The Autobiography of Dale Carnegie

Thirty-five years ago, I was one of the unhappiest lads in New York. I was selling motor-trucks for a living. I didn't want to know. I despised my job. I despised living in a cheap furnished room on West-sixth Street - a room infested with cockroaches. I still remember that I had a bunch of necties hanging on the wall; and when I reached out of a morning to get a fresh nectie, the cockroaches scattered in all directions. I despised having to eat in cheap, dirty restaurants that were also probably infested with cockroaches.

I came home to my lonely room each night with a sick headache - a headache bred and fed by disappointment, worry, bitterness, and rebellion. I was rebelling because the dreams I had noursihed back in my college days had turned into nightmares.

Was this life? Was this the vital adventure to which I had looked forward so eargerly?

Was this all life would ever mean to me - working at a job I despised, living with cockroaches, eating vile food - and with no hope for the future? .... I longed for leisure to read, and to write the books I had dreamed of writing back in my college days.

I knew I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by giving up the job I despised. I wasn't interested in making a lot of money, but I was interested in making a lot of living. In short, I had come to the Rubicon - to that moment of decision which faces most young people when they start out of life. So I made my decision - and that decision completely altered my future. It has made the last thirty-five years happy and rewarding beyond my most utopian aspirations.

My decision was this: I would give uo the work I loathed; and since I had spent four years studying in the State Teachers' College at Warrenburg, Missouri, preparing to each, I would have my days free to read books, prepare lectures, write and write to live.

What subject should I teach to adults at night? As I looked back and evaluated my own college training, I was that the training and experience I had had in public speaking had been of more practical value to me in business - and in life - than everything else I had studied in college all put together. Why? Because it had wiped out my timidity and lack of confidence and given me the courage and assurance to deal with people. It had also made clear that leadership usually gravitates to the man who can get up and say what he thinks.

I applied for a position teaching public speaking in the night extension courses both at Columbia University and New York University, but these universities decided they could struggle along somehow without my help.

I was disappointed then - but I now thank God that they did turn me down, because I started teaching in Y.M.C.A night schools, where I had to show concrete results and show them quickly. What a challenge that was! These adults didn't come to my classes because they wanted college credits or social prestige. They came for a reason only: they wanted to solve their problems. They wanted to be able to stand up on their own feet and say a few words at a business meeting without fainting from fright. Salesmen wanted to be able to call on a tough customer without having to walk around the block three times to get up courage. They wanted to develop poise and self-confidence. They wanted to get ahead in business. They wanted to have more money for their families. And since they were paying their tuition on an instalment basis - and they stopped paying if they didn't get results - and since I was being paid, not a salary, but a percentage of the profits, I had to be practical if I wanted to eat.

I felt at the time that I was teaching under a handicap, but I realise now that I was getting priceless training. I had to motivate my students. I had to help them solve their problems. I had to make each session so inspiring that they wanted to continue coming.

It was exciting work. I loved it. I was astounded at how quickly these business men developed self-confidence and how quickly many of them secured promotions and increased pay. The classes were succeeding far beyond my most optimistic hopes. Within three seasons, the YMCAs which had refused to pay me five dollars a night in salary, were paying me thrity dollars a night on a percentage basis. At first, I taught only public speaking, but, as the years went by, I saw that these adults also needed the abilityto win friends and influence people. Since I couldn't find an adequate textbook on human relations, I wrote one myself. It was written - on, it wasn't writen in the usual way. It grew and evolved out of the experiences of the adults in these classes. I called it How to Win Friends and Influence People.