Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill - Review

Remember those old technical manual you found buried in an old library or second-hand book shop? With it's page turn yellow and fragile, with unknown stain at the side? The content is old, mostly still functional albeit very outdated. You flip through the book, nodding at the content but ultimately decide to pick up a more contemporary counterpart for that book.
-This is how I felt about Napoleon Hill's famous book, think and grow rich.

Originally published at 1937, the book is O-L-D. The world was a very different place then, so was the style of writing.

The book aims to provide principles, knowledge and wisdom for success. Lifting lessons and examples from historical giants like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Mohammad Gandhi, Andrew Carnegie etc etc. While a more contemporary book will make a point and elaborate it with scientific studies and observations, Napoleon Hill's think and grow rich were written at an era where lesson and principle were derived from his personal observation and deductive thinking, relying heavily on anecdotes and personal opinion. I didn't really enjoy reading the book due to this method of writing. However, it is fun in comparing how far self-help book has evolved in 8 decades. I certainly would recommend this book as a material for researching on evolution of self-help book.

Style of writing comparison: theoretical VS empirical
Then: Perseverance is the most important quality of success. You can't find a successful person in history that were lacking in the ability to persevere. Take Thomas Edison, he yada yada yada; Mohammad Gandhi, he yada yada yada. Perseverance is important! Perseverance is number 1! U no persevere, you no succeed!

Now: A longitudinal study has shown that the most important factor that may predict success in life, is surprisingly not IQ, not family social status and not even the level of parental education. It was conclusively shown that the number 1 factor of success is the ability to delay gratification. A group of 4 years old has been brought into a study that we call the Marshmallow test.....

I guess this book is the pioneer of all self-help book. Most of it's principle may still hold true today, albeit in a "duhhh, common sense" way.

As all fix-your-life-and-be-successful now does, this book provides some checklist for you to reflect and improve upon one's habit/attitude/character/personality. However, to continue with my analog of "old manual lying in old library", I would rather instead pick up Anthony Robbins for that purpose.

At least I don't feel like my mum nagging at me when I read Anthony Robbins.

TD;DR, I would say this book has reach it's expiry date and belong to a Museum. Come on! Ghandi was alive when the book was written!

PS: Do you know who is Andrew Carnegie? I bet you probably knew Dale Carnegie better XD



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