Sunday, December 7, 2014

Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill

There's nothing wrong with
earning a lot of money.
Unless it's creepy.

On a brief layover at Chicago's ORD I was hunting for something to read on my next flight when I saw on the shelf Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Just a few days prior this book had been recommended to me by a highly regarded business expert who placed it on par with Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Originally published in 1937, this book lays out 13 steps to riches that anyone can follow should they be interested in accumulating wealth. For example, Step #8 is all about persistence.

The edition I read was updated in 2005 but despite a few anecdotes about FedEx and Microsoft the overall book read like something from the decade of the Great Depression. Which isn't necessarily bad.

But things took a turn for the creepy with Step #10, The Mystery of Sex Transmutation. Yes, using your sexual energy (mojo?) you can transmute mediocrity into genius. Whoa.

That was followed by a chapter that included at its beginning this statement: "every human brain is capable of picking up vibrations of thought released by other brains."

Rather than wait for the 3rd strike, I flipped through the remaining pages and put this one on the shelf.

Oh well.

I received no compensation of any kind for this review.

2 comments:

Francis Shivone said...

Been busy and haven't been blog reading or writing lately.

It's been over thirty years since I read it or skimmed through it and I recall that section.

I had pretty much the same response.

John said...

Welcome back to teh interwebs. Your insights are sorely missed.