1. The first key which opens the door of success is the trading
instinct, the knowledge and sense of the real value of any article.
Without it a man need not trouble to enter business at all, but if
he possesses it even in a rudimentary form he can cultivate it in
the early days when the mind is still plastic, until it develops
beyond all recognition. When I was a boy I knew the value in
exchange of every marble in my village, and this practice of valuing
became a subconscious habit until, so long as I remained in
business, I always had an intuitive perception of the real and not
the face value of any article.

The young man who will walk through life developing the capacity for
determining values, and then correcting his judgments by his
information, is the man who will succeed in business.

2. But supposing that a young man has acquired this sense of
values, he may yet ruin himself before he comes to the fruition of
his talent if he will not practise economy. By economy I mean the
economic conduct of his business. Examine your profit and loss
account before you go out to conquer the financial world, and then
go out for conquest--if the account justifies the enterprise. Too
many men spend their time in laying down "pipe-lines" for future
profits which may not arrive or only arrive for some newcomer who
has taken over the business. There is nothing like sticking to one
line of business until you have mastered it. A man who has learned
how to conduct a single industry at a profit has conquered the
obstacles which stand in the way of success in the larger world of
enterprise.