From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Napoleon Hill
(October 25, 1883–November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the
earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling
books of all time. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. "What
the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions.[1][2] How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach for the average person, were the focus
of Hill's books.
[edit] Life
and works
According to his official biographer, Napoleon Hill was born in an impoverished, one-room cabin in the Appalachian town of Pound in Southwest Virginia.[3] Hill's mother died when he was ten years old and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began
writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County and he later
used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon had to withdraw for financial reasons.[4]
[edit] Influence of Andrew
Carnegie
The turning point in the writing career
Napoleon Hill is considered to have occurred in 1908 with his assignment, as part
of a series of articles about famous men, to interview billionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who at the time was one of
the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be elaborated
in a simple formula that could be duplicated by the average person. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie commissioned him (without
pay and only offering to provide him with letters of reference) to interview over 500 successful men and women, many of them
millionaires, in order
to discover and publish this formula for success.[5]
As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Allen Ward and Jennings Randolph. The project lasted over twenty
years, during which Hill became an advisor to Carnegie.[6] Mr. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[7]
[edit] The Philosophy of Achievement
As a result of Napoleons studies via
Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie,
published initially in 1928 as a study course called, The Law of Success. The Achievement formula was detailed further and
published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.
Hill later called his
personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement" and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and
harmony to be important contributing elements. For without these foundations to build upon, as Hill demonstrated throughout
his writings, successful personal achievements are not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others, and thought Achievement
was superior and responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions, fear
and selfishness among others, had no part to play in his philosophy, and Hill considered them to be the source of failure
for unsuccessful people.[8]
The secret of Achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, and
was never named directly as Hill felt discovering it for themselves would provide readers with the most benefit. Hill presented
the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers, to make them ask of themselves "in what
do you truly believe?" For according to Hill, 98% of people had no firm beliefs, putting true success firmly out of reach.[9]
Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, proving that the secret of Achievement
is still highly sought-after by modern Americans. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including
racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles
using the philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every American.[10]
[edit] Writings and other
works
- Hill's Golden Rule magazine, publisher and editor (1919-1920)
- The Magic
Ladder to Success (1930)
- unpaid advisor to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1936)
- Think and Grow Rich - still in print in several
versions, and has sold more than 30 million copies (1937).
- How to Sell Your Way through Life (1939)
- How to Raise Your Own Salary (1953)
- taught Philosophy of Personal Achievement
with W. Clement Stone and lectured on the Science
of Success (1952-1962)
- Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960)
- abridged version of Think and Grow Rich (1960)
- You Can Work Your Own Miracles, was published
posthumously (1971) following Napoleon Hill death in 1970 at age 87 in South Carolina
- Think and Grow Rich!: The Original
Version, Restored and Revised (2004, published by Ross Cornwell)
