So, after about six months of coaching, I was actually given a full-time job opportunity to work for Dale Carnegie Long Island.

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So successful were his courses that he turned them into a popular textbook and went on to found the Dale Carnegie Institute of Effective Speaking and Human Relations.

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Above all, Hubbard was an irrepressible huckster--a morale-booster long before Dale Carnegie, a seller of ideas and goods when Madison Avenue was an address for mansions like J.

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So he enrolled in a Dale Carnegie public speaking course and says the skills he learned there enabled him to woo his future wife, Susan Thompson, a "champion debater, " he says.

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This is Dale Carnegie on steroids.

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"After I left my job with a bad boss, I took a personal development class, and it really helped improve my confidence and how I was presenting myself to others, " says Levit, who recommends Dale Carnegie leadership seminars.

FORBES: Careers

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and hotelier Orison Swett Marden's Success magazine (founded in 1897) were mere warm-ups to Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) and Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952).

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