Although the advertisement only ran once, I don’t think that anyone who read it the first time knew what they were part of. On the 2nd of January, 1915, The Saturday Evening Post ran a copy of “The Penalty of Leadership,” which even today holds great knowledge and advice for us. To give you some background, during the time that the ad was first run, Cadillac’s brand image was dependability. But when the 1915 V8 Touring model hit the market, numerous defects began to show and the brand image became tarnished. Cadillac’s main competitor, Packard, was using their brand image against them in their advertisements and was winning the sales battle. Cadillac’s answer was “The Penalty of Leadership.” Since its first publishing, Cadillac salespeople have requested copies for themselves and customer. In 1945, “The Penalty of Leadership” was voted the best ad of all time by the advertising industry, and according to Advertising Age (1998), this campaign is ranked 49th out of the top 100 ad campaigns of all time.

The popularity of the campaign was revived in 1967, when Cadillac mailed out scrolls of “The Penalty of Leadership” to its customer list. Elvis happened to be on that list. When he read it, he said that even though the piece of paper had been written before he was born, the author could have just as well been writing about him. Elvis framed the scroll and hung it near the desk in his office at the mansion. It still hangs in Graceland today for visitors to see.

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition, the punishment fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work is merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone. If he achieve a masterpiece it will set a million tongues awagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a common-place painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build; no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius.

Long after a great work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.

The Leader is assailed because he is a Leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy, but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this, it is as old as the world and as old as the human passions of envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains the leader. Master Poet, Master Painter, Master Workman; each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages.

That which is great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live, Lives.

As we enter a new year, filled with hopes and dreams for a better future and a better world, I urge you to take these words to heart. Let it be your resolution for the year: Stop listening to the peanut gallery. Be great and do something great. Do something that you can brag to your kids about!