570 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION
That was my belief also. This belief has now been transformed
into not merely a provable but a proved reality, as I hope every student
of this course will have reason to understand when the course has
been mastered.
Please keep in mind that during all these years of research I was
not only applying this law, by doing more than I was paid for, but I
was going much further than this by doing work that I loved and for
which I did not, at the time I was doing it, ever hope to receive pay.
DO MORE, RECEIVE MOREI was invited to deliver an address in Canton, Ohio. It had been well
advertised and there was reason to expect that I would have a large
audience. But 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 one should do their very best
regardless of how much they receive for their services or the number
of people they may be serving. I went at my subject as though the
hall were filled. There also arose in me a sort of feeling of resent-
ment at the way the "wheel of fate" had turned against me, and if
ever I 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 that night which
was destined to give the Law of Success philosophy its first real impetus.
One of the men who sat in my audience of thirteen was Don R.
Mellett, who was then publisher of the Canton Daily News.
After I had finished speaking, I slipped out 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. Inasmuch 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 something like this: