PLEASING PERSONALITY 621understand why we have singled out his book. In brief, when Og Mandino
returned a decorated hero after his service in World War II, he struggled for a year
trying to make a go of it as a writer in New York City. When his savings were
exhausted he started on a fifteen-year merry-go-round of brief ups, followed
by crashing downs that finally brought him so low he was literally a drunken bum
on the streets of Cleveland, too poor to buy a gun to commit suicide. Then, in a
public library, he came across a copy of Success Through a Positive Mental
Attitude, the classic motivational book co-written by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement
Stone. It transformed his life.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Og Mandino set out for Boston where he
managed to convince the people at W. Clement Stone's Combined Insurance
Company of America that they should hire him as an insurance salesman. Within
three years he had elevated himself within the organization to the point where he
was named to the position of executive editor of Success Unlimited, a magazine
published by Stone and Hill. A few years later, in 1968, a New York publisher took
a chance on this first-time author and published Mandinos book The Greatest
Salesman in the World.
The details of Og Mandino's life, only hinted at here, and the equally
extraordinary story of how his book earned its success, are intentionally
being left for you to discover on your own. However, we will tell you this: The
Greatest Salesman in the World has sold well over four million copies, has gone
through more than one hundred and thirty printings in seventeen languages,
and is widely acknowledged as the bestselling book about sales in the entire
world.
The second source of additional material that the editors recommend is
the audiobook Selling You! It is a two-cassette program based on Napoleon
Hill's bestseller How to Sell Your Way through Life (which is not currently
available but there are plans to reprint it in the future). The audio program
is narrated by Joe Slattery, features an introduction by W. Clement Stone, and
is augmented with archival recordings of Napoleon Hill personally explaining
some of his most compelling ideas. It also includes a 32-page booklet featuring
additional sales techniques.