Once a young man asked a great sage about the secret to success, so the sage invited the young man to meet him at the river the next morning. They walked hand-in-hand into the water up to their necks, when the sage dunked the young man and held his head underwater until he started to struggle.

When the young man surfaced, he took several deep breaths.

The sage asked him, “What did you desire most when you were underwater?”

“Air,” the man replied.

And the sage said: “That’s the secret to success. When you desire something as bad as you wanted air, you will get it. There is no other secret.”

Nothing is more powerful than the power of desire. Napoleon Hill, one of my favorite authors, said: “Desire is the starting point of all achievement. Not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

In his classic book “Think and Grow Rich,” Hill provides a six-step formula that explains exactly how to achieve your desires. Here are the steps, along with my input.

1. Focus your attention on exactly what you want. With money, this means the exact amount of money you intend to bring into your life.

2. Determine exactly what you are prepared to offer in return for the thing you want.

3. Establish the exact date when you intend to have the thing you desire in your possession.

4. Develop a clear plan for manifesting your desire and put this plan into action immediately.

5.Create a clear statement that includes the exact amount of money or whatever it is you want, the time when you intend to have it, what you are giving in exchange and your time and action plan for making it happen.

6. Read this written statement out loud two times each day, as you go to bed in the evening and as you get up in the morning. And most importantly, act as if it is already yours when you read your statement. Visualize it, feel it and believe that you have already manifested the thing you desire.

Look up the word "desire" in your thesaurus and you’ll find synonyms like covet, hunger, craving, longing, want and yearning. Not only must you know what you want, but you must really want what you want, if you are to get what you want.

A coach or teacher can tell you what you need to do to accomplish something, but if the individual does not have a deep-down burning desire to achieve it, great success will not be attained. Desire must come from within. You either want it or you don’t.

To lack desire means to lack a key ingredient to success. Many a talented individual failed because they lacked desire. Many victories have been snatched by the underdog because they wanted it more. So, if you desire intensely and you act upon it, then everything stands within your reach.

Your ultimate desire must be based on reason. You won’t become the queen of England without the requisite family ties, or be the Super Bowl MVP when you can’t read the playbook. Aspirations that are unrealistic get in the way of legitimate desires that are within your control.

Desire may start with a daydream, but it is so much more. The weeks, months or years of hard work may seem like a nightmare at times. Roadblocks and failures will test your mettle.

Desire could be Sir James Dyson’s middle name. He failed more than 5,000 times over 15 years in developing a prototype for his bestselling bagless vacuum cleaner, while investing his entire savings. How many of us can claim that sort of dedication?

Viola Davis developed her love for acting in high school, but she didn’t get her big break until 2008 at age 43, when she landed a role in the movie “Doubt,” which garnered her first Oscar nomination, paving her way to success.

Stephen King’s first book, “Carrie,” was rejected 30 times, but he kept writing and now is regarded as one of the greatest living writers, with more than 60 novels to his credit.

Julia Child didn’t have a strong desire for cooking until she was almost 40 and attended the world-famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. She worked tirelessly for nine years to get her first cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” published.

These people didn’t give up, because they all wanted something “as bad as air.” My advice: Take a breath and jump right in.

Mackay’s Moral: Desire is an inside job.

There is a wonderful Japanese word, “nemawashi,” whose rough translation is to “prepare the roots.” Although the word was borrowed from famously patient Japanese gardeners, every Japanese businessperson understands its meaning.

A gardener would use the term “nemawashi” to describe the infinite and time-consuming pains he or she might take in preparation for transplanting a small tree. The whole process might take several years -- the time necessary to “prepare the roots” so that the little tree can stand the shock of being uprooted.

The same care and patience are necessary in many complex business tasks -- opening a new market, educating customers about additional uses for your products, even training your most promising young employees. Not everything important can be accomplished in a day, a month or even a year.

“Nemawashi” can be a valuable reminder that patience and care can accomplish things that sheer managerial drive cannot.

I’m not exactly a patient person. I’m more of the persuasion that says, “I want patience ... AND I WANT IT RIGHT NOW.” In fact, I once went in to have my patience tested and found out I’m negative.

Like any entrepreneur who is starting a business, you want it to grow as fast as possible. You have big dreams and want to realize them quickly. It was no different when I was building my envelope manufacturing company. However, it’s important to avoid the “ready, fire, aim” process.

Jumping to hasty decisions is not good. A lack of patience can cloud judgment, diminish credibility and damage relationships. Impatience can make you look desperate.

And yet, current culture has programmed us to expect immediate results.

I learned that in order to establish patience, you have to create realistic expectations. Things seldom happen overnight. Often you need to take a slow, methodical approach to allow good things time to develop. The objective is to keep moving forward and to acquire skills and knowledge as you progress.

Patience is a key element of success in the workplace, no matter what your role is. I understand the old adage that good things come to those who wait. That’s why patience often leads to happiness.

Remember the marshmallow test, which was created by psychologist Walter Mischel. It is one of the most famous psychological experiments ever conducted. The test lets young children decide between an immediate reward (one marshmallow), or if they delay gratification, a larger reward (multiple marshmallows). Studies showed that children who were patient were much more successful later in life.

The wonderful thing about patience is that it goes a long way, and yet the more we use it, the more we have.

Patience also allows you to gather all the facts and make better decisions after seeing the big picture. Patience enables you to reach your goals by being consistent and persistent if you are dedicated and determined.

Patient people don’t allow their emotions to overwhelm them. They are in control and accept challenges without becoming rattled. Patience is waiting without worrying.

But there’s another old saying that helps maintain a reasonable balance: “If you wait until it’s perfect, you’ll be waiting a long time.” Remain alert and know when it is time to make a decision and move forward.

Perhaps you are familiar with the lessons in patience one learns in growing bamboo. One of my favorite stories is about a Chinese farmer who decided to plant bamboo seeds. He dug holes, planted the seeds and then marked their locations. He faithfully watered those seeds every day. After a year, nothing had sprouted. He kept at it for another year, but still no sign of life.

Another year of watering and tending the marked locations, but no results. By then his neighbors were starting to question his devotion to the bare soil. Yet he persisted.

So, for a fourth year, he watered and watched. But not even one of those seeds showed any promise. He refused to give up. And for a fifth year, he tended those seeds as though they were his family.

One day, as he was watering his little plot, he saw a green sprout peeping through. It seemed to grow right before his eyes! It grew and grew, and within six weeks, those sprouts had reached 90 feet tall. His bamboo forest had come to fruition, all because his patience paid off.

Mackay’s Moral: A person without patience is like a car without brakes.

One of the things I’ve missed most during the pandemic is getting together and networking. Networking is part of my DNA. No cocktail parties, fundraisers, association meetings and so on for the last couple years has been troubling for me, and I’m sure for many of you as well.

The No. 1 line from my networking book, “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty,” is: “If I had to name the single characteristic shared by all the truly successful people I’ve met over a lifetime, I’d say it is the ability to create and nurture a network of contacts.”

Networking is that important for business. In my entire career, I have never once heard a successful person say he or she regretted putting time and energy into their network.

Author Porter Gale said, “Your network is your net worth.”

Networking is not a numbers game. The idea is not to see how many people you can meet; the idea is to compile a network of people you can count on.

For most people, networking is a learned behavior, like learning to swim. It is a gradual process of trial and error, small incremental steps and finally a few breakthroughs.

If you want to practice, start with your family and extended family and then their extended families. Your network is potentially the size of your contacts, plus all your relatives’ contacts, your friends’ contacts, your business associates’ contacts and so on. I like to say when two people exchange dollar bills, each has only one dollar. However, when two people exchange networks, they each have two networks.

Four of the best groups I know for networking are alumni clubs, industry associations, social clubs and hobby groups. Some universities have better alumni networks than others, but every school -- even every high school -- has an alumni club.

Trade groups are happy hunting grounds for networking in all kinds of ways. In fact, I recently was at the spring meeting of the Envelope Manufacturers Association in my role as chairman of MackayMitchell Envelope Company.

Golf clubs, social clubs and athletic clubs are extremely important parts of a person’s network. More deals probably are closed in these places than in all the offices in the country combined. (Well, maybe not quite as many, but how else to justify the time and expense to our spouses and bosses?)

And hobbies have always been a terrific way to make contacts across a broad and diverse spectrum, because buffs often are scattered all over the map and can be found in all income, age and social groups.

And if you haven’t mastered the incredible reach of the internet, using sites like LinkedIn, you are missing out on an enormous opportunity. Of course, there’s a Facebook group for every interest, including all aspects of business. I’ve established international contacts who used to be accessible only through well-timed phone calls or overseas travel.

As the pandemic continues to recede, there are more opportunities for in-person networking. If you’re out of practice or new to the whole networking thing, remember these basic tips for making a positive impression:

-- Be your authentic self. Don’t try to put on an act when you first meet someone. Smile, be friendly, and most of all, be yourself. Other people will respond to an open attitude.

-- Develop your story. Produce a short narrative for yourself, describing who you are and what you want to accomplish in life. Keep it short and simple -- you don’t want to overwhelm a new acquaintance with your life story, just give them a glimpse into your personality.

-- Target the right people. Don’t try to establish a relationship with everyone you meet. Identify people in your industry who can help you with knowledge and insight, and whom you can help as well.

-- Do some homework. Before going to a networking event like a happy hour or industry conference, find out who is going to be there so you can plan your approach. Do you know anyone already? Can a friend help you connect with someone new? Be prepared.

-- Stay open. Although you may have an idea of what kind of people you want to connect with, don’t write anyone off too quickly. Sometimes a person from a different industry has experiences or insights that can be valuable to you. Get to know people to assess whether they merit staying in contact with.

Mackay’s Moral: The more you exercise your networking muscles, the stronger they get -- and the easier networking becomes.