Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill ( born October 26, 1883 in Pound, Virginia, † November 8, 1970 in South Carolina ) was an American writer in the New Thought movement. His book, Think and Grow Rich (orig. Think and Grow Rich ) has sold more than 60 million times since its release in 1937 until today.

Curriculum vitae

Origin and early life

Hill was born in 1883 in a humble log cabin in poverty in the state of Virginia. His mother, Sarah Sylvania Blair, died when Hill was just eight years old. His father, James Monroe Hill married two years later. At 13, Hill began writing for the local newspaper, to escape the poor conditions of his home. He used the income derived therefrom, to finance his legal education.

Journalistic activity

His law school graduated Hill at Georgetown University in Washington. Due to the journalistic side job he met the man who would later have his way to his life's work. Robert Love Taylor, the then Governor of Tennessee and owner of the magazine Bob Taylor 's Magazine, became aware Hills newspaper articles and commissioned the then 25 -year-old Hill, for him to write a series of short biographies of famous Americans. Andrew Carnegie was the first of them.

1908 was Hills professional turning point. As part of a series in which Hill the biographies of famous people studied and published, he met the industrialist Andrew Carnegie to interview - this time one of the richest people in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the road to success can be summed up in a simple formula. Carnegie was impressed by Hill and commissioned him to interview 500 self-made millionaires to create and publish this formula.

As part of his research Hill interviewed the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Charles M. Schwab, FW Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, James J. Hill and Jennings Randolph. The project took more than twenty years. During this time, Hill was simultaneously Carnegie consultant.

Literary works Hills

For the first time appeared Hills philosophy for success in 1928 in his book The Law of Success (Eng. The Law of Success ), exactly twenty years after the first conversation with Carnegie. Later the formula was published in a kind of self-study course, which includes up to 1942, the series Mental Dynamite belonged.

To be able to in addition to the research work to feed his family, Hill worked from 1919 to 1920 as editor and publisher of the magazine The Golden Rule, and did public relations for the Lasalle Extension University in Chicago. In 1930 he published The Ladder to Success (Eng. The ladder to success ). From 1933 to 1936 Hill was an advisor of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Was published in 1937 Hills most famous work Think and Grow Rich (Eng. Think and Grow Rich ) that is printed today and has sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. until 2004. There were some literary models for Hills works, such as Robert Collier, Dale Carnegie or Ralph Waldo Trine, but the book by Hill has influenced all subsequent authors of guidebooks to help themselves decisive.

1939, his book How to Sell Your Way through Life added and 1953 How to Raise Your Own Salary. From 1952 to 1962 Hill worked together in the Combined Insurance Co. of America with W. Clement Stone. As a partial result of this collaboration in 1960 he published Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. 1970 finally was added You Can Work Your Own Miracles.

Original Quotes

" Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire Which Transcend's everything. "

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve achievement. "