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A review by nebular_fire
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
1.0
Ick. I started this unaware, and I did no research until 75% through when the red flags were just too much. On the surface it seems like a classic piece that bares learning timeless principles from despite other outdated things, but I was taking the author at his word and many of those who purport the importance of this work in their life seemed to also have been duped by this con man’s fraudulent self revelations.
This book was written post Depression pre World War 2, so I was giving it a grain of salt that some of the things that felt off for me were just outdated, such as the proto-prosperity gospel and the pseudo-psychology and the self-brainwashing into believing his principles are true (and if you don’t get it, start over and meditate on it until you do) but once he got to sexuality and genius I had to stop and research the man.
He was a highly motivated con man who has no credibility other than his own experiences with failure and his tenacity to will himself to be successful, and he made claims that cannot be verified (also known as lies) and his failures always came at the expense of others. He was a snake oil salesman selling self confidence, so of course there are certain people who will fall for it and seem to be successful as a result, but at it core there is some dangerous self-help principles that just should not have a place in this already corrupt world, so I’m drawing the line. There are some things I took note of that bear further thought (self discipline and motivation), but there are different teachers whose character are not in question that I shall investigate these ideas with. Knowing this, is this work important to be aware of, historically; yes. I also want to know who else has been “inspired” by this man’s work and how much it corrupted them. I’m looking at you Wall Street and Washington DC…. lol.
This book was written post Depression pre World War 2, so I was giving it a grain of salt that some of the things that felt off for me were just outdated, such as the proto-prosperity gospel and the pseudo-psychology and the self-brainwashing into believing his principles are true (and if you don’t get it, start over and meditate on it until you do) but once he got to sexuality and genius I had to stop and research the man.
He was a highly motivated con man who has no credibility other than his own experiences with failure and his tenacity to will himself to be successful, and he made claims that cannot be verified (also known as lies) and his failures always came at the expense of others. He was a snake oil salesman selling self confidence, so of course there are certain people who will fall for it and seem to be successful as a result, but at it core there is some dangerous self-help principles that just should not have a place in this already corrupt world, so I’m drawing the line. There are some things I took note of that bear further thought (self discipline and motivation), but there are different teachers whose character are not in question that I shall investigate these ideas with. Knowing this, is this work important to be aware of, historically; yes. I also want to know who else has been “inspired” by this man’s work and how much it corrupted them. I’m looking at you Wall Street and Washington DC…. lol.