Dale Carnegie

  b. 1888; d. 1955 | American author

At The Bottom

— 1912

Carnegie couldn't help wondering if he was doomed to a life of failure.

Dale Carnagay not only hated selling cars, but he was broke and living in a run-down apartment.  The scores of cockroaches who lived with him were the closest things he had to friends — what’s more, they likely ate better than he did.  The son of a Missouri farmer who’d struggled every day to keep his land, Carnegie was used to the feeling of humiliation.  During his first year at Missouri State Teacher’s College in 1906, he was certain that all the other students were laughing at him — mocking him for his failures or for his shabby clothes, which fit him badly, or for the fact that he couldn’t afford to live in town.  Now, six years later, Carnegie couldn’t help wondering if he was doomed to a life of failure.  He wanted to write for a living, but standing around in the showroom every day, selling Packards — or not selling them, as the case happened to be — left him too exhausted to think, much less compose the Great American Novel.