The inspiration behind the music
While there have been many books on the subject of the law of attraction, it is Og Mandino and his vibrant approach to life that has particularly influenced Nella’s choices and philosophy of positive attraction.
Augustine – nicknamed Og – Mandino was born on 12 December 1923 in Italy and immigrated to the United States at a young age with his parents and brother and sister. This heritage gave Og a life-long passion for spicy foods and pasta!
Og’s mother, Margaret, was an Irish redhead who used to tell her son, ‘some day you will be a writer, but not just any writer, a great writer!’
Og liked that idea and bought into it. At school he edited the school paper and then attended the University of Missouri, believing it to be the best journalism school in the country.
He married and soon his wife gave birth to a daughter. But debt hounded the family and Og’s life became a living hell from which he escaped in the neighbourhood bar, night after night. His wife and daughter left – and Og’s downhill ride continued, taking him as far down as experiencing a deep desire to commit suicide, but recognising that he was too much of a coward to do it.
Finding himself in a library one chilly November day, he selected W. Clement Stones great classic, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.
In Og’s own words from www.ogmandino.com, he says, ‘I was so impressed with Stones philosophy of success, that one must be prepared to pay a price in order to achieve any worthwhile goals, that I wanted to work for the man. His book jacket indicated that he was president of Combined Insurance Company of America and I searched until I found a subsidiary of that company in Boston and applied for a salesmans job. Within a year I was promoted to sales manager in the wide-open, and cold, territory of Northern Maine. I hired several young potato farmers, taught them how to sell, applying Stones philosophy of a positive mental attitude, and we were soon breaking company records.’
Og then started writing – and his first book, ‘The Greatest Salesman in the World’ – still sells over 100 000 copies a month, more than 30 years after first being published! Og went on to write a further 21 books, including the book that so inspired Nella – A Better Way to Live.
Og died in September 1996, at the age of 72
