Think & Grow Rich: Before We Begin...

As I mentioned in the last post, Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" is the second largest selling self-help book of all time. Number one is the Bible. The reason for this is the ideas and concepts within this book have been tested through trial and error for the past seventy years and it has withstood all of that testing.

Time and time again, people who have gone to this book for the knowledge of how to succeed with their dreams and as long as they put that knowledge into action, they succeeded.

In my copy of Napoleon Hill's "Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion there is a lengthy but inspiring introduction by W. Clement Stone. In it, he told a story of a phone call his secretary received while he was out of town. The caller was an irate customer. She wanted her money back because the books she bought and read, "Did not work". She angrily complained that her husband was still out of work and she was still working in a restaurant for ten hours a day.

Mr. Stone's secretary stopped the caller in her tracks when she asked, "What actions did you take?" The caller paused and then said, "We waited".

The secretary suggested that she and her husband read the books again but this time together and this time think of the actions they will take to better themselves. A few months later the woman called her back to tell her that they followed her advice and things are working out. The woman began night school and had three job offers with twice as much pay, even before she was finished.

The point here is there is no magic in the book "Think and Grow Rich". Napoleon Hill was not a magician. Mr. Hill wrote in "Succeed and Grow Rich through Persuasion" what I think is a very powerful statement. He wrote that the old saying "Knowledge is power" is a bunch of malarkey. "Knowledge in action is power."

All Napoleon Hill has given us is knowledge, not magic. It is up to us to supply the action.

Another reason this book is so powerful is it is strongly based in the Bible and religion. The Bible is a book which has also been tested through trial and error throughout the years. Theologians believe the oldest stories of the bible may have been around since about 3000 B.C. This means the stories and the concepts and ideas in the bible have been scrutinized for about five thousand years and have passed every test.

Napoleon Hill did not come up with the ideas in this book by accident. From the time he was a boy, he was a friend of "The canny, lovable old Scotsman", Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie saw something in young Napoleon and decided to commission him for a research project. The mission was to find out how success is begotten. At Mr. Carnegie's behest, Mr. Hill spent the next twenty years researching people like Henry Ford, John Wanamaker, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas A. Edison and five hundred others to find out what their secrets of success was. He found it.

He never mentions the secret directly, in fact he clams the secret is more powerful when a person finds it on his own. So, Mr. Hill never mentions the secret by name on purpose.

Because of this, I think I will also not mention the secret by name either; however if anyone knows the secrete, I will not be angry or disappointed if you mention it in your comments. This might be fun!

So as I end the first post in our study of "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill let me share with you Mr. Hill's own words of encouragement from his own forward.

"As a final word of preparation, before you begin the first chapter, may I offer one brief suggestion which may provide a clue by which the Carnegie secret may be recognized? It is this - all achievement, all eared riches, have their beginning in an idea! If you are ready for the secret, you already possess one half of it; therefore, you will readily recognize the other half the moment it reaches your mind."

I will post my commentary for chapter 1 - Thoughts Are Things on Wednesday night.