If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all others doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or be misunderstood, and still deliver the goods,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all others doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or be misunderstood, and still deliver the goods,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and translate them into reality;
If you can think—and apply your thoughts practically;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted and misunderstood by the competitor,
Or watch the business you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can think—and apply your thoughts practically;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted and misunderstood by the competitor,
Or watch the business you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can look into the darkness and take your first step,
And take risks as if you were at play,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And still hold on when there is nothing left in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Lets start again!’
If you can pitch to crowds and keep your virtue,
Or build Unicorns —nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all people count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of pitching,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Entrepreneur, my friend!
Or build Unicorns —nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all people count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of pitching,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Entrepreneur, my friend!
Adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’, 1895.