Think and grow rich

I mentioned to a friend that I’m currently reading the book, “Think and Grow Rich.”  His reaction was, “It’s too late.”

My thought was it may be too late from a financial standpoint, but growing rich in life could be defined in other ways.

“Think and Grow Rich,” was originally published in 1937 by Napoleon Hill.  Hill was given the assignment by Andrew Carnegie, who was then the richest man in the world, to organize a Philosophy of Personal Achievement.

Hill interviewed over five hundred successful people including Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and John D. Rockefeller. Hill then revealed the principles that made these men successful.

The book is over seventy years old and the successful men interviewed in the book are no longer with us.

Today you would want to talk with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs–if he were still alive.

These men clearly followed many of the principles suggested in the book. They have shown blinding confidence in themselves, in their vision, and in their judgment.

Steve Jobs certainly had that confidence in himself and that self-assurance helped him build one of the most successful businesses the world has ever known.  It also probably cost him his life.  When Jobs was diagnosed with a treatable form of pancreatic cancer he chose to postpone surgery so he could manage himself—a decision that ultimately may have resulted in his death.

It would be interesting if a modern day Napoleon Hill interviewed today’s business superstars.  The world and business has certainly changed in those seventy years, but I imagine most of the rules of success have stayed the same.