Listen to episode 441 of the Inspirational Living podcast: Seizing Opportunities | Master of Your Fate. Edited and Adapted from Success and How to Win It by B.F. Austin.

Motivational Podcast Excerpt: The Spanish have a proverb that half of the misfortunes in life come from holding in your horse while it is leaping. The rider who checks a horse when vaulting over a hedge or brook courts death or disaster. So, when the time comes for supreme effort (the grand vault that is to lift you over the obstacles in your path and introduce you to a higher and nobler arena), you must enter into the spirit and effort of the hour and not hold back your horse when it is leaping.

There comes to each life but a few of these moments, and when they do come they must be improved to the utmost. The one who would win in life's heavily contested conflicts must wisely lay aside everything that will hinder the fullest exercise of their powers or lessen their chances of winning success.

Every weight carried lessens the chances of victory; every weight discarded increases the prospects of success. Yet how many people enter life's great arena loaded down with weights, careless if not utterly oblivious of the handicap under which they struggle for fame and fortune and the higher success of character.