ence in themselves, but they may lack the courage to face
difficulties, to overcome obstacles, to meet hard conditions, to pass
through disagreeable experiences. Such are the men who lack the
initiative, the push, the aggressiveness, to do as well as they know how,
to do as much as they can, to undertake the high achievement for which
they have the ability. The cases of such men would be hopeless were it not
for the fact that some powerful incentive, like an emergency or necessity,
some tremendous enthusiasm, some strong determination, some deep
conviction, urges them on to the expression of the fulness of their
powers. Lacking even any of these, it is possible for the man who lacks
courage to develop it.

Courage is developed by doing courageous acts. The man who feels that he
lacks courage, who knows that he needs to forget his fears and his
anxieties, has half won his battle. Knowing his deficiencies, he can by
the very power of his will compel himself to courageous words and acts,
thus increasing and developing his courage and, as a result, his
efficiency.

LACK OF AMBITION

Finally, people do not undertake work in their proper vocations because of
a lack of ambition. This is, indeed, a fundamental deficiency. Perhaps it
underlies many of those we have already described. Certain it is that we
usually obtain what we most earnestly and ardently desire. Someone has
said that when a man knows definitely and in detail just exactly what he
desires, he is halfway toward attainment. Now, a man does not know
definitely and in detail what he wants unless he wants it so intensely
that it is always in his mind; he thinks about it, dreams of it, and
paints mental pictures of himself enjoying it; perhaps spends hours in
working out the detail of it. When a man has an ambition which drives him
on to this kind of mental exercise, he usually has one which overcomes his
inertia, burns out his laziness, triumphs over his lack of confidence in
himself, urges him out of grooves and ruts, and enables him to overcome
deficiencies in education and training, is an incentive to him for the
creating of opportunities where none exist, gives him courage for
anything, and kindles ever afresh his enthusiasm and determination. There
is no obstacle so great that it will not dissolve and vanish away into
thin air in the heat of such an overwhelming desire and ambition as this.

We need to remind ourselves, however, that even the most ardent ambit