THE INITIATIVE ENERGY OF SUCCESS
[Sidenote: _Sources of Persistence_]
In such instances as we have recounted, men have found that persistent
effort along certain lines has had the effect of making presently
available what would otherwise be simply unused storage batteries of
reserve power. What was the source and inspiration for this persistent
effort?
You will say that it was ambition or patriotism or some similar
semi-emotional influence. And so it was. But what is ambition, what is
patriotism, _what is any desire but a picturing to the mind's eye of
the things desired, an awakening of a mental image_ of the result to
be attained, the reward that is to follow certain efforts? And these
mental pictures coming into consciousness have brought with them their
associated emotions and their associated impulses to muscular action,
impulses appropriate to the picture _and automatically tending to work
its realization_.
These impulses constitute the whole of man's achieving power. They are
the Initiative Energy of all Success.
[Sidenote: _Importance of the Mental Setting_]
When you are afflicted with doubt and fear, timidity and lack of
confidence, this means that your mental inhibitions are too numerous,
too high or too strong. Remove them and access is had to the latent
energy of accumulated and creative thought complexes. You will then
become buoyant, cheerful, overflowing with enthusiasm, and ready for a
fresh, definite, active part in life.
_Ideas, then, when latent, may be considered as possessing an
energizing influence_.
The same idea does not necessarily have the same effect upon the same
persons at different times. What its effect may be at any time or with
any individual depends upon the make-up of the consciousness in which
it finds itself.
[Sidenote: _Ideas All Men Respond to_]
The setting of consciousness may be entirely different upon the
present appearance of the particular idea from what it was on the
occasion when this same idea last appeared. Yesterday there may have
been present no conflicting tendencies, and this particular idea may
therefore have been allowed free and joyous expression. Today other
thoughts may be in the ascendency so that we look upon the idea of
yesterday with a feeling of revulsion.
The thought that aroused new energy in you yesterday may then sicken
you at your task today. The thought that stirs the soul of a vigorous
man may shock the sensibilities of a delicate woman.
[Sidenote: _How to Exalt the Personality_]
Yet there are some ideas to which all men in varying degrees seem
alike to respond. How often in battle have the failing spirits of an
army been revived by the appearance of the leader shouting his
battle-cry and waving his shining sword! How often have men been
roused to heights of heroic achievement by the strains of martial
music! How often have troops spent with exhaustion responded to the
call of such simple phrases as "The Flag," "Our Country," "Liberty,"
or such songs as "The Marseillaise," "God Save the King," "Dixie"!
These phrases are but the signs of ideas, yet the sounding of these
phrases has summoned these ideas into consciousness, and the summoning
of these ideas into consciousness has placed undreamed-of and
immeasurable foot-pounds of energy on the hair-trigger of action.
[Sidenote: _"Good Starters" and "Strong Finishers"_]
And so it is with you. Down deep in the inmost chambers of your soul
are untouched stores of energy that properly applied will exalt your
personality and illumine your career.
But to find and claim these hidden riches you must persevere. You must
endure.
In a Marathon race it is endurance that wins. The graceful sprinter
who is off with a leap at the bark of the pistol soon falls by the
wayside.
Life is a Marathon in which persistence triumphs.
There are many "good starters," but few "strong finishers." That is
why the failures so outnumber the successes.
[Sidenote: _Steps in Self-Development_]
The man who travels fastest does more than he is told to do. To merely
comply with a fixed routine is to fall short of one's duty. The
progressive man adds to the work of today his preparation for the work
of tomorrow. He delights in attempting more and more difficult tasks,
because in every task he sets himself he sees a step forward in the
development of his own abilities. He loves his work more than he loves
his pay, and he delves deeper than the exigencies of the moment
require, because he craves the power to do more.
Most men start with enthusiasm. No hours are too long, no task too
difficult. But soon they tire. And lacking will-power to persist, they
succumb to the lure of distracting interests. They become disheartened
and indifferent. And so they fail.
[Sidenote: _Saving a Thousand a Year_]
A young man married. He was proprietor of a flourishing "general"
store in Princeton, Indiana. He and his bride forthwith resolved that
they could and would lay aside out of their income a thousand dollars
a year for ten years, by which time they would have ten thousand
dollars and accumulated interest and could go into business in a big
city. At the end of the first year, when they took stock of their
savings, they decided that thereafter, instead of trying to save a
thousand dollars a year for ten years, they would undertake to save
ten dollars a year for a thousand years and would be more apt to
succeed. Today they are just where they began.
You all know such men--men who are always starting and never
finishing.
[Sidenote: _Looking for a "Soft Snap"_]
Ninety-five per cent of the men who go into business are "quitters."
The very first disappointment sends them scurrying to cover. They
begin to look for a "soft snap" away from the firing line. Is it any
wonder that so few reach any great success?
That there is an enormous lack of appropriation of energy in most
men's lives is an undoubted fact. Just where this energy is stored,
and just what its eternal significance may be, is immaterial to our
purpose.
It may be that this reserve is Nature's safeguard against our
extravagance.
It may be, as some philosophers contend, that the subconscious, with
its vast stores of energy, is a higher, more spiritual phase of man.
[Sidenote: _Drawing Power from on High_]
It may be that the subconscious is for each one of us his individual
segment of the Divine Essence--that it marks our "at-one-ment" with
God.
It may be that to evoke these latent energies is to call upon those
resources of our being which are the embodiment within us of the
spirit of the Creator of all things.
It may be that this Divine Essence, if adequately aroused, may exert
an absolute transcendence over material things and lift humanity to a
God-like plane.
"What we call man," wrote Emerson, "the eating, drinking, planting,
counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but
misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect; but the real soul whose
organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our
knees bend." "I said, ye are gods," quoth the Psalmist. "Be ye
perfect, even as your Father," was the injunction of the Master.
Whatever the eternal significance of your latent energy may be, the
fact remains that it is yours, and yours to use.
If you are to succeed, if you are to do big things, you must be a man
of "doggedness." You must keep your eyes trained everlastingly upon
the vision of the thing you want. You must stay in the race until you
get your "second wind." You must be master of yourself and draw freely
on your stored-up powers.
[Sidenote: _The Man Who Lasts_]
Do as we shall tell you in this _Course_ and you will become a master
man, the kind of man who "lasts," the kind of man who works his
imagination overtime, the kind of man who can strain his energies to
the utmost and then, finding himself still a failure, can rise "like
the glow of the sun" to do bolder and bigger things--the kind of man
who wins.