The Book of Life

ARTICLES OF WISDOM complaint? Turn your potential into reality. Every height of success awaits you—rise to it, and take your place upon it. OPPORTUNITIES NEVER END A young American, Dewitt Wallace (1889–1981), decided to publish a monthly digest. He asked his father for $300 as starting capital. But his father refused, saying Dewitt didn’t know how to handle money and would waste it. Somehow, Dewitt managed to borrow a small amount from his brother, and in January 1920 he printed a sample issue with only a few hundred copies. Then Dewitt faced another challenge. He showed his magazine to New York publishing houses and asked them to distribute it. But all of them refused, saying the magazine was “too serious” and that no market existed for such a publication. This was a critical obstacle, because magazines usually reached readers through publishing houses—and they had all turned him down. Yet one possibility still remained for Dewitt: reaching buyers directly. He gathered addresses and began writing letters to people. At the same time, he placed advertisements in newspapers. Normally, it would have seemed impossible for a new, unknown magazine to gain subscribers this way. But Dewitt introduced one clever idea that turned the impossible into possible. In his