Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

IMAGINATION 429

in little more than mentioning names that are more familiar to the modem reader

while adding little of consequence to the point being made.

It was with that in mind that the editors decided to include the following section

from the original text in which Hill offers his readers ideas that he suggests the imagina-

tive person could take and develop into products or businesses. As you might guess, eve/}'

one of the concepts he offered was taken up by someone and tumed into a reality.

While the Law of Success philosophy was in the embryonic stage, long
before it had been organized into a systematic course of instruction and
reduced to textbooks, I was lecturing on this philosophy in a small town
in Illinois.
One of the members of the audience was a young life insurance
salesman. After hearing what was said on the subject of Imagination,
he began to apply what he had heard to his own problem of selling
life insurance. Something was said during the lecture about the value
of allied effort, through which people may enjoy greater success by
cooperative effort through a working arrangement under which each
"boosts" the interests of the other.
Taking this suggestion, the young man in question immediately
formulated a plan whereby he gained the Cooperation of a group of
businessmen who were in no way connected with the insurance business.
Going to the leading grocer in his town he made arrangements with
that grocer to give a thousand-dollar insurance policy to every customer
purchasing no less than fifty dollars' worth of groceries each month. He
then made it a part of his business to inform people of this arrangement
and brought in many new customers. The grocer had a large, neatly
lettered card placed in his store, informing his customers of this offer
of free insurance, thus helping himself by offering all his customers an
inducement to do all their trading in the grocery line with him.
This young insurance man then went to the leading gas station
and made arrangements with the owner to insure all customers who
purchased all their gasoline, oil, and other motor supplies from him.