Page 34 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

titude of faith in himself had been successful.

His mother saw, in his first business venture, a little deaf boy who had gone out
in the streets and risked his life to earn money. I saw a brave, ambitious, self-
reliant little business man whose stock in himself had been increased a hundred
percent, because he had gone into business on his own initiative, and had won.
The transaction pleased me, because I knew that he had given evidence of a trait
of resourcefulness that would go with him all through life.

Later events proved this to be true. When his older brother wanted something, he
would lie down on the floor, kick his feet in the air, cry for it-and get it. When the
"little deaf boy" wanted something, he would plan a way to earn the money, then
buy it for himself. He still follows that plan!

Truly, my own son has taught me that handicaps can be converted into stepping
stones on which one may climb toward some worthy goal, unless they are ac-
cepted as obstacles, and used as alibis.

The little deaf boy went through the grades, high school, and college without being
able to hear his teachers, excepting when they shouted loudly, at close range. He
did not go to a school for the deaf. WE WOULD NOT PERMIT HIM TO LEARN
THE SIGN LANGUAGE. We were determined that he should live a normal life,
and associate with normal children, and we stood by that decision, although it
cost us many heated debates with school officials.

While he was in high school, he tried an electrical hearing aid, but it was of no
value to him; due, we believed, to a condition that was disclosed when the child
was six, by Dr. J. Gordon Wilson, of Chicago, when he operated on one side of the
boy's head, and discovered that there was no sign of natural hearing equipment.
During his last week in college, (eighteen years after the operation), something
happened which marked the most important turning-point of his life.

Through what seemed to be mere chance, he came into possession of another
electrical hearing device, which was sent to him on trial. He was slow about test-
ing it, due to his disappointment with a similar device. Finally he picked the in-
strument up, and more or less carelessly, placed it on his head, hooked up the
battery, and lo! as if by a stroke of magic, his lifelong DESIRE FOR NORMAL
HEARING BECAME A REALITY! For the first time in his life he heard practically

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NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

as well as any person with normal hearing. "God moves in mysterious ways, His
wonders to perform."