TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Franciso d’Anconia, from Atlas Shrugged:

Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.

“Success” is not what you’ve gotten, the things you’ve amassed. People are not successful because they have a $3 million home with a tennis court and a butler. Their level of success doesn’t increase proportionally with the price tag of things they purchase.

Success is not in the ends of things, but in the means. Success is about how you achieved something, in the process.

Success is doing your absolute best work, and pushing your abilities past that. Success is creating something fundamentally useful for yourself, and for others, something that they will buy or trade for not out of pity but because they respect you and know that what you’ve done will benefit them.

That’s what you should always strive for. Do not cut corners or take breaks in your work. Do not do something that is good enough. Put all you can into what you do, whatever it is.