“Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill
American born Napoleon Hill is considered to have influenced more people into success than any other person in history. He has been perhaps the most influential man in the area of personal success technique development, primarily through his classic book Think and Grow Rich which has helped million of the people and has been important in the life of many successful people such as W. Clement Stone and Og Mandino.
Napoleon Hill was born into poverty in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. At the age of 10 his mother died, and two years later his father remarried. He became a very rebellious boy, but grew up to be an incredible man. He began his writing career at age 13 as a “mountain reporter” for small town newspapers and went on to become America’s most beloved motivational author. Fighting against all class of great disadvantages and pressures, he dedicated more than 25 years of his life to define the reasons by which so many people fail to achieve true financial success and happiness in their life.
During this time he achieved great success as an attorney and journalist. His early career as a reporter helped finance his way through law school. He was given an assignment to write a series of success stories of famous men, and his big break came when he was asked to interview steel-magnate Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie commissioned Hill to interview over 500 millionaires to find a success formula that could be used by the average person. These included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, Charles M. Schwab, Theodore Roosevelt, William Wrigley Jr, John Wanamaker, WIlliam Jennings Bryan, George Eastman, Woodrow Wilson, William H. Taft, John D. Rockefeller, F. W. Woolworth, Jennings Randolph, among others.
He became an advisor to Andrew Carnegie, and with Carnegie’s help he formulated a philosophy of success, drawing on the thoughts and experience of a multitude of rags-to-riches tycoons. It took Hill over 20 years to produce his book, a classic in the Personal Development field called Think and Grow Rich. This book has sold over 7 million copies and has helped thousands achieve success. The secret to success is very simple but you’ll have to read the book to find out what it is!
Napoleon Hill passed away in November 1970 after a long and successful career writing, teaching, and lecturing about the principles of success. His work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. His book, Think and Grow Rich, is the all time best-seller in the field.
In recent years The Napoleon Hill Foundation has published his bestselling writings worldwide, giving him immense influence around the globe.
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Here are some interesting observations by one of the greatest gurus on achieving success, Napoleon Hill:
“Before us lie two paths — honesty and dishonesty. The shortsighted embark on the dishonest path; the wise on the honest. For the wise know the truth; in helping others we help ourselves; and in hurting others we hurt ourselves. Character overshadows money, and trust rises above fame. Honesty is still the best policy.
“Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.”
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”
“Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.”
“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit.”
“Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye, and you will be drawn toward it.”
“If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.”
“One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.”
“The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.”
“The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.”
“Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you; until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire; until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy.”
“War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.”
“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”
“You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.”
“I have proved, times too numerous to enumerate, to my own satisfaction at least, that every human brain is both a broadcasting and a receiving station for vibrations of thought frequency.
“If this theory should turn out to be a fact, and methods of reasonable control should be established, imagine the part it would play in the gathering, classifying and organising of knowledge. The possibility, much less the probability, of such a reality, staggers the mind of man!”
“The sixth sense is that portion of the subconscious mind which has been referred to as the creative imagination. It has also been referred to as the ‘receiving set’ through which ideas, plans and thoughts flash into the mind. The flashes are sometimes called hunches or inspirations.
“The sixth sense defies description! It cannot be described to a person who has not mastered the other principles of this philosophy, because such a person has no knowledge and no experience with which the sixth sense may be compared. Understanding the sixth sense comes only by meditation through mind development from within.
“After you have mastered the principles described in this book, you will be prepared to accept as truth a statement which may, otherwise, be incredible to you, namely:
“Through the aid of the sixth sense, you will be warned of impending dangers in time to avoid them and notified of opportunities in time to embrace them.
“There comes to your aid and to do your bidding, with the development of the sixth sense, a ‘guardian angel’ who will open to you at all times the door to the temple of wisdom.”
— Napoleon Hill