1912 -- 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.
1937 -- A year after the release of his most famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie had sold well over half a million copies and earned a staggering $150,000 in royalties (the equivalent of more than $2 million today). His publisher, Simon and Schuster, had raced through seventeen printings in less than six months, making Carnegie -- who had changed the spelling of his name around 1922 -- one of the most famous people in the country. Everyone wanted his insights, and leaders from the worlds of business and politics beat down his door for the opportunity to share a few moments with him. Based on the self-improvement course he'd been teaching for the past 25 years, Carnegie's book sold more than five million copies in his lifetime and was translated into nearly three dozen languages. The training institute he founded in 1912 had graduated more than 450,000 people who used his principles -- his "Drivers of Success" -- to improve their leadership, communications and problem-solving skills.
As he labored away in a career he hated, Carnegie reflected back on the only major success he'd enjoyed in his young life. During college, he had turned himself into an expert debater, which he hoped would win him the respect and friendship of his peers. Though he failed miserably in his first dozen debates, Carnegie continued to practice -- rehearsing speeches aloud to his father's cows as he milked them each night -- and eventually won school-wide forensic and debating competitions. Drawing on his collegiate experience, Carnegie set out in 1912 to change his life by coaching others on how to succeed in public speaking. After being turned down by Columbia University and New York University, Carnegie brought his course to the YMCA in Harlem. A few years later, Carnegie's course had become so popular that he was earning $30 a night (the equivalent of $650 today). By reaching back to his past and reacquainting himself with a period of success and satisfaction, Carnegie discovered that he could help himself by helping others. .