Napoleon Hill
He not only made use of his own fertile
imagination, but he gathered around him a group of other men who
also possessed this essential quality, for his definite purpose in life
called for specialists whose imagination ran in numerous directions.
In that group of men that constituted Mr. Carnegie's "master mind"
were men whose imaginations were confined to the field of chemistry.
He had other men in the group whose imaginations were confined to finances. He had still others whose imaginations were confined to salesmanship, one of whom was Charles M. Schwab, who is said to have been the most able salesman on Mr. Carnegie's staff. If you feel that your own imagination is inadequate you should form an alliance with someone whose imagination is sufficiently developed to supply your deficiency. There are various forms of alliance.
For example, there is the alliance of marriage and the alliance of a business partnership and the alliance of friendship and the alliance of employer and employee. Not all men have the capacity to serve their own best interests as employers, and those who haven't this capacity may profit by allying themselves with men of imagination who have such capacity.
It is said that Mr. Carnegie made more millionaires of his employees than any other employer in the steel business. Among these was Charles M. Schwab, who displayed evidence of the soundest sort of imagination by his good judgment in allying himself with Mr. Carnegie. It is no disgrace to serve in the capacity of employee.
To
the contrary, it often proves to be the most profitable side of an
alliance since not all men are fitted to assume the responsibility of
directing other men.
Perhaps there is no field of endeavor in which imagination plays such an
important part as it does in salesmanship.
The master salesman sees the merits of the goods he sells or the service he is rendering, in his own imagination, and if he fails to do so he will not make the sale. A few years ago a sale was made which is said to have been the most far-reaching and important sale of its kind ever made. The object of the sale was not merchandise, but the freedom of a man who was confined in the Ohio penitentiary and the development of a prison reform system that promises a sweeping change in the method of dealing with unfortunate men and women who have become entangled in the meshes of the law.