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NAPOLEON HILL

Successful Writer From Pound, VA

Life and Works

Napoleon Hill Foundation

Personal Success

Philosophy of Achievement

Writings Chronology

Napoleon Hill and Personal Success

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He successfully became the presidential advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933-36. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”, is one of Hill's hallmark expressions. How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach for the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

The following article was written by Don M. Green and it appears in the book The History of the Pound Volume III: People of Pound, edited by Grace B. Edwards and Brenda D. Salyers; Copyright 1996, Published by The Historical Society of the Pound.

In addition to his own personal knowledge, Don Green's article about Napoleon Hill was based on the biography of Napoleon Hill's life, A Lifetime of Riches, written by Michael J. Ritt Jr. and Kirk Landers, published by the Penguin Group, Penguin Books, USA, INC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. Copyright, The Napoleon Hill Foundation 1995.

NAPOLEON HILL

By Don M. Green

Napoleon Hill was born in a log cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia on October 26, 1883, the firstborn child of Sara Blair and James Monroe Hill.

Napoleon Hill was born at a time when one and two-room log cabins were typical dwellings and life in general was primitive in comparison to today's standards. Life expectancies were short, infant mortality was high and many rural Virginians suffered from chronic health problems.

At the time of Hill's birth, elementary schools were open only about four months out of the year and attendance was not required.

James Monroe Hill, Napoleon's father, was the son of James Madison Hill, an English-born printer who immigrated to America in the 1840s with two brothers and settled in the Black Mountain area on the Kentucky-Virginia border. By the age of 17 James had married Sara Sylvania Blair and built a cabin in a remote area. James built a press and began publication of Zephyr, Wise County's first newspaper. The Zephyr contained personal ads, local news, weather predictions, and a brief editorial. The newspaper was delivered by horseback to about one hundred subscribers in the area.

James and Sara Hill named their first son Oliver Napoleon. Oliver was later dropped from Napoleon's name. Napoleon's earliest years marked him for anything but success. He was a wild, perhaps hyperactive child known to neighbors and family members mainly for the mischief he caused. By Hill's own account, his parents started him in school at age four "mainly to get me off their hands while they worked in the fields."

Little is known of Sara Hill prior to her death, except that she had borne Napoleon and his brother Vivian. Napoleon was nine when he lost his mother. At nine, Napoleon considered he was the toughest boy in the county and was a serious disciplinary problem for his father.

Napoleon's penchant for pranks and mischief took on a more foreboding direction following the death of his mother. In the mountain region where it was common for young boys to hunt with rifles, Napoleon began carrying a six-shooter he inherited from an uncle. Napoleon imagined himself to be Jessie James, not the best hero selection to worship at any age, especially as an unsettled nine-year-old.

One year after the death of Sara Hill, James married Martha Ramey Banner, the widow of a school principal and daughter of a Coeburn, Virginia physician. Martha Hill was a well-educated and dynamic woman, and she had announced that she intended to change the mental, spiritual, and financial status of the entire family.

When Napoleon was 11 years old, his stepmother suggested he devote his time to reading and writing and concluded, "You might live to see the time when your influence will be felt throughout the state." By the age of 12 Napoleon was convinced by his stepmother to give up his gun in place of a typewriter. Napoleon Hill popularized the phrase, "What the mind can conceive, it can achieve." Martha Hill was greatly responsible for the growth of young Napoleon's mind and it can be stated that Napoleon Hill, like Abraham Lincoln, owed whatever greatness he would achieve to his stepmother's loving care and influence.

At the age of 13 Napoleon took his first paying job after school, as a laborer in the coalmines. Coal mining was a dirty, hard job; and Napoleon, at one dollar-a-day wages, quickly decided that coal mining was not a future that he desired.

By the age of 15 Napoleon became a news reporter in the mountains of Wise County and saw that job as an excellent choice to replace coal mining or farming.

Napoleon attended Gladeville High School, a two-year high school at the time, and finished at the age of 17. He then left Wise County to attend business school in Tazewell, Virginia.

Upon graduation from business school, Napoleon went to work for Rufus Ayres, a prominent attorney who had been the attorney general of Virginia and in 1901 was one of the wealthiest men in Wise County. Ayres was involved in coal mining, the lumber business and banking. He built a mansion in Big Stone Gap that today houses the Southwest Museum. Working for General Ayres, Napoleon fit quickly into the business world. In less than six months he was promoted to chief clerk of a coalmine in Richlands, Virginia.

Rufus Ayres had encouraged Napoleon to study law, a subject of great appeal for him. Napoleon, along with his brother, Vivian, attended Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C. and, while attending school, went to work for Robert L. Taylor, a former governor who published Bob Taylor's Magazine.

While working for Bob Taylor, Napoleon agreed to interview successful business people. At the age of 25 he found himself at the mansion of Andrew Carnegie, and it was that interview that defined the balance of Napoleon's life.

Andrew Carnegie challenged young Napoleon to develop a philosophy of success by interviewing successful people and learning from them. He inspired Napoleon to write the philosophy down for others to follow.

During Napoleon's study of success that lasted over 20 years, he interviewed most of the highly successful individuals in the United States — in both business and government. He later became an advisor to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

In 1937 Napoleon wrote Think and Grow Rich that has sold in excess of 25 million copies. Napoleon had other successful books, all of which have purportedly helped to create millionaires. His philosophy is still followed today by many of the world's most successful people — and his influence is felt over the entire world. In 1962 the Napoleon Hill Foundation was established as a non-profit charitable educational institution dedicated to making the world a better place in which to live! Napoleon died in November 1970.

NAPOLEON HILL

From The Napoleon Hill Foundation

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time. Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He successfully became the presidential advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933-36. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”, is one of Hill's hallmark expressions. How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach for the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

Life and Works

According to his official biographer, Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in an impoverished, one-room cabin in the Appalachian town of Pound in Southwest Virginia. Hill's mother died when he was nine years old and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 15, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County and he later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon had to withdraw for financial reasons.

The turning point in the writing career of Napoleon Hill is considered to have occurred in 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous men, to interview billionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who at the time was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be elaborated in a simple formula that could be duplicated by the average person. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie commissioned him (without pay and only offering to provide him with letters of reference) to interview over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F. W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Allen Ward, and Jennings Randolph. The project lasted over twenty years, during which Hill became an advisor to Carnegie. Mr. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The Philosophy of Achievement

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1928 as a study course called, The Law of Success. The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement" and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements. For without these foundations to build upon, as Hill demonstrated throughout his writings, successful personal achievements are not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others, and thought Achievement was superior and responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions, fear and selfishness among others, had no part to play in his philosophy, and Hill considered them to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but was never explicitly identified. Hill felt discovering it for themselves would provide readers with the most benefit. He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" For according to him, 98% of people had no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.

Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, proving that the secret of Achievement is still highly sought-after by modern Americans. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every American.

Some of today's philosophies of success teachers are also using the research formulas taught by Hill to expand upon our world's knowledge of personal development. Douglas Vermeeren, for example, has interviewed more than 400 of the world's top achievers following the pattern used by Hill. Vermeeren has, however, expanded upon Hill's initial efforts by including professions and circumstances that were not available in Hill's day. For example, Vermeeren's research includes celebrities, athletes, internet entrepreneurs, network marketing giants, and so forth. "This research is very important," commented Vermeeren, "for it is by observing these categories that did not exist in Napoleon Hill's day that we can truly see how important, accurate, and applicable Hill's work was." Based on such research, it is clear that Hill's work applies in all generations and is indeed timeless.

Book Writings and Works Chronology