The Law of Success (Volume 1) By Napoleon Hill

It's well-known that when a young journalist, Napoleon Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie the great steel magnate. Impressed with the young man, Carnegie assigned him to discover the secrets to success. He'd help out by giving Hill letters of introduction to such friends as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and John D. Rockefeller, thus opening doors that would otherwise by unavailable to Hill.Years before the Depression forced him to write THINK AND GROW RICH, Hill wrote these 16 lessons. They contain some of the same stories, but others were left out of THINK AND GROW RICH and are worth reading. THINK AND GROW RICH's buried "secret" (What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve) is put in plainer language in the front of every chapter ("You Can Do It If You Believe You Can!")The first lesson is on the Master Mind, and that's unfortunate.The examples he gives of Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie creating successful businesses by assembling pools of talent can be interpre
ted as simple teamwork and good organizations. Those men worked hard for Ford and Carnegie because they were dedicated and desired success and realized their financial fates depended on the success of their companies.Today, many friends in similar businesses form master mind groups to share ideas and tips. These groups can work quite well.However, Hill obviously believed in the concept as a form of what later became known as ESP. He goes into a lot of tedious explanations of the ether permeating space, which he evidently got from Alexander Graham Bell. Scientists used to believe in ether. Now we know better.Once you get past this, the book becomes easier and more interesting to read.Lesson 2 should have been the first lesson, in my opinion. It's about the first step in true success: choosing a definite chief aim. What is now commonly called "goals." Though Hill writes only of having ONE definite chief aim. If you have ten or twenty or five hundred goals (as some personal dev
elopment gurus advise), how can one of them be a "chief" goal?He advises keeping that definite chief aim uppermost in your mind as much as possible. How can you do that if you've written down 100 goals to achieve in the next two years?Hill's great accomplishment was introducing to ordinary people the concept of autosuggestion. Of focusing your mind and thinking so much on your goal that this desire is imprinted upon your subconscious mind, which then guides you to its accomplishment.We don't know the true origin of consciously applying this technique. Probably it was discovered by many successful people who looked back and realized they were successful because they'd focused so much on their goals.However, although the subconscious mind was not formally described until Sigmund Freud, people have used hypnotic techniques on others for thousands (or more) years. So it's quite possibly that some of them decided to use mesmerism on themselves, in pursuit of their goals.All we re
ally know is that this one concept is the backbone of 20th century self-improvement literature. Earl Nightingale called it "The Strangest Secret" many years ago. Lately the book and movie THE SECREThave popularized it all the more.The other five lessons in this volume are: Self-Confidence, the Habit of Saving, Initiative and Leadership, Imagination, and Enthusiasm.Most of what Hill writes here can be found in newer books in more modern language. Although he deserves credit for including the Habit of Saving. I can't think of other get rich books that mention the importance of staying out of debt. (Except of course for personal finance books, but they don't cover how to succeed topics.)Of course, it can be argued that Hill didn't take his own advice. I know that he lost a lot of belongings after the stock market crash, indicting that despite his advice he was in debt. But that's true of many self-help gurus.Read the Law of Success to build on the foundation of THINK AND GROW R
ICH and more modern self-help books.

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