30 Oct The Secret of Success in Business | Podcasts For Success
Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast, brought to you in part by Book of Zen, makers of inspirational fashion and gift ideas. Visit them online at BookofZen.com. Today’s podcast has been edited and adapted from “The Power of Concentration” by William Walker Atkinson, published in 1918.
Everyone has two natures. One wants us to advance and the other wants to pull us back. The one that we cultivate and concentrate on decides what we are at the end. Both natures are trying to gain control. This will alone decides the issue. A person by one supreme effort of the will may change their whole career and almost accomplish miracles. You may be that person. You can be, if you Will to be — for Will can find a way or make one.
I could easily fill a book of cases where people who were plodding along in a matter-of-fact way, all at once were aroused and, as if awakening from a slumber, developed the possibilities within them, and from that time on were different persons.
You alone can decide when the turning point will come. It is a matter of choice whether we allow our higher self to control us, or whether we will be controlled by the brute within us. No one has to do anything that they do not want to do. You are therefore the director of your life, if you will to be.
What we are to do, is the result of our training. We are like putty, and can be completely controlled by our will power. Habit is a matter of acquirement. You may have heard people say that someone comes by this or that skill naturally (a chip off the old block) meaning that they are only doing what one of their parents did. This is quite often the case, but there is no reason for it — for a person can break a habit just the moment they master the “I will.”
You might have been a “good-for-nothing” all your life up to this very minute, but from this time on you can begin to amount to something. Even old people have suddenly changed and accomplished wonders.
“I lost my opportunity,” you might be thinking. And that may be true, but by sheer force of will, you can find a way to bring yourself another opportunity. There is no truth in the saying that opportunity knocks at our door but once in a lifetime. The fact is, opportunity never seeks us; we must seek it.
What usually turns out to be one person’s opportunity was another person’s loss. In this day, one person’s brain is matched against another’s. It is often the quickness of brain action that determines the result. One person thinks “I will do it,” but while they procrastinate, the other goes ahead and does the work.
They both had the same opportunity. But one will complain of their lost chance. Every opportunity lost should teach you a lesson, and it will, if you are seeking the path that leads to success.
Many people read good books, but say they do not get much good out of them. They do not realize that all any book or any lesson can do is to awaken them to their possibilities; to stimulate them to use their will power. You may teach a person from now until doom’s day, but that person will only know what they learn themselves. In other words, “You can lead them to the fountain, but you can’t make them drink.”
READ THE ENTIRE ESSAY IN EVEREST: 50 MOTIVATIONAL LIFE LESSONS
