WILL-POWER IN BUSINESS
is not a factory that has not an opportunity of
being oversold.
In fact, an opportunity is a manufactured
product, and practically everybody has plenty
of raw material. The men who grouse and
groan and say that they never had a chance,
simply do not know what an opportunity is.
They think it is like a bus that picks you up,
whereas the truth is that it is like a job that
needs to be done.
What opportunity had Columbus, or James
Watt, or Shakespeare, or Cromwell, or Napo-
leon, or Leverhulme, or Boot, or Selfridge, or
Lipton, when they began? Practically none
at all. They were makers, not takers, of
opportunity.

To speak accurately, they had only the
ordinary opportunities that hundreds of others
had. They had no exceptional chance, but they
had strong wills.
The value of an opportunity depends upon
the will-power, quickness and tenacity of the
man who sees it. The secret of his success is
in himself. It is not in his stars.
Once a man becomes unbeatable, it seems
as though even the stars were on his side.
Everyone calls him ‘‘ lucky.” He seems to

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