The Law of Success - Personal Initiative by Napoleon Hill

Personal initiative means doing the thing that needs to be done without being told to do it. This is the self-starter principle. It starts the ball rolling. It gets action. It causes things to happen. Don't wait for things to happen; build a fire of personal initiative under them and make them happen.

There are people who have come all the way through life rendering extra service and yet have wound up in the poorhouse. They were absolutely honest, which gave everybody a chance to exploit them and they became draft horses for lazy persons who took advantage of their good nature and imposed upon them. There can be no compromise with honesty. A person must use wisdom and be careful about telling the whole truth to everyone. There are other persons around everywhere who can and will take advantage of the fellow who is naive enough to think that he can reveal all he knows about everything, because in doing so he leaves himself vulnerable to attack in vital spots.

And what about this habit of allowing people to impose on you, thus assuming the role of a draft horse? You must see to it that the law of compensation and the law of increasing returns work for you. It's one thing to cast your bread upon the water and wait for it to come back. But sometimes it comes back all moldy and soggy and unappetizing. The key to this strategic principle of going the extra mile is that you do it with purpose aforethought, or definiteness of purpose, counting on a fair return, sometime, somewhere. This is casting your bread upon the water and then keeping an eye on where it goes. Sometimes it is necessary to check on it and see that it starts on the way back, with maybe a little butter or jam on it.