Who is Napoleon Hill?

Napoleon Hill was a famous American author best known for his works in the field of personal development. He became popular for his most popular and best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich. Born in 1883 and passing away in 1970, Hill's work centred on the power of the human mind and the importance of positive thinking for success and wealth.

Hill served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's counsellor from 1933 to 1936, offering counsel on personal and economic growth. His work was influenced by notable developmental figures like Dale Carnegie, Ronald Neff, and Andrew Carnegie, leaving a lasting impression on the field of personal growth and motivation.

Childhood and Early Life

• Hill was born on October 26, 1883, in Pound, Virginia, United States, into a poor family living in a poor, illiterate, and superstitious community.
• He lost his mother at the early age of 10.
• Following his mother’s death, Hill became a rebellious child, especially after his father, James Hill II, remarried a woman named Martha, who took charge of their tiny two-room log cabin.
• His fear of his stepmother vanished as she began to assist him in various aspects of his life, and he found a new mentor in her.
• Martha recognised his talent and encouraged him to use his imagination to become a writer, spending a year teaching him. She even promised to buy him a typewriter if he gave up the gun he carried around, and he accepted the arrangement.

Biography

• Hill was born on October 26, 1883, in Pound, Virginia, United States, into an extremely poor family.
• His mother’s death when he was just 10 years old added new challenges to his young life.
• Growing up in steep poverty and illiteracy, Hill found support and guidance from his new stepmother, Martha.
• At the age of 13, he started writing for his father's newspaper, gaining early experience in the field.
• By the age of 15, he had secured a job as a freelance reporter for a collection of rural newspapers. He later worked for Bob Taylor’s Magazine, a popular publication offering advice on achieving power and wealth.
• Hill's first significant interview with Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the country at the time, was a turning point in his life.
• Carnegie offered him the opportunity to meet the world's wealthiest individuals and document their success theories.
• Hill interviewed numerous successful figures, including Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, and many others.
• He paid for Georgetown University's law school using the proceeds from his writings.
• He married Florence Elizabeth Horner in 1910, having placed an advertisement seeking a life companion in a newspaper in 1908.
• The couple had three children: James, Napoleon Blair, and David.
• In July 1926, Hill survived an assassination attempt, which left him deeply shaken and fearful. His attempts to launch an investigation into the drug trade and the sale of narcotics and alcohol to schoolchildren were the source of this dread. His partner, Don Melette, was killed, and though Hill's life was spared, he fled Ohio to escape further danger.
• Despite these harrowing circumstances, Hill never wavered in his resolve to finish the work he pledged to do for his mentor Andrew Carnegie and friend Don Melette. He persevered and successfully published his acclaimed series, The Law of Success, in 1928.
• Hill served as a consultant to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936.
• His personal life was downturned in 1935 when he divorced his wife due to his constant absences and frequent relocations. He later married a 27-year-old woman, with whom he indulged in extravagant spending on real estate, cars, and luxuries. Their relationship quickly soured, leading to a divorce. Despite working hard for years, Hill was left impoverished because of the prenuptial agreement that gave his ex-wife most of the proceeds from his Think and Grow Rich
• Hill stopped serving as a consultant in 1936, and he resumed lecturing in 1937. He eventually married Rosa Lee Beeland, whom he had met at a lecture in Atlanta.
• Hill married for the third time in 1943, this time with 47-year-old Annie Lou Norman. The couple moved to California, where Hill resumed his lecture circuit.
• Hill was one of the early pioneers of personal success literature and personal development.
• Think and Grow Rich is one of his influential books that greatly impacted the self-improvement community.
• Hill partnered with W. Clement Stone, the president of Combined Insurance Company of America, at the age of 69. Together, they produced a series of books, courses, lectures, and radio programmes beginning in 1952.
• In 1960, Hill co-authored the best-selling book Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude with Stone.
• Hill passed away on November 8, 1970, in South Carolina, yet his influence lives on. His principles and philosophy for achieving wealth and success have helped thousands of people worldwide.

Hill’s Professional Journey

• Hill's great breakthrough occurred in 1908 when he was assigned to write a series of articles about famous and successful figures.
• Andrew Carnegie, one of the most powerful men in the United States, commissioned him to interview more than 500 prominent figures.
• In 1912, Hill moved to Chicago, where he worked as an advertising writer, owned a candy store, and taught a correspondence course on selling goods.
• He believed that negative emotions like fear and selfishness were the root causes of failure among unsuccessful people.
• With Carnegie's assistance, Hill published what is commonly referred to as The Law of Success in 1925.
• In 1926, he survived an assassination attempt, but the ordeal had a long-lasting effect on him and ingrained fear in his mind.
• By 1927, at the age of 44, Hill was attempting to shake off the lingering effects of his near-death experience, which had plagued him for over a year, and to resume his career.
• Hill offered his services in writing to President Woodrow Wilson during World War I, after he had interviewed the latter earlier. Wilson assigned him to work on a series of propaganda materials.
• At the end of World War I, Hill suggested starting a magazine devoted to the success philosophy known as Hill's Golden Rule. The magazine, launched with his partner George Williams in Chicago, was a significant success.
• Eventually, Hill left Chicago and moved to New York after Williams took control of the magazine. Hill started another magazine under his own name that achieved even greater success than the first, but it collapsed after a few months due to poor business decisions by his partners.
• Hill then relocated to Ohio, where he ran a business that offered training services in journalism and advertising.
• The Canton Daily News publisher Don Melette persuaded him to publish a book on the principles of success he had amassed over the year.
• On 26 March 1928, Hill released his successful series, The Law of Success.
• By 1928, he had moved his family into a home in the Catskill Mountains and was making $2,500 monthly.
• He was worth well over a million dollars by 1940.

Accomplishments

• Think and Grow Rich.
• The Law of Success.
• The Path to Personal Power.
• How to Sell Your Way Through Life.
• Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success.
• Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.
• You Can Work Your Own Miracles.
• Napoleon Hill's Keys to Personal Achievement.
• The Master-Key to Riches.
• Napoleon Hill's Thought for the Day.
• The Habit of Success.
• Secrets that Will Change Your Life.
• How to Make More Money.

Challenges and Hardships

• Poverty and Financial Hardships: Hill began his life in challenging financial circumstances, growing up in poverty.
• In 1926, he survived an assassination attempt, which severely affected his health and mental state.
• Tension and turmoil dominated Hill's personal life, resulting in two divorces that negatively impacted his mental health and the trajectory of his life.
• Hill encountered numerous difficulties in establishing his career, including challenges in founding his magazines, managing his businesses, and promoting his ideas and philosophy of success.

Hill’s Influence

1. Motivating People to Achieve Their Personal and Professional Goals:

Hill’s books provide principles and techniques for success and wealth, inspiring readers to work hard and think positively to achieve their goals.

2. Shifting Mindsets

Hill’s ideas helped replace people’s negative perspectives about money and success with positive and forward-looking ones.

3. Building Self-Confidence

He emphasises the importance of self-confidence and how to build and strengthen it, helping readers to overcome doubts and fears while motivating them to succeed.

4. Developing Leadership and Positive Influence

His work offers principles on leadership and how individuals can positively influence others, driving the growth of leadership skills necessary for success.

5. Encouraging Persistence and Hard Work

His writings inspire readers to work hard and never give up in the face of difficulties, helping them achieve their goals despite the obstacles.

Hill’s Famous Quotes:

• "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve"
• "One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when overtaken by temporary defeat. Everyone makes this mistake at one time or another."
• "You and every other human being are the sum total of just two things, heredity and environment."
• "Any ideal or habit which is intended to become a permanent fixture in a human being must be planted in his or her mind in early childhood, through the principle of social heredity."
• "When you make something out of a person's reach, you intensify their desire to obtain it."
• "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."
• "The time people spend in fearing something would, if reversed, give them all they want in the material world and save them from me after death."
• "There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge. Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought."
• "If your mental attitude is under control, you can control almost every other circumstance that influences your life, including your fears and anxieties."
• "The essential elements for anyone's success in their job are: having a sound mind, a healthy body, and a genuine desire to offer as much help and service as possible to the greatest number of people in need."

Unknown Facts About Hill

• Hill suffered from epilepsy.