Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

INITIATIVE AND LEADERSHIP 355

Major Bach's address is one that might well be delivered to every
boy and girl who graduates from high school. It might well be delivered
to every college graduate. It might well become the book of rules for
every person who is placed in a position of Leadership over others, no
matter in what calling, business, or profession.

MAKE BOLD DECISIONS QUICKLY

In Lesson Two you learned the value of a Definite Chief Aim. Here, I
want to emphasize that your definite aim will never be anything else but
a mere wish unless you become a person of Initiative and aggressively and
persistently pursue that aim until it has been fulfilled. Your aim must be
active and not passive.
You can get nowhere without persistence, a fact that cannot be too
often repeated.
The difference between persistence and lack of it is the same as the
difference between wishing for a thing and positively determining to
get it.
To become a person of Initiative, you must form the habit of
aggressively and persistently following the object of your Definite Chief
Aim until you acquire it, whether this requires one year or twenty years.
You might as well have no Definite Chief Aim as to have such an aim
without continuous effort to achieve it.
You are not making the most of this Law of Success course if you
do not take some step each day that brings you nearer the realization
of your Definite Chief Aim. Do not fool yourself, or permit yourself
to be misled to believe that the object of your Definite Chief Aim
will materialize if you just wait. The materialization will come only
through your own determination, backed by your own carefully laid
plans and your own Initiative in putting those plans into action, or it
will not come at all.
One of the major requisites for Leadership is the power of quick
and firm decision!