The book I am going to review is Think and Grow Rich, written by Napoleon Hill. It is a bit embarrassing to read in public because the book is not English literature, poetry, fiction, or fantasy. This book is non-fiction, and the book title sounds superficial. People judge a book by its cover, and I am worried people will judge me by the book I read.
Let me start with a quotation in this book by Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right", The quote captures the gist of the book. At first, I was a bit sceptical about reading it. Is it a scam? Is it a Ponzi scheme? Or is it trying to persuade me to invest in bitcoin and NFTs? The author promises to reveal the biggest secret of all time, while the author is controversial with accusations of committing fraud and business failure.
But before you judge, it is helpful to know the context of the book; it was in 1937 when the great depression happened. Now we got a similar situation with the stock market dropping 20%. The book was a best-seller, still popular today, and sold more than 20 million copies. The genre is self-improvement. I read many self-improvement books, and if it works, then maybe I won't be sitting here writing this review. I would get rich already, having retirement on a yacht to enjoy my life.
The book is about the mindset, and the idea is simple—desire, faith, then action. The book title is misleading because it doesn't work by just thinking, sitting there, doing nothing and getting rich; you have to take action, and your dream won't come true without taking any action. If you have enough desire, believe in yourself, and overcome your fears, you will take action.
The book has a lot of examples of motivational stories and stories about successful people like Andrew Carnegie, a wealthy American industrialist. It claims to be supported by research, but its methodology doesn't sound very scientific. The best way to verify if the book's ideas work is to take action.
Don't expect you would get paid by simply knowing instead of doing with what you know. The world does not pay men for that which they "know". It pays them for what they do or induces others to do. It is an eternal truth that men receive more pay for their ability to get others to perform than they could earn by their efforts. An efficient leader may, through his knowledge of his job and the magnetism of his personality, significantly increase the efficiency of others and induce them to render more and better service than they could render without his aid.
It is one thing to want money-everyone wants more-but. It is something entirely different to be worth more. Many people mistake their wants for their just dues. Your financial requirement or wants have nothing whatever to do with your worth. Your value is established entirely by your ability to render valuable service or your capability to induce others to render such service.
There is no hope of success for someone who repels people through a negative personality. Success comes through the application of power, and the power is attained through the cooperative efforts of other people. A negative personality will not induce cooperation.
It takes more than a college degree to make one person of education. Any person who is educated has learned to get whatever he wants in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists not so much of knowledge but of effectively and persistently applied knowledge.
If you have the desire to get rich, obsessed with money, I would recommend the first action to take is to read this book.
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