In the dust of defeat as well as in the laurels of victory there is a glory to be found if one has done his best.

A lot of people simply don't bring this intensity to work, although they don't realize it. I try to describe it this way: Let's say there's an intensity level of 10. Some people can work to a certain intensity level and think they worked hard and achieve a 9 1/2. Another person can work at it and do a bad job and believe he or she worked to a 9 or a 10, but it would actually be a 4. So many people work at the minimums rather than the maximums. They're going to do as little as they can to pull together all the loose ends. A bunch of people say, "I wanna have..." and "I wanna be..." but they're not willing to pay the price. The price is time and effort and being a student of what you're doing.

That night I had dinner with my Grandpa Horne, my mother's father, and he taught me a great lesson. My family had lived with Grandpa until I was four and, as I got older, he knew about my strife at home. He had a special way of stepping in occasionally with some wise counsel. We had a special relationship. He called me "Laddie." He was a Mormon bishop for 26 years, as well as a traveling salesman. He used to take me on long drives with him while he was working, and he used these opportunities to teach me and talk to me. As I got older, he was my moral compass, especially after my mother left the Church. He was a wise, kind man and of the greatest influences on my life....Once a month he took me todinner and immediately asked, "What's wrong?" I tole him, "nothing," but he persisted. "Yes, there is; I can tell," he said. I told him about being rejected for the raise and how much work I was doing for the store. He sat silent for a long time thinking about this before he replied, "So what do you intend to do about it?"

"No matter how hard I work," I explained, "I can't perform well enough to accelerate my pay, and I'm getting married."

He repeated his question:  "Okay, what do you intend to do about it?"

"I guess I'll only give them a $1.45 job if they're only going to pay me $1.45."

He thought about this for a few moments, and then he said, "You could do exactly that and still perform at such a high level that you would outperform your coworkers. So they would never know you were giving less than you had. But you would know, and frankly, you would be the only guy to be hurt by your underperformance. So, as your grandpa, I am going to promise you that as long as you continue to take their paycheck, if you work as hard as you can and learn all that you can in that business, someday it will pay off many times over."

I didn't realize then how profound his counsel would prove to be in my life. For some reason, while I was normally hardheaded and ignored advice-preferring, it seems, to learn the hard way-I took Grandpa's counsel to heart on this occasion. It really made an impression on me. It was one of the great lessons in my life, and I have given my best effort in everything I have done since then. Grandpa was right. It wasn't about beating my employers and their policies; it was about me and doing my best because it was the right thing to do.

I stayed a few more months at the parts store, but I wanted more and I had to move on.

“It is not enough to want to make the effort and say we’ll make the effort…It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled.”

I know! Your teachers told you that it didn't matter if you were wrong and that you were unique and special, and they'd just give you an "A" for effort, cuz you're cute. But I just can't do that. It's just not right!

We are told that talent creates its own opportunities but it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

In history--in life--possibilities do not become realities of their own accord; someone, with his hands and his brain, with his labor and his self-sacrifice, must make realities of them. . . . All we are given is possibilities--to make ourselves one thing or another. . . .

[But] slovenliness. . . penetrates our whole national life from top to bottom. . . . [To oppose

slovenliness] the individual must. . . go into training, and give up many things, in the determination to surpass himself. . . . [A] generation [who will do that] can accomplish what centuries failed to achieve without [it]. And there, my young friends, lies [your] challenge. . . .

[Yours is] the historic [task] of restoring to the university its cardinal function of "enlightenment." . . . In the thick of life's urgencies and its passions, the university must assert itself as a major "spiritual power," . . . standing for serenity in the midst of frenzy, for seriousness and the grasp of intellect in the face of. . . unashamed stupidity.

We often, like this man and Hamlet, must "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them" (Act 3, scene 1, ll. 59–60). And sometimes the cost is very high. It was for Christ, it was for Joseph Smith, and it was for this lone man who counted the cost there in the Potomac--and paid it. It is not easy to go without--without physical gratifications or spiritual assurances or material possessions--but sometimes we must since there is no guarantee of convenience written into our Christian covenant. We must work hard and do right, as Abraham Lincoln said, and sometimes our chance will come. And when we've tried, really tried, and waited for what seemed never to be ours, then "the angels came and ministered unto him." For that ministration in your life I pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

One’s life … cannot be both faith-filled and stress-free. …

Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, ‘Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!’ …

Real faith … is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process.

When I was a little girl, I often experienced serious illness. My father was always willing and worthy to use the priesthood power he held to bless me. But I have also felt that my mother's special gifts contributed to my healing. She was truly gifted in her ability to minister to my needs and help me get well. Her great faith that the Lord would lead her to answers about medical treatment was a comfort to me. How blessed I was to have two parents who lovingly used their spiritual gifts.

President Wilford Woodruff said that "it is the privilege of every man and woman in this kingdom to enjoy the spirit of prophecy, which is the Spirit of God; and to the faithful it reveals such things as are necessary for their comfort and consolation, and to guide them in their daily duties."