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Biography
Hello. . . This is Og Mandino.
Some memories of my
long-ago childhood are still very vivid, especially when
I think of that special little red-headed Irish lady who
was my loving mother. She had a special dream for her
son. "Someday," she would tell me, again and again,
"someday you will be a writer. . . not just a writer but
a great writer! "
Well. . . I bought her
dream. Most kids resent having their parents plan their
future but I liked the idea. A famous writer. Yes!
Mother had me reading grown-up books from the library
long before I entered the first grade and I was always
writing short stories for her approval.
In my senior year of high
school I was editor of the school paper and our plans
were that in the fall I would attend the University of
Missouri because we believed that they had the best
journalism school in the country.
And, then. . . six weeks
after I graduated from high school, my mother dropped
dead in our kitchen while she was making lunch for me.
I had a terrible time
trying to deal with her passing. Instead of going on to
college in the fall of 1940, I went to work in a paper
factory and, in 1942, I joined the Army Air Corps. In
1943 I received my officer's commission and my silver
wings as a bombardier. I was an "officer and a
gentleman" two weeks before I could legally vote. I flew
thirty bombing missions over Germany in a B-24
Liberator. Jimmy Stewart also flew in the same heavy
bombardment group. . . the 445th. Nice man.
I returned to the United
States, after the war had ended, and discovered quickly
that there wasn't much of an employment market for
bombardiers with only a high school education. After
many months of unemployment checks and painful
searching, I finally secured a job selling life
insurance and married the lady I had been dating before
I went to war.
The following ten years
were a living hell. . . for me, for her, and even for
the lovely daughter we had been blessed with. It seemed
that no matter how many hours of the day and night I
worked, struggling to sell insurance, we drifted deeper
and deeper into debt and I began to do what so many
frustrated individuals still do today, to hide from
their problems.
On the way home, after a
long day of sales calls and canvassing for business, I
would stop at a barroom for a drink. After all, I
deserved it, didn't I, following such a tough day? Well,
soon one drink became two, two became four, four became
six and finally my wife and daughter, when they could no
longer endure my behavior, left me.
The following two years
are no more than a hazy memory. I traveled the country
in my old Ford, doing any kind of odd jobs in order to
earn enough for another bottle of cheap wine and I spent
countless drunken nights in gutters, a sorry wretch of a
human being, in a living hell.
Then, one cold wintry
morning in Cleveland, one I shall never forget, I almost
took my life. I had passed the window of a dingy pawn
shop and paused when I saw, inside on a shelf, a small
handgun. Attached to its barrel was a yellow tag. . .
$29. I reached into my pocket and removed three ten
dollar bills. . . all I had in the world and I thought.
. . "There's the answer to all my problems. I'll buy
that gun, get a couple of bullets and take. them back to
that dingy room where I'm staying. Then I'll put the
bullets in the gun, put the gun to my head. . . and pull
the trigger. . . and I'll never have to face that
miserable failure in the mirror again."
I don't know what
happened next. I joke about it now and say that I was
such a spineless individual at that time that I couldn't
even muster enough courage to do away with myself. In
any event, I didn't buy that gun. As the snow was
falling I turned away from the pawn shop and commenced
walking until I eventually found myself inside a public
library. It was so warm after the outside chills of
November.
I began wandering among
the thousands of books until I found myself standing in
front of the shelves containing scores of volumes on
self-help, success, and motivation. I selected several
of them, went to a nearby table and commenced reading,
searching for some answers. Where had I gone wrong?
Could I make it with just a high school education? Was
there any hope for me? What about my drinking problem?
Was it too late for me? Was I doomed now to a life of
frustration, failure, and tears?
That library visit was
the first of many library visits I began making as I
wandered across the country, searching for Og Mandino. I
must have read hundreds of books dealing with success
and gradually my drinking subsided. Then, in a library
in Concord, New Hampshire, I discovered W. Clement
Stone's great classic, Success Through a Positive Mental
Attitude. . . and my life has never been the same since
then.
I was so impressed with
Stone's philosophy of success, that one must be prepared
to pay a price in order to achieve any worthwhile goals,
that I wanted to work for the man. His book jacket
indicated that he was president of Combined Insurance
Company of America and I searched until I found a
subsidiary of that company in Boston and applied for a
salesman's job. At about that same time, I met a lovely
lady who had a lot more faith in me than I had in myself
and when Mr. Stone's insurance company hired this
thirty-two year old loser, I married the lady. Bette and
I have now been together for forty years.
Within a year I was
promoted to sales manager in the wide-open, and cold,
territory of Northern Maine. I hired several young
potato farmers, taught them how to sell, applying
Stone's philosophy of a positive mental attitude, and we
were soon breaking company records.
Then I took a week off
from work and rented a typewriter. You see, the dream of
writing had never really faded from my heart. I wrote a
sales manual on how one sells insurance in the rural
areas, typed it as neatly as I could and sent it to
Combined Insurance's home office in Chicago. . . just
praying that someone there would recognize the great
talent they had buried in Northern Maine.
Well, someone did! The
next thing I knew, Bette and I and our new young son,
Dana, were moving to Chicago, with all our possessions
tied to the roof of our car and I was assigned to the
sales promotion department, writing company bulletins.
At last … I was finally writing!
Mr. Stone also published
a small book titled Success Unlimited which was
circulated to all his employees and shareholders. I had
been working at the home office for several months and
had become a friend of Mr. Stone's when the editor of
his magazine retired. I boldly applied for the position,
although I knew nothing about magazine editing, and he
not only gave me the job but also entrusted me with a
mission.
I was to convert his
publication from a house organ to a national magazine
and I had a blank check from him to take all the steps
that were necessary to accomplish our goal. In the
following ten years our magazine staff grew from two to
sixty-two and we attained a paid circulation of close to
a quarter of a million!
Several months after I
became the magazine's editor I realized that I needed
one more article to fill the next issue that was going
to press in just a few days. . . and there was nothing
suitable in our files. Well, I'm a golf nut and so I
went home and worked all night, writing a piece about
Ben Hogan and his terrible automobile accident when they
told him he would never walk again. The great man not
only walked again, he won the National Open again!
I ran the article in
Success Unlimited and then fate took over. A letter
arrived on my desk from a New York publisher. . . the
kind of letter all writers dream about receiving. He had
enjoyed the Hogan article and believed I had much talent
and if I ever decided to write a book his company would
be interested in considering it for publication.
Eighteen months later we
published a tiny book entitled The Greatest Salesman in
the World. Of course, since no one had ever heard of Og
Mandino, the first printing was rather small, 5,000 as I
remember. But here's where fate stepped in again. Rich
DeVos, co-founder of Amway Corp., was addressing an
Amway Convention and he told his people that there was a
new book just published that he believed would help all,
of them, The Greatest Salesman In the World, written by
a man with a funny name, he said, Og Mandino.
Rich DeVos's testimonial
triggered an unbelievable number of book sales and many
reprintings. When total sales reached 350,000 copies
within a couple of years, Bantam Books purchased the
paperback rights. . . for more money than I believed
there was in the entire world. The book's sales have
never abated. Even now, thirty years after initial
publication, it still continues to sell more than
100,000 copies each month in paperback!
For many years now, I
have received approximately 80 to 120 letters each week
from grateful readers thanking me for The Greatest
Salesman in the World and relating examples of how the
book saved or changed the writer's life. Most amazing to
me is how many of these letters are lovingly sent by
individuals we would categorize as celebrities in the
world of business, entertainment, and sports. I respond
to all of them, of course, but I respect their privacy
too much to divulge their names, ever.
What a lucky man I am!
My beloved mother has
been gone, now, for more than half a century. If there
is a heaven, I wonder if she is looking down on her kid
and feeling proud of what he has accomplished. I hope so
. . . And now. . . let me introduce you to The
Greatest Salesman in the World.
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