Enthusiasm! Heads on the Coin of Success.

Some people seem to have enthusiasm coursing through their veins. Others have anything but. With enthusiasm, all seems possible and without it, despair is your best friend. Here is my board of directors for the skill of enthusiasm.

The real secret of success is enthusiasm. – Walter Chrysler

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. – Charles Schwab

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life. – Tennessee Williams

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. – Dale Carnegie

If enthusiasm has a better board of directors than this group, I want to hear it!

The root of enthusiasm hails from Greece and meant god within or possession by god. When enthusiasm is present so is motivation and confidence. The ability to be creative, inspire yourself, others and generate authentic controlled excitement are all children of enthusiasm. When enthusiasm takes hold, the level of pain either is forgotten or totally disappears. Our favorite list of upsets is lost as well. This essence of enthusiasm is powerful stuff! Everyone has experienced real enthusiasm.

Some of what is associated with enthusiasm is excitement, passion, conviction, devotion, eagerness, ardor, ecstasy, joy, interest, warmth, zest and more. When it is missing, what often appears is aloofness, apathy, coldness, coolness, doubt, indifference, pessimism, weariness or lethargy. I think some people avoid being enthusiastic because they have experienced the replacement and associate it with enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm has critics too.

Enthusiasm is that temper of the mind in which the imagination has got the better of the judgment. – William Warburton

Faked enthusiasm is worse than bad acting – it is bad acting with the intent to deceive. – Bo Bennett

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth. – Arthur Balfour

Enthusiasm is a skill to practice and use. We are all attracted to enthusiastic people. Some people overwhelmed by it, then use enthusiasm to raise one of their ‘red flags’ as an excuse.

Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity. – Henry David Thoreau

Some people claim that enthusiasm is a product of something else. It may appear to be. This may be true for those who have decided to find their one sole main purpose in life first… and then have enthusiasm.

It is not easy to find something that will intrigue and bind your interest and enthusiasm. This you must seek for yourself. – Walt Annenberg

Enthusiasm is learnable skill like any other. It is sequential habit inducing steps, like playing any instrument, and the instrument is you.

Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic. – Dale Carnegie

There is an eloquence in true enthusiasm. – Edgar Allan Poe

There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment. – Norman Vincent Peale

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Once lit, the fire of enthusiasm is contagious. There are numerous ways to induce enthusiasm. The knock on ‘fake it till you make it’ is one reason many people won’t play. “Faith” is often called upon.

Faith is an excitement and an enthusiasm: it is a condition of intellectual magnificence to which we must cling as to a treasure, and not squander on our way through life in the small coin of empty words, or in exact and priggish argument. – George Sand

How and what we believe about enthusiasm dictates our skill in using it. A later post I will look at ways to practice the skill.

What makes enthusiasm disappear?

Procrastination is attitude’s natural assassin. There is nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task. – William James

While we are focusing on fear, worry, or hate, it is not possible for us to be experiencing happiness, enthusiasm or love. – Bo Bennett

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it. – Robert Heinlein

There is a relationship between goal setting, keeping those goals, our integrity, our ‘feelings’ and this skill enthusiasm. The other side of this coin is just as important!

There is no morality by instinct. There is no social salvation in the end without taking thought; without Mastery of logic and application of logic to human experience. – Katharine Fullerton Gerould