The men you see spending most of their time looking for higher and more lucrative positions are, nine times out of ten, men who have made worthless failures in other places.
Booker T. Washington
The Public Record
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
gutenberg.org
When you make yourself master of these humble positions, you will find that the calls to higher places will come to you.
Make haste and get to the point where you can feel that everything connected with the shop in which you work, or in the office, or in the stable, is under your care, and that you alone are responsible for it.
Then you can make yourself valuable and in demand just in proportion as you consider that the work you are performing is your own.
You will constantly be surprised to find how little you really know about your work, and how much more somebody else knows about it than you do.
I do not mean for you always to put into practice every suggestion that is made to you, or to agree with every statement made to you; but listen to what people say, weigh their plans alongside of your own, and then profit by the one which…
It is a mark of intelligence to learn, even from the humblest person.
Feel that you can always learn something from somebody else.
There is no person who makes himself of so little use in the world as the one who feels that he knows all there is to be known about his work.
Know all there is to be known about the position you occupy, but ever feel that there is more for you to learn.
The ignorant man will always be ignorant, if he fears that by asking for information he will betray his lack of knowledge.
Never get to the point where you are ashamed to ask somebody else for information.