We all know of famous people who made the giant leap from rags to riches. For example, Abdul Lateef Jandali was born to an unwed mother and given up for adoption to a working class family.  They had nothing to give him but a loving home and a new name: Steve Jobs.

In college, Jobs was so broke that he collected Coke bottles for the deposit money, slept on sofas, and ate the free weekly meal at the local Hare Krishna temple. How did he rocket himself to the stratosphere of success? He did it by capturing a series of enormous opportunities.

Sachin and Binny Binsal came from middle class families in India. They were both set for regular jobs in the hi-tech sector. Together they began their journey in a garage in Bangalore by creating Flipkart in 2007. They were bought over by Walmart in 2018 for $16 billion.

How did the Bansals leap from being salaried workers to billionaire entrepreneurs? By capturing opportunities that others had ignored.

Are these individuals—and many others like them—in some way special, somehow endowed with superpowers that you or I can never hope to have? Of course not. 

They out started out just like you and me—with nothing but empty wallets and strong ambition.

How is it that people with no money, no team and few resources can achieve such immense success?

It takes more than honesty and hard work to build wealth from nothing. It takes more than determination, desire, or even a dream to climb a ladder so high and so slippery with no support. It takes something far more valuable. It takes something far more powerful.

It takes something that is available to everyone, regardless of where they started out in life. It takes opportunity.

Opportunity is the universal starting point and the common essential factor in all business and career success. Opportunities are the seeds from which all success grows.

Regardless of where you are in life, whether you’re a businessperson, an employee earning wages, an aspiring entrepreneur, a student, or a professional, your ability to capture the best opportunities will be the most crucial factor that determines your success.

Hard work, diligence, persistence and a positive attitude are all very useful if you want to succeed. But they’re insufficient. None of them will deliver success unless you also harness the power of opportunity.