Napoleon Hill

Please keep in mind that during all these years of research I was not only applying the law covered by this lesson, by DOING MORE THAN PAID FOR, but, I was going much further than this by doing work for which I did not, at the time I was doing it, hope ever to receive pay.

Thus, out of years of chaos, adversity and opposition this philosophy was finally completed and reduced to manuscripts, ready for publication. 9 For a time nothing happened! I was resting on my oars, so to speak, before taking the next step toward placing the philosophy in the hands of people who I had reason to believe would welcome it.

"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform!"

During the earlier years of my experience I thought these words to be empty and meaningless, but I have since modified my belief considerably. I was invited to deliver an address in Canton, Ohio. My coming had been well advertised and there was reason to expect that I would have a large audience. To the contrary, conflicting meetings being held by two large groups of businessmen reduced my audience to the lucky number of "thirteen."

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served. I went at my subject as though the hall were filled. Somehow there arose in me a sort of feeling of resentment on account of the way the "wheel of fate" had turned against me, and if I ever made a convincing speech I made it that night. Down deep in my heart, however, I thought I had failed!

I did not know until the next day that I was making history the night before that was destined to give the Law of Success philosophy its first real impetus. One of the men who sat in my audience, as one of the "thirteen," was the late Don R. Mellett, who was then the publisher of the Canton Daily News, brief reference to whom I made in the Introductory Lesson of this course.

After I had finished speaking I slipped out at the back door and returned to my hotel, not wanting to face any of my "thirteen" victims on the way out.

The next day I was invited to Mr. Mellett's office. In as much as it was he who had taken the initiative by inviting me in to see him I left it to him to do most of the talking. He began in something like this fashion: "Would you mind telling me your entire life-story, from the days of your early childhood on up to the present?"

I told him I would do so if he could stand the burden of listening to so long a narrative. He said he could, but before I began he cautioned me not to omit the unfavorable side.