Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

324 THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL POWER

Today Microsoft dominates the software market worldwide. Is it luck? Were Paul

Allen and Bill Gates just in the right place at the right time? Certainly not. From the

moment they saw the Altair on the cover of Popular Electronics they pursued a defi-

nite aim, one that continued to grow as time passed. They were determined to make

themselves indispensable to the manufacturers and owners of personal computers.

Once they had their initial success, they continued to drive themselves and

their employees forward to offer further improvement to what they had already done.

Microsoft is the leader in the software industry precisely because it has always

been willing to take the initiative, and with it the risks, of pursuing its founders' aims.

This story and the previous not only show the value of initiative and leadership,

but they also lead up to the subject covered by the next lesson of this course on

the laws of success-which is imagination.

There are generally many plans through which a desired object may
be achieved, and it is often true that the obvious and usual methods
are not the best. The usual method of procedure would have been to
borrow from a bank. But you can see that in this case this method was
impractical because no collateral was available.
A great philosopher once said: "Initiative is the passkey that opens the
door to opportunity." I do not recall who this philosopher was, but I know
that he was great because of the soundness of his statement.
I will next outline the exact procedure that you must follow if you
are to become a person of Initiative and Leadership.

ELIMINATE PROCRASTINATION

First you must master the habit of procrastination and eliminate it
from your makeup. This habit of putting off until tomorrow what
you should have done last week or last year or a score of years ago is
gnawing at your very being, and you can accomplish nothing until you
throw it of£
The method through which you eliminate procrastination is based
on a well-known and scientifically tested principle of psychology that