Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP

contempt, unless there is a rich relative in the background, in

which case destiny patiently waits around the corner with a club.

To which class do you belong?

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Inasmuch as you will be expected to take inventory of yourself and
determine which of the factors of this course you need most, after you
have completed the last lesson, it may be well if you begin to get ready for
this analysis by answering the question that Elbert Hubbard has asked:
To which class do you belong?
One of the peculiarities of Leadership is the fact that it is never
found in those who have not acquired the habit of taking the Initiative.
Leadership is something that you must invite yourself into; it will
never thrust itself upon you. If you will carefully analyze all leaders
whom you know, you will see that they not only exercised Initiative but
they also went about their work with a difinite purpose in mind. You will
also see that they possessed the quality described in the third lesson of
this course: Self-Confidence.
These facts are mentioned in this lesson because it will profit you
to observe that successful people make use of all the factors covered by
the seventeen lessons of the course. They are also mentioned for the
more important reason that it will profit you to understand thoroughly
the principle of organized ifJort, which this course is intended to establish
in your mind.
This seems an appropriate place to point out that this course is not
intended as a shortcut to success, nor is it intended as a mechanical formula
that you may use in noteworthy achievement without effort on your
part. The real value of the course lies in the use that you will make of it,
and not in the course itself Its chief purpose is to help you develop in
yourself the qualities covered by the seventeen lessons, and one of the
most important of these qualities is Initiative, the subject of this lesson.
We will now proceed to apply the principle on which this lesson
is founded by describing, in detail, just how it served successfully to
complete a business transaction that most people would call difficult.