Napoleon Hill

This is why a man usually makes a better fight when his back is to the wall and he knows there is no retreat. He then reaches the decision to fight instead of running. The imagination is never quite so active as it is when one faces some emergency calling for quick and definite decision and action.

In these moments of emergency men have reached decisions, built plans, used their imagination in such a manner that they became known as geniuses. Many a genius has been born out of the necessity for unusual stimulation of the imagination, as the result of some trying experience which forced quick thought and prompt decision.

It is a well-known fact that the only manner in which an over pampered boy or girl may be made to become useful is by forcing him or her to become self-sustaining. This calls for the exercise of both imagination and decision, neither of which would be used except out of necessity.

The Reverend P. W. Welshimer is the pastor of a church in Canton, Ohio, where he has been located for nearly a quarter of a century. Ordinarily pastors do not remain at the head of one church for so great a length of time, and Reverend Welshimer would have been no exception to this rule if he had not mixed imagination with his pastoral duties.

Three years constitute the usual time that one pastor may remain in a given pastorate without wearing out his welcome. The church of which Reverend Welshimer is the leader has a Sunday School of over 5,000 members - the largest membership enjoyed by any church in the United States.

No pastor could have remained at the head of one church for a quarter of a century, with the full consent of his followers, and have built up a Sunday School of this size, without employing the Laws of Initiative and Leadership, a Definite Chief Aim, Self-confidence and Imagination.