Self Help
Major Bach's address is one that might well be delivered
to every boy and girl who graduates in high school. It might well be
delivered to every college graduate. It might well become the book of rules
for every man who is placed in a position of leadership over other men, no
matter in what calling, business or profession.
In Lesson Two you learned the value of a definite chief aim. Let it be here emphasized that your aim must be active and not passive. A 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. You can get nowhere without persistence, a fact which 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 course if you do not take some step each day that brings you nearer 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 matter - alive if you only wait. The materialization will come 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!
Analysis of more than 16,000 people disclosed the fact
that Leaders are always men of ready decision, even in matters of small
importance, while the follower is NEVER a person of quick decision. This is
worth remembering!
The follower, in whatever walk of life you find him, is a man who seldom knows what he wants. He vacillates, procrastinates, and actually refuses to reach a decision, even in matters of the smallest importance, unless a Leader induces him to do so. To know that the majority of people cannot and will not reach decisions quickly, if at all, is of great help to the Leader who knows what he wants and has a plan for getting it. Here it will be observed how closely allied are the two laws covered by Lesson Two and this lesson.