The chances of someone like you, who can read and comprehend English sentence structure, NOT having heard of Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich“, is slim.
The book was originally published in 1938, at the end of America’s Great Depression. Andrew Carnegie had commissioned Hill to interview hundreds of movers-and-shakers, from Ford and Edison to Wrigley and Eastman to Bell and Darrow. From these interviews he spent 20 years distilling the common patterns among these folks and determined that they all exhibited similar behaviors. Moreover, he determined that anybody else who exhibited those behaviors couls also succeed, regardless of circumstance.
The book is packed with wisdom and insight. Here are some examples:
No more effort is required to aim high in life, to demand abundance and prosperity, than is required to accept misery and poverty.
Why shoot for mediocre when you can shoot for exemplary?
I bargained my Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty score.For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.
In other words, if you settle for misery, you’ll get it. Or, if you believe you can succeed, or not, you’re right.
Another:
If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win, but think you can’t,
It is almost certain you won’t.If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost,
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow’s will–
It’s all in the state of mind.If you think you’re outclassed, you are,
You’ve got to think high to rise,
You’ve got to be sure of your self before
You can ever win a prize.Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can!
It’s not speed or force that does the trick — it’s persistence and relentless determination that wins the day.
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge. Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought!
When you were a kid you often talked about your hopes and aspirations, and at some point someone started making you feel stupid for having them, and you quietly surrendered. Carpe diem! Sieze your destiny again and pursue it with wild abandon — unless you expect to “drift” into success…
We rise to high positions or remain at the bottom because of conditions that we can control if we desire to control them.
Learn to distinguish what you can control vs. what you can complain about. Focus on what you truly do have the opportunity to do something about — and then take action! Position yourself to where “opportunity can find you!”
Above all, DO NOT STOP.
Hear hear! Persistence and determination are omnipotent.
Now for a bit of change-of-pace, as here Napoleon is talking about the blast of creative energy available when people get their heads working:
Steam ships and railroads do not spring up from the earth and function automatically. They come in response to the call of civilization, through the labor and ingenuity and organizing ability of men who have imagination, faith, enthusiasm, decision, persistence! These men are known as capitalists.
He also talks a bit about how “radicals and self-seeking politicians” who “offered to deliver voters in return for legislation designed to permit men to take riches away from industry by organized force of numbers, instead of the better method of giving a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.” Ouch!
Millions of men and women throughout the nation are still engaged in this popular pastime of trying to GET without GIVING. Some of them are lined up with labor unions, where they demand shorter hours and more pay! Others do not take the trouble to work at all. They demand government relief and are getting it.
Further, Napoleon Hill recognizes:
There is but one dependable method of accumulating, and legally holding, riches, and that is by rendering useful service.
Wonder how many votes Napoleon Hill would get in today’s America… 