Page 73 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

73

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

company for which Halpin worked, wanted to know something about that man
Dan Halpin who was taking big sales away from the long established Dictograph
Company. He sent for Hal-pin. When the interview was over, Halpin was the new
Sales Manager, in charge of the Acousticon Division.

Then, to test young Halpin's metal, Mr. Andrews went away to Florida for three
months, leaving him to sink or swim in his new job. He did not sink! Knute
Rockne's spirit of "All the world loves a winner, and has no time for a loser in-
spired him to put so much into his job that he was recently elected Vice-President
of the company, and General Manager of the Acousticon and Silent Radio Divi-
sion, a job which most men would be proud to earn through ten years of loyal
effort. Halpin turned the trick in little more than six months.

It is difficult to say whether Mr. Andrews or Mr. Halpin is more deserving of eu-
logy, for the reason that both showed evidence of having an abundance of that
very rare quality known as IMAGINATION. Mr. Andrews deserves credit for see-
ing, in young Halpin, a "go-getter" of the highest order. Halpin deserves credit for
REFUSING TO COMPROMISE WITH LIFE BY ACCEPTING AND KEEPING A
JOB HE DID NOT WANT, and that is one of the major points I am trying to em-
phasize through this entire philosophy-that we rise to high positions or remain
at the bottom BECAUSE OF CONDITIONS WE CAN CONTROL IF WE DESIRE
TO CONTROL THEM.

I am also trying to emphasize another point, namely, that both success and failure
are largely the results of HABIT! I have not the slightest doubt that Dan Halpin's
close association with the greatest football coach America ever knew, planted in
his mind the same brand of DESIRE to excel which made the Notre Dame football
team world famous. Truly, there is something to the idea that hero-worship is
helpful, provided one worships a WINNER. Halpin tells me that Rockne was one
of the world's greatest leaders of men in all history.

My belief in the theory that business associations are vital factors, both in failure
and in success, was recently demonstrated, when my son Blair was negotiating
with Dan Halpin for a position.

Mr. Halpin offered him a beginning salary of about one half what he could have
gotten from a rival company. I brought parental pressure to bear, and induced
him to accept the place with Mr. Halpin, because I BELIEVE THAT CLOSE AS-
SOCIATION WITH ONE WHO REFUSES TO COMPROMISE WITH CIRCUM-
STANCES HE DOES NOT LIKE, IS AN ASSET THAT CAN NEVER BE MEAS-
URED IN TERMS OF MONEY.