If you could sit down and chat with Louisa May Alcott, the best selling, nineteenth century author, what advice do you think she would give that you could apply to your business, organization, cause, or to you personally?

After all, she was a highly successful author and businesswoman, outselling Herman Melville and Henry James by a factor of ten at the peak of her literary career. She made enough money to forever raise her family out of poverty, playing the role of bread winner as her brilliant philosopher father, Bronson Alcott, could not.

Louisa May Alcott will forever be known as the author of Little Women, but she was also a staunch abolitionist and served as a nurse during the Civil War. Today, her gravestone at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, where she spent most of her childhood, bears the insignia of a Civil War veteran.

She was also a strong supporter of women's rights, dismissing the notion of a "woman's sphere" and championing woman suffrage, equal pay, college education, and limitless opportunities.

Alcott's success helped others, and I believe she can offer invaluable and timeless advice. Here's what I think she would tell us.

Figure out what you're good at and do it

Alcott recalled playing with her father's books as a very young girl, using them as building blocks before she could read or write. Once she could write, it was clear to her that she had found her calling. She never stopped, publishing her first story at age 16.

Don't let anyone convince you that you can't do something

The Boston publisher James T. Fields, editor of The Atlantic magazine, once instructed Alcott's father, "Tell Louisa to stick to her teaching; she can never succeed as a writer." This message ... made her exclaim to her father: "Tell him I will succeed as a writer, and some day I shall write for the Atlantic!" A short time later, she was proven right - and made $50.

Be yourself

Alcott lived during a time when women had very prescribed roles. She shunned them and "did her own thing." She had a very strong will, a drive to succeed, and enormous talent. She also had deep faith in God, and knew she had the obligation to use the gifts she had been given.

Have courage, and be a leader

It takes guts to go against the grain, but if you have to, you have to. Alcott not only made more money than most women during her time, she was also an abolitionist, suffragist, and supporter of women's rights. Alcott was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, in the town's election for school committee, and organized other women to follow her lead. In her own family, Alcott had to take the place of her father as bread winner. That took guts.

(continued here)