Opportunity is latent in the very foundation of human society. Opportunity is everywhere about us. But the preparation to seize upon the opportunity, and to make the most of it, is to be made by every one for himself ... he will be self-made or never made.
Interpretation
Opportunities exist all around us, but it is essential for individuals to prepare themselves to take advantage of them.
Orison Swett Marden highlights the importance of personal preparation in achieving success. While opportunities are abundant in society, it is ultimately the responsibility of each individual to ready themselves to recognize and seize those opportunities. Without proactive preparation and self-effort, one may miss these chances for personal growth and achievement.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote at a conference to inspire attendees to take charge of their careers.
We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.
You know from past experiences that whenever you have been driven to the wall, or thought you were, you have extricated yourself in a way which you never would have dreamed possible had you not been put to the test. The trouble is that in your everyday life you don't go deep enough to tap the divine mind within you.
You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.
Something greater than wealth, grander even than fame β that manhood, character, stand for success, and that nothing else really does.
Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.
If our dreams are sincere desires to achieve, not mere pipe-dreams, there is something deep within ourselves which comes out to meet them and helps to make them realities.
If you can shrug off a loss, you can't be a winner.
A passionate belief in your business and personal objectives can make all the difference between success and failure. If you aren't proud of what you're doing, why should anybody else be?
I have wrestled in almost every tournament in the world. I've won the Olympics, NCAAs, and World Championships, but none of those can truly compare to the feeling I felt when I won my first and only state championship my senior year of high school.
Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to doDon't wish it were easier, wish you were better.
I know it's not the most important thing for me to win the most Grand Slams and be remembered in this world. I certainly don't have to win little tournaments here, there and everywhere, I don't have to win at all. Although I do want to.
The goal, then, isn't to draw some positioning charts and announce that you have differentiated your product. No, the opportunity is to actually create something that people choose to talk about, regardless of what the competition is doing.
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