Every young man should some time in his life have experience in salesmanship.  
Selling goods is the best known cure for those elements in a man that tend to make him a failure.
 
The art of success consists in making people change their minds. It is this power that makes the efficient lawyer, grocer, politician, or preacher.
 
There are two classes of men. One seeks employment in a position where he merely obeys the rules and carries out the desires of his employer. There is little or no opportunity for advancement in this work. 43 You get to a certain point and there you stick.
 
Such posts are a clerkship in a bank, a government job, such as letter-carrier, a place in the police force, or any other routine employment requiring no initiative. These kinds of work are entirely honorable and necessary. The difficulty is, they are cramping, limiting.
 
Some day you may have to take a position of this sort, but first try your hand at selling things.
 
Be a book-agent, peddle washing-machines, sell life-insurance, automobiles, agricultural implements, or peanuts.
 
You shrink from it because it is hard, it goes against the grain, as you are not a pushing sort of fellow. And that is the very reason you need it.
 
Salesmanship is strong medicine. You 44 have to go out and wrestle with a cold and hostile world. You are confronted with indifference, often contempt. You are considered a nuisan............