We continue our recommendations for audio books that can inspire you to reach your dreams, focusing on Think and Grow Rich. Educate yourself further in the world of business and life while you’re on the move.
Napoleon Hill was an American author and impresario from the ‘new thought’ tradition of the 20th century. He went on to become an early producer of personal-success literature. At the time of Hill’s death in 1970, his best-known work, Think and Grow Rich (1937) had sold 20 million copies. His works insisted that “fervid expectations are essential to increasing one’s income”. Hill was an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Think and Grow Rich conveys the experience of more than 500 men of great wealth who all found success, who began at scratch, with nothing to give in return for riches except for, according to Hill, “thoughts, ideas and organized plans”. His intention is to “provide you with a perfect system of self-analysis that will readily disclose what has been standing between you and ‘the big money’ in the past”. It describes the case of the famous Andrew Carnegie whose formula of personal achievement allowed him to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and made no fewer than a score of millionaires of men to whom he taught his secret.
But where to start? Hill’s suggestion is that becomong a success requires “one idea, plan or suggestion to start you toward your goal”. Somewhere in the book you will find this needed stimulus to begin to reach your goals. But it’s not all about the money. The book states: “Riches cannot always be measured in money! Money and material things are essential for freedom of body and mind, but there are some who will feel that the greatest of all riches can be evaluated only in terms of lasting friendships, harmonious family relationships, sympathy and understanding between business associates, and introspective harmony which brings one peace of mind measurable only in spiritual values!”
The publishers warn us to be prepared when we expose ourselves to the influence of the philosophy in Think and Grow Rich , to experience “a changed life which may help you not only to negotiate your way through life with harmony and understanding, but also to prepare you for the accumulation of material riches in abundance”.
