The book
'THINK AND GROW RICH' is arguably the world's premier manual on wealth
accumulation. Everyone from residents of the Forbes' list to aspiring
entrepreneurs swear by Hill's exposé.
Revolutionary though Hill's work is, it contains an error. An error in declaring that success usually eludes its pursuer until the age of forty due to an inability to rein in overactive sex drives. ‘Sex transmutation’, is the phrase he used.
Here are his exact words, excerpts from Chapter 11 of Think and Grow Rich.
I discovered, from the analysis of over 25,000 people, that men who succeed in an outstanding way, seldom do so before the age of forty, and more often they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of fifty. This fact was so astounding that it prompted me to go into the study of its cause most carefully, carrying the investigation over a period of more than twelve years.
This study disclosed the fact that the major reason why the majority of men who succeed do not begin to do so before the age of forty to fifty, is their tendency to DISSIPATE their energies through over indulgence in physical expression of the emotion of sex. The majority of men never learn that the urge of sex has other possibilities, which far transcend in importance, that of mere physical expression. The majority of those who make this discovery, do so after having wasted many years at a period when the sex energy is at its height, prior to the age of forty-five to fifty. This usually is followed by noteworthy achievement.
The lives of many men up to, and sometimes well past the age of forty, reflect a continued dissipation of energies, which could have been more profitably turned into better channels. Their finer and more powerful emotions are sown wildly to the four winds. Out of this habit of the male, grew the term, "sowing his wild oats."
The desire for sexual expression is by far the strongest and most impelling of all the human emotions, and for this very reason this desire, when harnessed and transmuted into action, other than that of physical expression, may raise one to the status of a genius."
Hill was limited by the technology, the available information of his time. He couldn't have foreseen Justin Bieber, Honey Boo and the sour-faced cat who has more money than most senior executives. Hill couldn't have foreseen the fact that teenagers, babies really, are Youtube phenomena who pull in 7 figures monthly. Hill couldn't foresee Bill Gates.
Like Roger Bannister who broke the barrier and paved the way for others, Bill Gates shattered the billionaire glass ceiling that Napoleon Hill and his research set in place for the rest of humanity. Dude was worth billions before he turned 40. Zuckerberg, Facebook founder did it by 23. Silicon Valley is full of guys like this. Guys who are giving Hill's research the middle finger. Who achieved worthwhile success before the big 4-0, men whose sex drives were still roaring like the revved up engines of those autos in Fast and Furious movies, men who have barely outgrown their boyhood.
Not just in technology and science, but in advocacy. Teenager Malala (she's so famous she needs no surname) is the youngest human ever to win a Nobel. Critics say it's because she was shot by a world-famous terror group and survived. Critics also don't realise there are millions of gunshot-wound survivors. The fact remains, Malala is not 40.
Hill, you were wrong.
Goes to show that the best profound-sounding philosophy is at best limited by the technology; the available information of its time.
So in business and in relationships, in life and even in death, challenge the status quo, no matter how highly profiled the upholders of said status quo are.
It is always right until proven wrong. Hill was wrong. In that particular philosophy, at least. The choice then remains with you and me. Who will we be: the person that is limited by the Napoleon Hills or the person that will shatter the ceilings set in place by the Napoleon Hills?
Disculpa, Napoleon. This one, you got wrong. Thank you though, for the rest of your book.
MORE ABOUT ENGLISH CLICK HERE
