During my sophomore year in college, I developed a theory that luck is more a question of attitude than of blind destiny. “If you want to be lucky,” I told my friends, “expect to be lucky. Then make your expectation dynamic by going out and meeting luck halfway; don’t wait passively for it to come to you.”

Amazing things started happening to me as soon as I myself began living by this principle. The only chapter, out of many, that I studied for a Greek exam turned out to be the one we were asked to translate. I entered an essay contest for a $100 prize, not because I knew the subject (I didn’t), but because I needed the money. My fellow students kept out of the fray, and I was the only contestant. I also won a$15 first prize in a poetry contest, but that was more in my line. Then, with $115 in my pocket, I set off to spend my summer vacation in Mexico.…

Whatever one holds strongly in his mind, that he attracts to himself.… Human magnetism, however, is never the outcome of mere wishful thinking. Two people may think positively in an undertaking, yet one will attract success, and the other, failure. There are weak magnets, and strong ones.

When you send out a strong thought, a ray of energy goes out from you towards the object of that thought. This energy ray creates its own magnetic field —strong or weak, according to the relative strength of your will. If your will, and its resultant flow of energy, are powerful, there is nothing that you cannot draw to yourself. You will be able to perform feats that to others will appear miraculous.