This is the best self help book any entrepreneur could ever read. Perhaps the only one they need to. Truly transformative. I have it on audio too and listen to it at the gym often.

Napoleon Hill was tasked by Andrew Carnegie to write a book on what made a successful person succeed, and he spent 20 years researching and interviewing every great name of the day (Ford, Woolworth, Edison, etc), plus lots of people who failed (because you have to know what doesn't work too). This book is the result.

It basically hammers home a single point, over and over again. Success comes from knowing what you want to achieve and having a burning desire to achieve it.

"The starting point of all achievements is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat."

1. Fundamental. Buku klasik yang satu ini isinya sangat relevan untuk jaman now, dan akan tetap relevan sampai generasi cucu saya nanti.

2. Buku ini mengubah cara pandang saya terhadap sesuatu yang sering disebut "kapitalisme", yang biasanya saya memandangnya dari sisi negatif. Buku ini sukses memberi saya gambaran tentang kapitalisme dari sudut pandang yang positif.

3. Dari ini buku ini saya bisa mendapatkan jawaban yang sangat masuk akal atas pertanyaan2 klise yang saya ga pernah tau jawabannya, seperti:
- kenapa pria biasanya sukses setelah usia 40?
- Kenapa di balik pria sukses selalu ada wanita luar biasa di baliknya?
- Kenapa pria sukses yang mengkhianati istrinya dengan serong kepada wanita lain biasanya akan kehilangan kesuksesannya?
- bagaimana orang2 tertentu bisa menjadi genius?
- dll.. banyak banget.

4 Buat saya, buku ini bukan sekedar buku bisnis yang mengajarkan bagaimana untuk mengumpulkan segudang uang. Buku ini sekaligus buku tentang psikologi, self-help, spiritual, bahkan sains.

This is a book I listened to many years ago-so not a current read. My husband listened to motivational tapes in his car as he traveled his sales route. I had never heard of them before we met. After we got married I would listen to his old ones as I got ready for work each morning. As far out as the premise of this book seemed I tried it. Thought and believed I would make "X" number of dollars before I retired, it was an unrealistically high salary for my position in the company. I have thought of this book often because, as unrealistic as that number was, my last raise was that exact amount.

Booktube Review: https://youtube.com/watch?v=i03m38764...

No more alibis

I am now ready to use the master key and enjoy the abundance in life, control my mind, create burning passion, consistently think about what I wanted to achieve and its purpose, establish harmony with life and people around me, have a concrete plan, consistently implement and strategize without any fear. Thank you, Napoleon!

This was the first and my favorite self-help book I ever have read. Hill teaches strong principles of thought control and discaplin of habbits.
I recommend every one reads this book. You can also find some awesome videos on youtube.com
Enjoy and Be Blessed

Book-a-Week Nonfiction Challenge: Book 5

I think I need to think about my plan for this one going forward. It asks that you read this at least three times, stating that you might not understand or get anything out of it the first time. I understand that idea in principle, if the ideas are complex, but if you're writing a book it should probably still be useful to people who only plan on reading it once. It's not a short read that you can come back to all the time, especially if you aren't yet sure if it's the best book of its kind, and it's very boring in style. On top of that, most chapters asked that you go back and reread a previous chapter before continuing, so you've already read it twice by the time you get to the end for the first time. Reading it three times would be like reading it six times, so I'm questioning its effectiveness.

The book gives you six steps which could be useful, and I'm going to try them out to see.
Besides trying to make you more self-aware, I don't know that the chapters besides the last one, and chapter 2 (which contains the six steps) are particularly valuable to everyone.

Maybe that makes me one of those "unsuccessful" people who missed the point or isn't willing to put in the work, but I feel like I put in way too much work just to get out of it the few things that I did.

This book has been suggested to me by more poor morons than any other book of all time. I suppose it makes people feel better about what they can imagine they are going to get, but it just seemed a bunch of weak minded bosh to me.

I originally read this book as part of a business mentorship program. I admit, I had some mental blockage when I started reading it, and only because I had personal fears and doubts about finances that I have since addressed by self-educating (see other recommended financial books on my list) and seeking assistance from qualified professionals with a good frame of reference for what I needed advice on (I love my financial advisor, Jason!). My picture of growing "rich" in the beginning was, like, Scrooge McDuck sitting on a mound of moneybags grasping fistfulls of cash, or a snakey ass backwards crooked business guy who favors profit over all else at the expense of humanity and the environment. Of course I don't want to be that way, who does?! This book helped me detatch from some emotional and fear based patterns I discovered within, and helped me get OK with making and managing money. This is an instruction manual for creating a prosperity based mentality and then putting it to good use. There are step by step instructions and exercises involved, and as usual, what you put into it is what you'll get out of it.

What can I say about this book that hasn't been said by millions of people who read it in the decades since it was published? It was praised by so many, generation after generation. All I can add is what this book meant for me.
Every once in awhile comes a book that feels like it changes ones DNA. That while you are reading it you physically change. That your ideas about what life is, and what you want from it change. This is what this book did to me.
It made me question basic assumptions I made about myself that I didn't even know where assumptions! I thought they were - "My character" or "What's given". I took my time reading this one. I let things sink before I moved on and I know that I will re-read this book in the future.
The main areas that this book changed for me are - new definition of what is "possible" for one person to achieve and a new level of ambition to go and achieve it, it also gives the tools of how one can start doing the "impossible".
This book that has been written almost a century ago is still very relevant today. Napoleons writing is smooth and easy. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has dreams and wants to keep pushing himself and keep developing.

This was the Jolly Girls Book Club latest read! I don't usually read "self help" books and was a bit nervous especially once I realized I had gotten my hands on the unabridged version of this book. But WOW! What a life changing book! I feel like if you read this book with an open mind you can take so many important lessons away from it. The priority in my life right now is not getting rich, I can barely make it through the day with all 4 children in tact. But what I love about this book, is how it instructs you to succeed in all aspects of your life. I love the parts about positive thinking and having a good attitude. Since this book was written in the 1930's some may say parts are dated, and they most likely are. But I found that to be part of the fun of reading it! I think it was so cool how the writer was contemporaries with people like Ford and Edison and Alexander Grahm Bell! He studied these amazing men first hand, and his experiences are invaluable. I have always believed our minds are so powerful and that our true potential is untapped. This book helped me to make a goal to reach that potential and to have the desire to become a success in everything that I decide to do.

Hill accidentally hits on a very biblical theme here - "you become like what you worship" - and then works off the assumption that everyone can and should become very rich.

At times, I was tracking with him, but he totally lost me with his chapters on "sex transmutation" (using sexual energy to make money) and the "invisible counselors" (using imaginary meetings with successful people, such as Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Edison, to gain insight into making money).

Somewhat surprisingly, the book actually works (this is why so many people love it). But what it works for is worldliness.

I eat up self-improvement books on a pretty regular basis and age or popularity ordinarily does nothing to persuade my interest. Given the longevity of this one I, however, relented. This was a pretty quick read, gave clear suggestions to improve success, and was full of interesting and inspirational anecdotes.

As I continued to read through this book, I found it to become a little samey. Like many books of this type there are only a few core elements that the book is structured around. The 'filler' often lay in the convincing stories that allow the reader to believe they can emulate the success. This occurred but I appreciated the positivity and was, initially, convinced on its brilliance. I soon began to question how the seemingly simple suggestions could relate the real-world, however. There were some inspiring elements but I found others to be beyond the range of my belief and could not believe that success and riches could be so easily garnered.

This was a solid self-improvement book but I have read others, in the same vein, that gave me a more solid foundation on which to go ahead and achieve all promised, in my own life.