There are two important laws with which you should become familiar. One is the law of compensation and the other is the law of increasing returns. Mankind is dependent upon the operation of these two laws for its very life. If the farmer did not comply with them he could produce no food. Let us see how he must necessarily observe these laws plus the principle of going the extra mile, whether he consciously recognizes it or not.
The farmer must clear the soil of trees and shrubs. Then he must plow, harrow and fertilize where necessary. After this he must put seed in the soil. He must mix intelligence with his labor, observing the proper season of the year for planting, the correct method of crop culture, and the right irrigation and cultivation techniques.
With these steps completed, he has done all he can do. Up to this point he has not been paid for his labor. He has literally done more than he has been paid for! Now he must wait for nature to germinate the seed and for time to elapse, during which growth occurs and a crop is produced.
If the farmer has performed his labor intelligently, nature will reward him through the law of compensation, by which she neither permits any living thing to get something for nothing, nor allows any form of labor to go unrewarded. This law assures the return of the seed which was planted. But with a return of the seed alone, nothing would have been gained by the process, and no food could be produced for man or beast. There must be another law operating at the same time. It is the law of increasing returns, for there is an increase in the amount produced over the amount planted. Nature gives back to the farmer the seed he planted in the ground plus a margin of many times the amount of seed. This is his reward for having done more than he was temporarily paid for. This unvarying law always rewards intelligent effort rendered in the attitude of faith, and rendered unstintingly without regard to the limits of immediate compensation.
Now you can understand the statement that this strategic principle of rendering more and better service than one is presently paid for is not a man-made law. Of course, you may think that these examples are simple. They are simple enough so far as effects are concerned, but you would hardly consider the cause behind them as simple. That cause is as profound and imponderable as the other laws by which this planet and the entire universe are maintained in an orderly and harmonious manner throughout time and space.
Nature has definite, established laws and principles to which man must adapt himself if he wishes to live successfully. It is not necessary for us to grasp the broad meaning and purpose of these laws. All we need do is observe their existence and adapt our actions to them.
For example, the action and reaction may be seen everywhere and in everything. Nature’s budget is always balanced. Everything has its opposite equivalent: positive and negative in every unit of energy. Day and night. Hot and cold. Summer and winter. Good and evil; Up and down. Success and failure. Sweet and sour. Happiness and misery. The pendulum swings back the same distance it swings forward. And so it is in human relationships and in the rendering of personal service. For whatsoever a man soweth that also shall he reap, the Good Books says, Galatians chapter 6, verse 7. One should remember that the kind of seed he sows is important, because every seed yields a harvest after its own kind.
Now let us consider the variety of ways in which man is paid for going the extra mile. Animals of an order lower than man receive nothing for their labor but the food and protection essential to their existence. Man, however, has been given the power to command and receive the bounties of the earth in whatever form and quantity he desires because he can translate his thoughts into material things.
Man is the greatest handiwork of The Creator and has the privilege of becoming self-determining. He has been granted the right of control over his own thought power. Through the exercise of this divine gift man has a voluntary avenue of approach to Infinite Intelligence. This means that he can place the forces of the entire universe behind his plans and purposes.
Source: PMA: Science of Success by Napoleon Hill