He instinctively reasoned it out that an unpleasant task is never accomplished by stepping aside from it, but that, unerringly, it will return later to be met and done.
Obstacles, to Edward Bok, soon became merely difficulties to be overcome, and he trusted to his instinct to show him the best way to overcome them.

He soon learned that the hardest kind of work was back of every success; that nothing in the world of business just happened, but that everything was brought about, and only in one way--by a willingness of spirit and a determination to carry through.

He soon exploded for himself the misleading and comfortable theory of luck; the only lucky people, he found, were those who worked hard.

To them, luck came in the shape of what they had earned.

There were exceptions here and there, as there are to every rule; but the majority of these, he soon found, were more in the seeming than in the reality.