LUCK IS NOTORIOUSLY UNRELIABLE
How Important is luck - how valuable is "getting the
breaks" in becoming a success? Here is what 1,000 suc-
cessful people told me.
I ASKED 1,000 of my newspaper readers how important was
luck and "getting the breaks" in their success.
All of them told me that luck is unreliable. That it is
easier to make luck happen, than to sit back and wait for
it to happen.
That occasionally lucky "breaks'* occurred, but that only
too often they came so fast you didn't see them as they
passed your nose.
Or else when luck came, you didn't recognize it.
Luck, it seems, is notoriously unreliable in making you
a success in making daydreams come true.
Does Opportunity Knock Twice?
When I put this question to many of the successful people
I had written up in Success Secrets, most of them told me
they wouldn't know opportunity if it did knock.
It seems they were so busy making opportunity^ that when
it showed up accidentally it went unrecognized.
It is the down-and-outer sitting on the park bench, they
told me, that is most apt to see opportunity when it occurs,
since he spends his life waiting for lucky breaks and op-
portunity.
So when a quarter rolls up to his feet, he is an opportunist
and grabs it.
The man busy with success is apt not to see the quarter
roll up. His mind is on dollar bills flying by too fast for
him to grab.
Opportunity may knock many times.
It depends on how often you make it knock.
I'll give you a formula to make opportunity knock not
once, nor twice, but as often as you choose.
People Who Get the Breaks
First before I give you this master formula, let me analyze
more with you on what makes one person a success while
his next door neighbor is a failure.
I asked these 1,000 people how much their success could
be attributed to getting the so-called "breaks."
Most of them asked me what I meant by "breaks."
"Opportunity," I told them. "You know, somebody is
looking just for what you have made, and they buy it."
This seemed to bewilder these successful men and women,
who had made fortunes and happiness for themselves.
They told me their "breaks" were nothing more than the
result of their own thinking, that proper thought made
"breaks" occur.
Of course if by chance something did happen, it helped
their success along.
But "breaks," they told me, are not necessary to make you
a success.
When Breaks Do Occur
It seems that "bad luck" helps more than "breaks."
Tough times harden you, make you think longer and
faster than when you are lulled by good times.
But when "breaks" do occur, naturally you seize upon
them to your advantage.
You must be prepared for the "breaks."
The hobo sitting on the park bench grabs the quarter, but
not being prepared for his sudden stroke of wealth, he is
apt to mishandle that two bits and get nothing from it but
a moment of fast spending. It would be the same with $100
or $1,000.
But if you are prepared through education, through ex-
perience, or through being on your toes, then when a quarter
or a dollar or a job or a promotion comes up, you'll know
how to make the most of it.
You'll know how to make the most of a "break."
The Will to Win
No formula will work for you if you haven't the "will
to win" - the desire to want to be a success of some sort.
While you may often have desire, you will be on a merry-
go-round if you don't have some "know how" to guide
your wishes in life, and here are some rules:
1. Think and be calm. You'll have more common sense,
2. Ask questions: Why? How? What? Where?
3. Act "like a million" and you'll feel "like a million."
4. Give the best you have. You'll get the best there is*
5. Be enthusiastic. "Boy, am I enthusiastic" is the sparkle
in living.
6. Be courteous and pleasant
7. Do today now what you know you ought to do.
8. Don't be afraid of yourself or of the morrow.
9. Have Faith. In God. In Country. In Yourself.
10, Aim high. And keep everlastingly at it.
The road to the top is wide open. Every day new names
are added to the roster of success.
Troubles Help More Than Hammocks
It seems that leisure, too much money, too many good
times, weaken people.
Romes always fall after a career of gorging and false fun
and too much lying around in hammocks.
You can't think in a hammock. Hard benches make you
think.
I will show you, later on, name after name of people who
went places only after trouble urged them on, made them
mad to a point where they made up their minds to be a
success "or else."
Welcome hard times. Welcome trouble. It stimulates you.
You go farther than the fat man slumbering overly-content
in a hammock.
Of course, as you'll see, you must know when success has
arrived so that you can safely enjoy lying in a hammock.
Knowing how to recognize success when it comes is a
major part of this formula.
But remember troubles help more than hammocks in
making you a success in life.
Don't Depend on Luck
Just don't depend on luck.
If it happens around, be prepared for the "break."
Don't say, "If luck comes" "If I get the breaks."
That is why the beggar never rode a horse, he said, "If
wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
Little Joe Doakes, in the trenches, didn't say, "if." He sat
back and figured, "how"
He wanted to know how he could own that business of
his own? How he could be independent?
George Blaisdell, with two employees and $260 worth of
second-hand equipment, had an idea for G.I. smokers. He
invented the Zippo lighter!
Thinking "how" not wishing "if," set him up in his
business.
Thinking "how" will make your dreams come true, too.
It's All in How You Think
