It took about one year to write this book, about five years to get started on it and over thirty years to accumulate the information and experience which I have endeavored to outline herein. As I look back over 30 years of this diversified experience I sometimes like to pause and attempt to analyze the several turning points in my own life which took me successively through careers in the fields of law, public office, industry and writing. I have no doubt about it, that it was the preparation and training in public speaking which enabled me, when the time was propitious; ripe for action; when the psychological moment had arrived, to stand up, to speak up and to make the most of the opportunity presented. I could recount numerous instances in my own career and in those of my friends and acquaintances where a single talk started a whole chain of events, "like the ripples made by a pebble thrown into a lake, extend even to the farthest shores." It is for this reason that I feel so strongly about the potentialities of the power of speech. If I were asked to list the essential for success in almost any line of human endeavor, the ability to speak would be high on any such list. Of course this ability alone will not bring lasting success. Education, training and experience in your particular field are the only true foundations for lasting success. My point is simply this: that a man may have all these and be exceptionally competent, and yet not be successful in the generally accepted sense of that word. In many such instances you will find that his primary weakness is his lack of ability to express himself clearly, cogently, convincingly. If he achieves this additional capacity and adds it to his basic competence, in my opinion he cannot help but succeed In other words, assuming always that he knows what he's talking about, all he has to do is stand up, speak up, and succeed