330 THE PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL POWER
interest everyone of them who will listen to you, in the development
of Initiative. It will not be necessary for you to give your reasons for
doing this, nor will it be necessary for you to announce the fact that
you are doing it. Just go ahead and do it. In your own mind you will
understand, of course, that you are doing it because this practice will
help you and will at least do those whom you influence in the same
practice no harm.
If you wish to try an experiment that will prove both interesting
and profitable to you, pick out any acquaintance whom you know to
be a person who never does anything that he or she is not expected
to do, and begin selling them your idea of Initiative. Do not stop by
merely discussing the subject once; keep it up every time you have a
convenient opportunity. Approach the subject from a different angle
each time. If you go about this in a tactful and forceful manner, you
will soon observe a change in the person on whom you are trying the
experiment. And you will observe something else of more importance
still: you will observe a change in yourself! Do not fail to try this exper-
iment. You cannot talk Initiative to others without developing a desire
to practice it yourself
Through the operation of the principle of autosuggestion, every
statement that you make to others leaves its imprint on your own sub-
conscious mind, and this is also the case whether your statements are
false or true. You have often heard the saying "He who lives by the sword
will die by the sword:' Properly interpreted, this simply means that we
are constantly attracting to ourselves and weaving into our own char-
acters and personalities those qualities that our influence is helping
to create in others. If we help others develop the habit of Initiative,
we, in turn, develop this same habit. If we sow the seeds of hatred and
envy and discouragement in others, we, in turn, develop these qualities
in ourselves.
We come now to another step in the procedure you must follow
in developing Initiative and Leadership.