Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) has been a great inspiration to millions of people. He is known as one of the first producers of “personal success” literature. Hill was much respected and even became advisor to two different American Presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Napoleon Hill’s most famous book, “Think and Grow Rich”, is one of the best-selling books of all time. His book had sold 20 million copies by the time he died in 1970.
Napoleon Hill’s beliefs about achievement are really very simple. He outlined in reasonable detail how anyone can achieve success, while ultimately leaving it up to the reader to discover success for themselves.
He was originally inspired by an interview that he had with industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was a very powerful man and believed that success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone could follow and achieve. Carnegie’s theory that success could be outlined in a simple formula, inspired Hill, and he went on to interview many famously successful people, including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft and many other notable public figures. The books were published in 1925 as a multi-volume course called “The Law of Success”, authored by Hill and Carnegie.
Hill believed that discovering your purpose, defining your goals, freedom, democracy, capitalism and harmony are all important on the road to success. He considered negative emotions, such as selfishness, fear, and others, to be the source of failure for people who were doomed to be unsuccessful. The following is a short article written by Napoleon Hill called “Eternal Change”. We feel that it sums up the powerful message that Hill had, and still has, on his readers.
Eternal Change
Strange also is the fact that only one thing is permanent in this universe—eternal change. Nothing remains exactly the same for even a second. Even the physical body in which we live changes completely with astonishing rapidity.
You can test these statements against your own experience.
When a person is struggling for recognition and to get a few dollars ahead, seldom will he find anyone to give him a needed lift. But once he makes the grade—and no longer needs help—people stand in line to offer him aid.
Through what I call the law of attraction, like attracts like in all circumstances. Success attracts greater success. Failure attracts more failure.
Throughout our lives we are the beneficiaries or victims of a swiftly flowing stream which carries us onward toward either success or failure.
The idea is to get on the “success beam” rather than on the “failure beam”.
How can you do this? Simple. The answer lies in adopting a positive mental attitude that will help you shape the course of your own destiny rather than drifting along at the mercy of life’s adversities.
About the Author: Nelson R. Cabrera is the Business Development Manager of Lilly & Associates International, a transportation and logistics company specializing in ocean freight and ocean shipping services. For more information, please visit http://www.shiplilly.com/.
Sources:
http://www.naphill.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill
Miami Daily News, Summer, 1956.