30 pages • 1 hour read
Og MandinoThe Greatest Salesman in the World
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Scroll Marked I”
The first scroll lays the foundation for a changed life. It instills basic principles that inspire optimism and perseverance, encouraging the reader to wake up each day as if beginning a new life—leaving one’s past doubt and self-pity behind. Success has many definitions, but failure is always defined as a person’s “inability to reach his goals in life, whatever they may be” (54). The reader must resolve to refuse failure and replace bad habits with good ones. The first of these good habits is reading aloud each scroll for 30 days before proceeding—in the morning, afternoon, and before bed. Reading the scrolls repeatedly will solidify them.
Chapter 9 Summary: “The Scroll Marked II”
The second scroll illustrates the principle of living with love for oneself and others. It insists that living with love is the only path to success and that if a person possesses all but love, they are certain to fail. Love breaks down the “wall of suspicion and hate” and allows connections with potential customers through open communication (60). It can also shield a person from discouragement and judgment. The scroll adds that a person must love all people, not regardless of but because of their flaws—which serve as lessons. Furthermore, a person must love both the positives and negatives of life.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Scroll Marked III”
The third scroll dictates the importance of persistence, which includes hope and patience. It states that a person must persist through obstacles and never allow themselves to doubt. Persistence is about taking small but consistent steps toward a goal, like a desert that eventually leads to grass. The scroll advises against using words related to failure in describing personal experiences. One must end every day with success, even if this means devoting more time than anyone else. In doing so, one plants “the seed of tomorrow’s success” (66).
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Scroll Marked IV”
The fourth scroll is a celebration of one’s uniqueness, purpose, and potential. It is a call to all people to perfect and showcase their unique skills to achieve success. The scroll explains that each person is born from love and with the purpose of achieving their full potential. It reminds the reader that each obstacle is an opportunity to learn and grow.
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Scroll Marked V”
The fifth scroll describes the importance of living in the present, which means not mourning past actions. It also means living as if the present is one’s final chance to act.
Chapters 8-12 Analysis
In Chapters 8-12, Hafid begins to read Pathros’s 10 scrolls, with the first laying a foundation for the rest. This scroll stresses reading each scroll for 30 days before proceeding to process each lesson. A person must part with past failures in order to live in the present: “I will commence my journey unencumbered with either the weight of unnecessary knowledge or the handicap of meaningless experience” (53). The first scroll goes on to call experience overrated, which is a controversial proposal but one that ties into the fifth scroll’s lesson of living each day as if it were the last. While success is subjective, failure is not reaching one’s goal. With that said, living with love is key to The Nature of Success and The Art and Principles of Sales. Love for self, others, and nature itself is what allows a salesperson to ease suspicion from potential customers. A person cannot sell or connect with others if they do not exhibit openness. This disposition must be turned inward, as treating oneself with compassion leads to treating others the same way. It also makes a person impervious to discouragement, as both positivity and negativity exist in all living things and serve different purposes.
Despite Hafid’s initial enthusiasm for sales, the scrolls never claim that success is easy nor achievable by everyone. Many factors are required to come together to make success happen. Because of this, persistence is a key to success. Doubt is natural, but one must work through such feelings to achieve goals. The image of a desert is used to illustrate persistence, as it always gives way to greener pastures. Like biblical stories, the scrolls give way to allegory and metaphor to illustrate principles of life. In terms of Living for Today, the scrolls posit that today is a person’s only chance to succeed. Likewise, each scroll includes daily mantras—such as “I will greet this day with love in my heart” (58)—to reinforce each principle being taught. By being written in first person, these scrolls are presented as if written by the reader. This perspective and the scrolls’ insistence on repetition are meant to reinforce lessons: The phrasing of “I will persist until I succeed” makes a promise to oneself (64), suggesting that change will happen.
