“Shared By Carla”
Sometime today or tomorrow or next month, in practically every commercial office and manufacturing plant in the world, an important executive will sit back in his or her chair and study a list of names on a sheet of white paper.
Your name may be on it.
A position of responsibility is open and they are face to face with the old, old problem – “Where can I find the person?”
The faces, the words, the work, the impressions of various people will pass through their mind in quick review. What is the first question they will ask concerning each?
“Which person is strongest on initiative, which one can best assume responsibility?”
Other things being equal, that is the person who will get the job. For the first requisite in business as in social life is confidence in yourself – knowledge of your power. Given that, the second is easy – initiative or the courage to start things. Lots of people have ideas, but few have the confidence in themselves or the courage to start anything.
With belief and initiative, the third requisite follows almost as a matter of course – the faith to go ahead and do things in the face of all obstacles.
“Oh, God,” said Leonardo da Vinci, “you sell us everything for the price of an effort.”
Certainly no one had a better chance to know than he. An illegitimate son, brought up in the family of his father, the misfortune of his birth made him the source of constant derision. He had to do something to lift himself far above the crowd. And he did. “For the price of an effort” he became the greatest artist in Italy – probably the greatest in the world – in a day when Italy was famous for her artists. Kings and princes felt honored at being associated with this illegitimate boy. He made the name he had no right to, famous for his work alone.
“Work out your own salvation,” said Paul. And the first requisite in working it out is a knowledge of your power. All the ages behind you have bequeathed you stores of abilities which you are allowing to lie latent. Those abilities are stored up in your sub-conscious mind. Call upon them. Use them. As Whittier put it – “All the good the past has had remains to make our own time glad.”
Robert Collier
From The Book of Life