE, IF YOU JUST KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM.

Best Looking. Best looking? Are they to you?

Class Clown. Can you see it? Do they look funny to you?

Most Athletic. Could they even make the teams at your school?

Now find Most Likely to Succeed.

Look at them. Look deeply. Look into their hopeful eyes. Study their eager, young faces. What made their classmates select them? Their grades? Maybe. Popularity? Thats more likely.

The real question is, did they succeed? Did they really succeed? Did they make lots of money only to ruin their lives? Did they find only empty, shattered relationships?

Or were they successful in all of life? Maybe they succeeded in business or politics or science; maybe they even made a fortune or became leaders in their field while living healthy, balanced lives that enriched others as well as themselves.

What made the difference? What makes a person Most Likely to Succeed?

Of course, there are many variables that determine certain outcomes. Talents, skills, and education all play a part in some parts of life.

Yet there are some keys to successful living that are available to you, whoever you are, if you just know where to find them. OK, there may be people in your graduating class with a higher IQ, for whatever that is worth. Some may get the opportunity to attend a more famous college. But those things have little to do with true success. When you come to the end of your life and career, when you sit down with your grandkids for a good chuckle at the old yearbook, how will you look back on your life? You can look back on a life to be proud of. Here are nine keys to make you likely to succeed. I offer them to you because you were not born to be a failure. You were born for success. Take these nine keys in your hand and go for it. There is a reason you were born you. Use these keys. Unlock all the doors you come to. Success awaits you. Congratulations; you are about to become Most Likely to Succeed.

COURAGETHE KEY TO
THE KEYS OF SUCCESS

Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.

CLARA BOOTH LUCE

T he Bradley armored vehicle inched its way onto the bridge. Three soldiers, Americans, young and with everything to live for, crouched low as they followed, their eyes on the old woman. Bullets from the Iraqi guns on the far side of the river bounced off the sides of the vehicle and the steel girders of the bridge. The soldiers kept coming, risking their lives with every step, braving the enemy guns, all for the life of the elderly Iraqi woman huddled in the gun smoke.

The officer in charge tossed a smoke grenade, and three Americans ran forward to pull the woman to safety. Captain Chris Carter, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, was the company commander. He ordered his men to retreat, carrying the woman, while he gave covering fire with an M-16.

On March 31, 2003, Captain Chris Carter and his men acted courageously on a bridge somewhere south of Baghdad. They were not merely brave but courageous, risking their lives for a defenseless woman in danger from the bullets of her nations army.

The first and most important key to successful living is courage. Imagine that all the keys to success are locked in a safe-deposit boxall but one, that is. One key unlocks the box so that you can get your hands on all the others. That one key is courage, and without courage none of the other keys mean a thing.