If Books Could Kill - Think And Grow Rich

00:00:00.000 yeah what do you what do you got what do you know about this do you know anything nothing i didn't

00:00:03.420 even know it was one of those like old-timey self-help books until you told me the one thing

00:00:07.040 to know uh is this is like fundamentally it's the secret he'll be like andrew carnegie knew

00:00:13.180 the secret i already know where this is going wait uh did you check did i tell you that no i'm just

00:00:17.560 like trying to think of old-timey celebrities that he's gonna use this whole book is premised on the

00:00:22.020 idea that he had a conversation with andrew carnegie that he learned from i literally did

00:00:25.660 not know that. Wow, we're so good at this. We're so good at this that you actually pulled out the

00:00:30.340 entire conceit of this book from thin air. Should I just do the episode, Peter, having not read the

00:00:35.360 book? I'll just improv the whole thing. I'll tell you at the end what you got right and what you

00:00:39.520 got wrong. Who starts? Michael. Peter. What do you know about think and grow rich? All I know is that

00:00:46.580 I'm nostalgic for a time in America where you had to think to grow rich.

00:00:55.660 think and grow rich by a man named napoleon hill wait really yeah oliver napoleon hill

00:01:10.600 okay this is a book from 1937 powerful name could almost say that it contains an ancient wisdom

00:01:17.900 a secret if you will this book has sold some unbelievable amount of copies i've seen estimates

00:01:25.240 that look like a hundred million copies. That sounds wrong. Yeah, that's probably not true.

00:01:29.600 But I've just heard crazy numbers. Yeah. It is the spiritual progenitor of many self-help books,

00:01:35.360 not just in substance, but in style and in the nature of Napoleon himself, which we'll get into.

00:01:42.140 This comes out one year after How to Win Friends and Influence People, which we talked about. So

00:01:48.880 this book is in the tradition of New Thought, which is a spiritual movement that was relatively

00:01:53.760 popular at the time and which you and our listeners may know from the secret. Do you

00:01:59.340 remember the gist of the secret? Can you tell me the gist of the secret? It was just all this

00:02:02.800 manifestation stuff. It's like, if you imagine yourself having a million dollars, the universe

00:02:08.020 will give it to you. But it was almost like she thought it was like a metaphysical rule,

00:02:12.880 almost like a godlike power that you could like cure cancer with it. It's a material reality,

00:02:18.180 Right. It's not just like the power of positive thinking is that you're confident and then confidence gets you stuff.

00:02:25.740 It's like if you want truly want something, the vibrations in your brain will match the vibrations of the universe.

00:02:32.920 She's basically saying there's the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, gravity, electromagnetism and the secret.

00:02:39.940 Those are the forces in the universe.

00:02:41.640 So I'm going to send you a bit from Think and Grow Rich.

00:02:44.700 The ether is a great cosmic mass of eternal forces of vibration. It is made up of both destructive vibrations and constructive vibrations. It carries, at all times, vibrations of fear, poverty, disease, failure, misery, and vibrations of prosperity, health, success, and happiness, just as surely as it carries the sound of hundreds of orchestrations of music and hundreds of human voices,

00:03:09.760 all of which maintain their own individuality and means of identification through the medium of radio.

00:03:18.440 The sentence actually started out pretty good, like simple concept.

00:03:21.700 Yeah.

00:03:21.980 And then he just added this like hundreds of human voices thing on there for no reason.

00:03:26.000 It's radio, by the way.

00:03:27.320 It's radio waves.

00:03:28.740 That's very funny to add that there because this is the 1930s and like that's the most technology he can think of.

00:03:35.380 He continues,

00:03:35.900 From the great storehouse of the ether, the human mind is constantly attracting vibrations

00:03:40.840 which harmonize with that which dominates the human mind.

00:03:44.900 Any thought, idea, plan, or purpose which one holds in one's mind

00:03:49.120 attracts from the vibrations of the ether a host of its relatives.

00:03:54.300 You can see that this is not the best written book in the world.

00:03:57.800 Also, this was written with the help of his then wife, one of several.

00:04:02.860 And it's sort of understood that he is a very clunky writer and she helped him.

00:04:09.860 And even then, it's rough.

00:04:11.420 That's like the chat GPT of the era. 0.91

00:04:13.300 You see an M dash and you're like, oh, it's wife. 0.62

00:04:15.600 Wife did it, huh?

00:04:17.140 So the metaphysical sort of argument here, the pitch, is that all of these frequencies are running through the universe.

00:04:24.420 And if you align your mind with the frequencies, the universe will deliver whatever that frequency entails.

00:04:33.560 Whatever thought, idea, plan, or purpose.

00:04:35.800 Yeah.

00:04:36.200 Those are all scoops, Peter.

00:04:37.480 Plan scoop.

00:04:38.340 So here is an explanation of the Great Depression, which of course has just passed.

00:04:44.520 And this is not the last time that we will hear Napoleon try to diagnose the Great Depression using his knowledge of the human mind.

00:04:53.300 I love how all these guys need, like, here's my little self-help rule that also explains, like, all historical events.

00:04:59.060 I mean, well, it has to, right?

00:05:00.500 Because he's sort of explaining this great universal truth.

00:05:04.140 Right.

00:05:04.440 And, you know, he sort of seems to believe that everything that happens to a person happens because of which frequencies they are aligned with.

00:05:13.880 And so it has to explain everything.

00:05:16.120 Abraham Lincoln was imagining himself getting shot.

00:05:18.640 And then the universe gave it to him. 0.56

00:05:19.920 For a while, he was cooking with slave-freeing vibes.

00:05:23.840 And then he got self-killing vibes.

00:05:26.080 He says, here take notice of a very significant truth.

00:05:29.520 To wit, the business depression started in 1929 and continued on to an all-time record

00:05:35.100 of destruction until sometime after President Roosevelt entered office.

00:05:39.300 Then the depression began to fade into nothingness.

00:05:42.400 Just as an electrician in a theater raises the light so gradually that darkness is transmuted

00:05:47.200 into light before you realize it, so did the spell of fear in the minds of the people gradually fade

00:05:52.860 away and become faith. It's funny, it'd be like a new president took over and then the conditions

00:05:59.060 changed, but it wasn't that. It was the vibrations. Right. It was the vibration. Oh my God, Peter,

00:06:04.340 he's talking about a vibe shift. Oh, that's right. He's just using the longer version of vibe.

00:06:09.140 The fact that this is written a couple of years after the depression is very important to like

00:06:13.780 why this book exists and i think why it was popular he should have been talking about grit

00:06:18.520 the lack of grit caused the great depression this also would have been a sick time to drop

00:06:22.320 the game yeah imagine how much you would have cleaned up with some basic card tricks although

00:06:27.260 back then everyone was wearing a top hat so that wouldn't give you much competitive advantage

00:06:30.720 you need to do more magic tricks but also almost no one had runes yeah that's true

00:06:35.740 so i read what's called the original edition of this book uh but the version i read has an

00:06:41.200 introduction written in 2009 by an author, Tom Butler Bowden. He seems to be known for writing

00:06:48.680 books about books. He has like a book about the 50 greatest self-help books, stuff like that,

00:06:54.480 right? Whatever. But he gives sort of an overview of Napoleon's life. And I'm going to send you it

00:07:01.560 in a couple of chunks here. America in 1908 was an exciting place. Henry Ford had ushered in the

00:07:06.900 automobile age with the production of the first Model Ts. The Wright brothers were doing the same 0.80

00:07:11.180 for flight when they kept a craft in the air for two hours, and the motion picture industry was

00:07:15.900 just getting started. In the autumn of that year, young reporter Napoleon Hill was asked by a

00:07:20.840 magazine to write a series on major business figures with his first subject, the great steel

00:07:25.260 magnate Andrew Carnegie. Now the richest person in America after the sale of his massive interests,

00:07:30.500 the Wiley Scott had grown excited as he expounded on the idea that there should be a concrete

00:07:34.780 philosophy of success for the average person, drawn from the experience of great achievers.

00:07:40.400 When Carnegie suddenly challenged him to spend the next 20 years formulating this philosophy,

00:07:45.300 Hill was taken aback. 0.68

00:07:46.980 It's reassuring to know that Andrew Carnegie was the right kind of white person.

00:07:50.220 He's one of the Scots.

00:07:51.300 This guy gives a summary of Hill's career.

00:07:53.660 He was a young journalist, quote, then followed business college, the management of a mine

00:07:58.020 employing 350 men, a brief period in law school, and after proving to be an effective

00:08:03.480 salesman, an appointment as a partner in a lumber company.

00:08:07.120 An impressive resume indeed for someone raised in the cultural and material poverty of rural Virginia.

00:08:13.020 Wait, he owned a mine?

00:08:14.440 Well, this is the actual reason that the depression happened, is you could just pop into any industry and be like, I'll take a swing at this, put me in charge of these men.

00:08:22.840 I want you to remember some of the details.

00:08:25.480 Business college, mine employing 350 men, brief period in law school, partner in a lumber company.

00:08:32.660 That's his impressive resume.

00:08:34.140 Just put those into your mind.

00:08:35.760 This is not foreshadowing. The fact that you're emphasizing this, this will not come back. You just want to make sure that I'm understanding what we're talking about right now.

00:08:41.980 So Hill goes back into journalism. And in 1928, he publishes a book called Law of Success, which was ostensibly the result of his research into success, which Carnegie told him to do. Right. His whole story is Andrew Carnegie told me in 1908 to study why successful men are successful.

00:09:03.920 the intro says the proceeds in addition to his lecturing fees enabled hill to acquire a large

00:09:09.720 estate in the catskill mountains hill had in mind to create the first success university on the site

00:09:15.400 but also have it as a family home his earnest pursuit of riches and recognition had meant time

00:09:20.820 away from his wife florence and their three sons who had remained in virginia waiting on infrequent

00:09:25.860 visits and erratic checks as the family enjoyed their new surrounds it seemed to vindicate all

00:09:31.060 the years of uncertainty. Peter, we need to make like a bingo board for these episodes because we

00:09:37.980 already have like a seminar grifter. We have some like dubious biographical details. I feel like

00:09:43.560 all of this stuff is like classic Ibaka material. He then writes what will eventually become Think

00:09:48.680 and Grow Rich, which from what I can gather, I didn't read Laws of Success, but I browsed it.

00:09:54.260 It's mostly a repackaging of the first book. Right. His publisher apparently wanted to call

00:09:59.200 this book, Use Your Noodle to Win More Boodle. Dude, that's so much better. Think and Grow Rich

00:10:07.680 is a quick bestseller that makes Hill actually rich. This is what the intro says about that.

00:10:13.800 Of course, there's quite an irony to the fact that Hill had not been rich when he wrote Think

00:10:17.820 and Grow Rich, far from it, which may on the surface undermine his apparent authority to

00:10:22.160 write such advice. Yet Hill might have answered that this was exactly the point. Here was a

00:10:26.960 success philosophy that worked as long as it was faithfully practiced and which inevitably

00:10:31.320 would pay off handsomely oh and so it's like he was a grifter yeah but the fact that he sort of

00:10:38.140 like grifted his way into success confirms that the theory is true this is like giving him way

00:10:43.560 too much credit he basically wrote a scam book when he wasn't rich it's very funny to spot this

00:10:48.440 glaring contradiction in the grift which we've talked about so many times right that like a lot

00:10:53.720 of these people selling you their get rich schemes were never rich until they sold it to you right

00:10:58.800 you are the get rich quick scheme and then this dude just glides past it he's like well maybe

00:11:02.900 well you know that's just the way the crazy this crazy world works it's like this is literally a

00:11:08.420 broke guy writing an instruction manual on getting rich because it made him rich eventually does not

00:11:13.480 mean it's any less of a sham so now let's talk about the book itself and uh hill's intro to the

00:11:19.540 book. He pitches it as him telling you a money making secret that he learned. And here is him

00:11:28.540 giving you the story of Andrew Carnegie's wisdom. Oh, my God. He literally says the secret. He

00:11:34.080 literally says the secret, dude. He says the secret was brought to my attention by Andrew

00:11:37.740 Carnegie more than a quarter of a century ago. The canny, lovable old Scotsman carelessly tossed

00:11:43.120 it into my mind when I was but a boy. Then he sat back in his chair with a merry twinkle in his eyes

00:11:48.200 and watched carefully to see if I had brains enough to understand the full significance

00:11:52.360 of what he had said to me. When he saw that I had grasped the idea, he asked if I would be willing

00:11:57.140 to spend 20 years or more preparing myself to take it to the world, to men and women who,

00:12:02.600 without the secret, might go through life as failures. I said I would. And with Mr. Carnegie's

00:12:07.940 cooperation, I have kept my promise. The secret to which I refer has been mentioned no fewer than

00:12:13.340 a hundred times throughout this book. It has not been directly named for it seems to work more

00:12:18.320 successfully when it is merely uncovered and left in sight where those who are ready and searching

00:12:23.700 for it may pick it up. That is why Mr. Carnegie tossed it to me so quietly without giving me

00:12:29.380 its specific name. God, he's wordy. Especially in the beginning of the book, he presents the

00:12:34.860 secret to making money as if it's something hidden in the book. Yeah. He's like, I'm not

00:12:38.660 going to name it. Yeah. Right. He's like, I'm not going to tell you, but if you read closely,

00:12:42.720 He will see it, right?

00:12:44.500 He says this a lot in the opening chapters, but then he basically does tell you the secret.

00:12:49.120 And surely the secret is just believe in yourself, right?

00:12:51.420 The secret is the vibration thing.

00:12:53.080 That's all it is.

00:12:53.960 It's not more complicated than that, although he elaborates on it to a degree that is jolting and upsetting.

00:13:02.220 I'm going to send you this little bit.

00:13:03.720 The secret was extensively used by President Woodrow Wilson during the World War.

00:13:08.100 It was passed on to every soldier who fought in the war, carefully wrapped in the training

00:13:12.520 received before going to the front.

00:13:14.320 President Wilson told me it was a strong factor in raising the funds needed for the war.

00:13:18.400 I like the idea that this is like a much hidden secret, but also every World War I soldier

00:13:24.140 knew it.

00:13:24.700 Oh, that's what happened at Dunkirk.

00:13:25.940 They didn't know the secret.

00:13:27.320 Well, the other side knows the secret too sometimes.

00:13:30.000 And then it's just secret fights.

00:13:31.960 So this caught my attention because he's claiming he spoke with Woodrow Wilson, right?

00:13:36.920 Right.

00:13:37.100 And he claims he met Carnegie, who then introduced him to Wilson, as well as others like Henry Ford.

00:13:44.200 I'm like, okay, okay, hold up, right?

00:13:46.380 I need to look into this guy.

00:13:48.340 I find out there's an official biography published in 1995, some 25 years after Napoleon Hill died.

00:13:56.760 It is official in the sense that it is published by the Napoleon Hill Foundation.

00:14:00.740 I start skimming that.

00:14:02.140 Not only does it say that Hill advised Woodrow Wilson, it says he advised FDR.

00:14:07.100 It says, in 1933, the Roosevelt administration reached out to Napoleon Hill and Hill advised him on everything from labor policy to his fireside chats.

00:14:18.080 So Napoleon Hill ended the Great Depression is what we're getting at.

00:14:20.480 Yeah, I think so.

00:14:20.680 But he's too humble to tell us.

00:14:22.060 But I thought that was interesting because this book was published in 1937 and Hill doesn't mention that at all.

00:14:27.700 Right.

00:14:28.320 So in 1933, when the Roosevelt administration ostensibly reached out, Hill is a medium successful self-help guy.

00:14:36.500 Why are they looking for his advice exactly?

00:14:38.960 FDR is not attending a lot of seminars at this phase of his life.

00:14:42.140 In his official biography, it says that sometimes among friends, Hill took credit for coining

00:14:47.740 the phrase, there's nothing to fear but fear itself.

00:14:50.160 That's like how I keep telling people that I coined the phrase eyebrows on fleek, something

00:14:54.760 we all still say.

00:14:56.460 He claims to have met Edison.

00:14:57.960 He claims to have collaborated with Alexander Graham Bell.

00:15:01.020 He claims he was present in the room when Woodrow Wilson received the message of the

00:15:05.860 german surrender in world war one and then he advised wilson on his reply you can tell he got

00:15:11.620 like a little taste of lying and then just started doing it like way too much well here's the thing

00:15:17.480 in this point in history before like 1980 lying was just goaded like yeah you could be like yeah

00:15:26.160 i advised fdr and people were like well it doesn't sound right but i don't there's literally no way

00:15:30.340 to disprove it being a high society grifter was like easier because there's fewer i feel like

00:15:34.780 People would not have had their, like, antenna up for that in the same way that we do now. 0.58

00:15:37.760 So at this point, I'm like, OK, I'm Googling Napoleon Hill fraud and shit like that, right?

00:15:44.520 And up pops this Gizmodo piece from 2016 by Matt Novak titled The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, The Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time. 0.93

00:15:54.680 Hell yes. 0.99

00:15:55.180 Now we're fucking cooking. 0.99

00:15:56.060 I'm like, all right. 0.98

00:15:56.620 What Novak found was that there is no record of Napoleon Hill even meeting Woodrow Wilson or FDR.

00:16:03.920 In fact, there is no record of him meeting Andrew Carnegie, which is the entire foundation

00:16:09.200 of the book.

00:16:10.340 The claim is that he met Carnegie in 1908, but he only started making that claim in the

00:16:14.600 1920s after Carnegie died.

00:16:18.100 Novak reached out to a Carnegie biographer who said he found no evidence that they ever

00:16:23.020 met.

00:16:24.160 Novak also found a magazine piece published in 1921 about the World War I armistice where

00:16:29.960 Hill did not mention being in the room with Woodrow Wilson.

00:16:32.920 Only started making that claim many years later.

00:16:35.900 And that claim is not even in this book, right?

00:16:37.720 That claim is something that pops up after.

00:16:40.440 Novak did a bunch of research to piece together an outline of Hill's actual life.

00:16:46.000 And it is one scam after another.

00:16:48.760 Hell yes.

00:16:49.320 So we're going to take a pretty significant detour.

00:16:52.880 And the first half of this episode is just going to be about this guy's life.

00:16:56.760 Cool.

00:16:57.300 Because I can't read his success tips to you in good faith without first telling you

00:17:02.000 about how he operated in the real world maybe that was his success tip he should have written

00:17:06.560 the book about how to scam your way into high society that's the thing is if he if you look

00:17:11.460 at this if he was just like here's how you run a scam yeah it would have been great whereas

00:17:15.240 making you the victim of the scam is what he actually did yeah it's a shame because there

00:17:18.920 was an opportunity here um so most of what i'm going to tell you is from the gizmodo piece

00:17:22.660 although uh god help me i did in fact read much of his official biography okay cool cool cool

00:17:28.180 So this guy is born Oliver Napoleon Hill in Virginia to a relatively poor family.

00:17:35.960 And he picks up writing when he's a teenager and starts working for a small newsletter that would occasionally get picked up by local papers.

00:17:43.240 His biographers, who are very sympathetic to him, said that he recalled making up stories when there wasn't anything good to report.

00:17:49.760 Right. So bullshitting from an early age here.

00:17:54.540 I'm going to send you a bit from Novak. 0.66

00:17:57.060 It says,

00:18:27.060 he had not fathered the child. The marriage was annulled, though it's unclear why this young

00:18:31.860 girl would claim that the 15-year-old Napoleon was the father if this wasn't the case. But it

00:18:36.360 wouldn't be the last time that the official record of Hill's life would erase one of his alleged

00:18:39.960 children. So Hill graduates high school, he attends a business school, and then he goes to

00:18:45.400 work for a fairly prominent coal man named Rufus Ayers. In 1903, he gets married again, this time

00:18:52.860 to a woman named edith whitman they have a baby girl they move to alabama for a bit until he sends

00:18:59.360 his wife and child back to virginia to live with her father it turns out that while married to her

00:19:05.300 napoleon liked to dabble with uh ladies of the night and we know this because edith would

00:19:10.980 eventually file for divorce and be granted one oh wow back then in 1908 you needed like an oil

00:19:17.020 painting of your husband cheating on you to get to get a divorce granted she said that he was a

00:19:22.140 man of violent and ungovernable temper. There were like serious allegations of abuse and there

00:19:27.440 were serious allegations of cheating. The whole concept of sending your wife and child away

00:19:33.380 is also fascinating. That's sort of divorce number one. And I thought it was divorce number two.

00:19:38.840 Sorry. Sorry. The 15 year old. You know what? You're right. That's divorce number two. Okay.

00:19:44.800 Then we get what can only be described as some lumber fraud. Nice. This is again from the Novak

00:19:52.020 piece. Throughout 1908, Hill had taken between $10,000 and $20,000 worth of lumber on credit

00:19:57.120 from various suppliers as far away as Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He had been

00:20:01.580 selling off the lumber as quickly as he could in Alabama, accepting only cash and virtually any

00:20:06.320 amount that he was offered. This, of course, raised plenty of suspicions from the buyers,

00:20:10.260 not to mention the lumber sellers in Alabama who were being undercut at obscenely low prices.

00:20:15.120 By the second half of 1908, word quickly spread that Hill was committing fraud,

00:20:18.760 and every businessman in the lumber community was looking for him.

00:20:22.100 In September of 1908, Hill went on the run from his office in Mobile, Alabama.

00:20:27.420 So wait, so was he stealing his lumber and selling it?

00:20:29.360 He was buying the lumber on credit, selling the lumber for cash,

00:20:34.220 and then stiffing the folks who gave him the lumber.

00:20:37.160 Dude, I love how this is like life hack. 1.00

00:20:38.940 Be a lifelong piece of shit. 1.00

00:20:40.840 This is how you get rich. 1.00

00:20:41.840 So warrants are issued for his arrest.

00:20:43.920 Lawsuits are filed.

00:20:45.100 Yeah.

00:20:45.400 He's investigated for mail fraud.

00:20:47.440 Somehow in some way, he's either never caught or never gets into any significant trouble for this.

00:20:52.540 This is also back when you could just like basically leave the state.

00:20:54.640 He shows up in Washington, D.C. and is now going by his middle name, Napoleon.

00:20:59.800 Nice.

00:21:00.340 Pretty quickly takes out ads offering training in automobile assembly.

00:21:05.080 Nice.

00:21:05.860 He starts the Automobile Company of Washington.

00:21:09.420 Here is Novak again.

00:21:12.780 Hill's college was actually a way to get free labor for building cars.

00:21:16.960 Students were paying for the pleasure of producing Washington brand cars for the Carter Motor

00:21:21.180 Corporation in 1910 and 1911.

00:21:23.880 The Carter company had struck a deal with Hill's, quote, school and got free labor from,

00:21:28.280 quote, students who were toiling away constructing vehicles in a Washington warehouse.

00:21:33.240 Oh, God, it's internships.

00:21:34.760 Basically.

00:21:35.280 You're working for exposure.

00:21:36.600 His business partners here all break the partnerships with him in pretty short order,

00:21:41.860 making various allegations of misconduct, including that he stole a car.

00:21:45.520 The company goes into bankruptcy. He pivots the business model to teaching people sales rather than automobile assembly. Once again, the students were doing actual labor for him by selling cars. Right. And they received three dollars for each person they signed up to be students. Oh, it was an MLM. Very early multi-level marketing, which, by the way, doesn't even really exist for another like 20 years in its modern form. Yeah.

00:22:12.980 During all of this, he has remarried to a woman named Florence and had a couple of kids, including one who was born deaf and I believe without physical ears, who he refuses to allow to learn sign language because he wants him to be able to communicate like everyone else.

00:22:30.700 He wants him to learn.

00:22:31.740 He's a tiger dad.

00:22:33.120 He writes about this at length in Think and Grow Rich. 0.98

00:22:36.300 No way.

00:22:36.600 chapter about it and he frames it as like part of his secret to success right by denying the kid

00:22:42.340 other tools of communication he forced him to become more capable at speaking and even hearing

00:22:47.640 right here's here's more from hill the little deaf boy went through the grades high school and

00:22:53.500 college without being able to hear his teachers accepting when they shouted loudly at close range

00:22:57.880 he did not go to a school for the deaf we would not permit him to learn the sign language we were

00:23:02.400 determined that he should live a normal life and associate with normal children and we stood

00:23:06.580 by that decision, although it cost us many heated debates with school officials. God, that poor kid.

00:23:12.760 Jesus Christ. Here's more. During his last week in college, something happened which marked the

00:23:16.580 most important turning point of his life. Through what seemed to be mere chance, he came into

00:23:20.680 possession of another electrical hearing device, which was sent to him on trial. He was slow about

00:23:25.700 testing it due to his disappointment with a similar device. Finally, he picked the instrument up and

00:23:30.280 more or less carelessly placed it on his head, hooked up the battery, and lo, as if by a stroke

00:23:35.060 of magic, his lifelong desire for normal hearing became a reality. We had refused to accept nature's

00:23:40.540 error. And by persistent desire, we had induced nature to correct that error through the only

00:23:46.300 practical means available. But nature didn't fix the errors like a technology thing. Dude,

00:23:50.760 he's just giving himself credit for the literal advancement of science. Yeah, for like the

00:23:55.180 invention of hearing aids. I imagine that doctors are somewhat familiar with this, right? You like

00:23:59.740 cure a patient and then people are like, our prayers, our prayers were answered. And you're

00:24:03.500 I'm like, come on.

00:24:04.040 Like I had syphilis and I manifested penicillin into existence.

00:24:07.760 It's like, no, there's a technology that solved this issue.

00:24:09.960 Eventually, Napoleon heads to Chicago, at one point pretending to be an attorney.

00:24:15.300 We don't know exactly what happened, but we do know that he got letterhead describing

00:24:20.020 himself as Napoleon Hill attorney at law.

00:24:22.640 Hell yeah.

00:24:23.060 God knows what he was up to.

00:24:24.080 If you recall, the intro by that other dude said that Hill briefly went to law school,

00:24:29.620 which for the record does not actually appear to be true.

00:24:32.140 Right. What was true was that he was posing as an attorney. The guy in 2009, it's so weird to

00:24:37.940 just write all this stuff down and not be like, did he really meet all these people? It's so weird.

00:24:43.000 I mean, this is a man who just writes books about books. That's like one tier below people

00:24:47.920 who make podcasts about books. To be below us. Gross. Then Hill founds the George Washington

00:24:54.100 Institute, which was an unaccredited school that taught the principles of success. This little

00:25:00.920 institute gets into all kinds of minor trouble the big thing is that he runs a stock scam where

00:25:06.480 he sold stock in the school to his students based on a fraudulent valuation that seems to have

00:25:13.040 resulted in an investigation and warrants being put out for his arrest damn he also sets up a

00:25:20.740 dummy corporation called the first national trust association and then he mailed students

00:25:26.820 offers to lend the money for their tuition oh good scam okay kind of unclear how this played 0.53

00:25:33.860 out legally but he again seems to have gotten away with it to some degree because the very next year

00:25:39.020 he joins up with a couple who is looking for investors in their oil concern and he runs 0.97

00:25:45.260 fraudulent ads for them and gets charged by the FTC how bad you have to fuck up for the FTC to 0.61

00:25:50.140 go after you at this time the FTC was like two people it's it's unreal yeah all right we are 0.87

00:25:55.200 now in the early 1920s, right? I'm going to send you a little bit. Hill partnered with Chaplain

00:25:59.320 T.O. Teed to start the Intra-Wall Correspondence School in 1922. The charity would provide

00:26:05.380 educational materials for prisoners in Ohio so they could lead productive lives once they left

00:26:10.420 prison. Unsurprisingly, the charity's main focus was the sale of subscriptions for Hill's magazine

00:26:15.200 and newly developed prison correspondence courses. In 1923, there's a newspaper article published

00:26:22.100 about all of his unpaid debts and other dealings.

00:26:24.960 It includes the fact that Hill has allegedly pocketed

00:26:28.500 much or perhaps all of the charity money.

00:26:32.780 So here's a little more from Novak.

00:26:34.920 Hill's schemes of the early 20s

00:26:36.340 were as brazen as they were despicable.

00:26:38.460 He'd hop from town to town, often targeting churches,

00:26:41.340 promising that every penny he collected

00:26:42.860 was going to help men in prison start a new life.

00:26:45.640 But every penny was making its way to Hill

00:26:47.380 and his associates' pockets by one way or another.

00:26:50.020 People found out that he's scamming them again because the various places that he claimed he was sending the money never actually received it.

00:26:58.400 Napoleon Hill walked so Sean King could run.

00:27:01.660 Sean King wishes he had moves like this, dude.

00:27:04.560 He's on the run again, and he ends up moving around the Midwest.

00:27:09.680 He's lecturing in the region, including at least once to a meeting of the Klan.

00:27:14.240 At one point, he goes into hiding for a couple of years, though it's not entirely clear why.

00:27:18.540 He pops up again in 1928 or so in Philadelphia, trying to pitch his new book, which would become

00:27:26.440 the law of success. Here is Novak again. Hill was completely broke in Philadelphia and had to

00:27:33.000 appear to his potential publisher as a man of success and grace. So he borrowed money from

00:27:37.320 his brother-in-law, rented an enormous suite in a swanky Philadelphia hotel, and played the role

00:27:41.940 of the successful businessman for Pelton. Hill's biographers tell of Napoleon flashing a large

00:27:46.720 wad of money around the hotel lobby lavishly tipping every bellboy and clerk he saw in

00:27:51.520 anticipation of Pelton's arrival. So this obviously works. He publishes his book and it's a bit of a

00:27:56.720 hit by his standards. He's making legitimate money for the first time in a while. He's buying fancy

00:28:02.480 cars and houses. He buys a big estate in the Catskills, as the intro told us. And as the intro

00:28:07.620 told us, he's going to turn it into a success academy. But then, of course, the stock market

00:28:12.340 crashes, the depression hits, and it wipes him out. Also, there's something so perfect and telling

00:28:17.420 about this trajectory. This guy who just like has no morals whatsoever, right? Just complete

00:28:22.060 inveterate scammer. At first, he's doing actual stuff, right? He's like selling lumber. He's

00:28:27.340 trying to build cars. But then eventually he finds out that just lecturing, like lying to people

00:28:32.200 without the actual stuff is much more profitable. So he goes into self-help. I feel like that says

00:28:37.140 something about the self-help like genre is that like this is a guy that just wants to scam you

00:28:43.100 and eventually he figures out this is the easiest way the more abstract you get yeah the easier the

00:28:48.860 fraud becomes because when yeah when you are like stiffing your creditors that's going to come back

00:28:54.640 to bite you there's like this clear disconnect but when you're just like yeah i'm going to teach

00:28:58.480 you how to succeed that won't come to come back to bite you in the same way because there's always

00:29:02.880 like some plausible deniability. Like it's your fault. Right, right. Novak says at this point in

00:29:08.680 the piece, if it hasn't become clear already, Napoleon has more or less abandoned his wife

00:29:13.160 Florence and their three sons by the late 1920s. I was going to ask about this. Yeah, he probably

00:29:17.360 left them wherever he was. They were all living with Florence's mother, only seeing Napoleon when

00:29:21.900 he'd peek his head in for short bursts, usually to get money. Nice. By 1935, she files for divorce.

00:29:29.080 he remarries this time a 29 year old he is 53 he moves in with the only son who will still talk to

00:29:37.580 him blair nice uh loans a few hundred bucks from him and starts writing think and grow rich and

00:29:43.880 here we are we have arrived at the book you have just heard his life story to this point and now

00:29:48.860 it is time to learn about his principles of success it's also funny because the actual secret

00:29:53.880 is just like lying and shamelessness like he kind of does have a secret to success

00:29:58.500 Dude, but what if that's what he means when he says it's like hidden in the book? 1.00

00:30:02.240 Oh, shit. 0.99

00:30:03.020 Right. 1.00

00:30:03.180 What if the real secret is hidden and it's like, you lie.

00:30:06.220 Yeah, just lie. 1.00

00:30:06.880 Just bullshit. 1.00

00:30:07.780 Yeah, it's a meta text. 1.00

00:30:09.300 Oh, man.

00:30:09.560 It's like Lolita.

00:30:10.260 Between the lines, it's actually a really good story.

00:30:12.680 Is that why you're always reading it?

00:30:16.140 The joke doesn't even make sense, Peter, because I'm gay. 0.95

00:30:18.360 It doesn't make sense.

00:30:18.860 I know.

00:30:19.140 I know.

00:30:20.780 Lolito, as you call it.

00:30:22.200 So he starts off the book with a bunch of anecdotes about people who

00:30:25.520 found success through sheer force of will. Here is one about Henry Ford.

00:30:32.160 We're in the Oprah knew the secret section of the book.

00:30:35.200 Dude, there's a lot of it.

00:30:36.240 He says, a few years back, Henry Ford decided to produce his now famous V8 motor.

00:30:41.320 He chose to build an engine with an entire eight cylinders cast in one block and instructed his

00:30:45.800 engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers

00:30:49.840 agreed to a man that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder gas engine block in one

00:30:54.880 piece. Ford said, produce it anyway. But, they replied, it's impossible. Go ahead, Ford commanded,

00:31:00.840 and stay on the job until you succeed no matter how much time is required. Six months went by,

00:31:05.500 nothing happened. Another six months passed, and still nothing happened. At the end of the year,

00:31:10.000 Ford checked his engineers, and again they informed him they found no way to carry out his

00:31:13.920 orders. Go right ahead, said Ford. I'll want it and I'll have it. They went ahead. And then as if

00:31:19.980 by a stroke of magic, the secret was discovered. The Ford determination had won once more.

00:31:25.740 Peter, I recognize this anecdote. Yeah. Was it, what was that one? What was the money one?

00:31:30.000 Jen Sincero. So this is straight from you are a badass, which means that you are a badass.

00:31:34.980 Actually, I assume just plucked this. Also, as usual, it's not actually an example of the secret

00:31:40.420 at all. It's just an example of like being mean to your staff, which is exactly what we said on

00:31:44.640 the You Are a Badass episode. Exactly what we said is just like, what is he manifesting here?

00:31:48.660 He's just yelling at people to do it. The actual question is, how did the engineers do it?

00:31:53.280 Yeah, I manifested a glass of ice water by like shouting it at the waiter across the restaurant.

00:31:57.840 So he says that if you have a definite desire or a burning desire, you can manifest the wealth.

00:32:03.180 He says the method by which desire for riches can be transmuted into its financial equivalent

00:32:09.720 consists of six definite, practical steps.

00:32:14.340 Here we go, baby.

00:32:15.060 If you've been zoning out, listener, focus up.

00:32:17.340 Yeah, lock in. 0.99

00:32:17.940 We're about to drop some fucking knowledge on you. 0.99

00:32:20.080 First, fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. 0.99

00:32:23.700 It is not sufficient merely to say, I want plenty of money.

00:32:26.780 Be definite as to the amount.

00:32:28.720 Second, determine exactly what you intend to give

00:32:31.440 in return for the money you desire.

00:32:33.180 There is no such reality as something for nothing.

00:32:36.800 Third, establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

00:32:41.040 Fourth, create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once whether

00:32:45.920 you are ready or not to put this plan into action.

00:32:48.820 Fifth, write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire,

00:32:53.000 name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the

00:32:56.700 money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

00:33:00.180 That's just like the same as the previous four.

00:33:02.320 yeah yeah sixth read your written statement aloud twice daily once just before retiring at night

00:33:07.600 and once after arising in the morning as you read see and feel and believe yourself already in

00:33:13.500 possession of the money i can't do this in the mornings because i'm eating too much almond butter 0.61

00:33:17.600 because my wife wants to have sex with me in two days in two days yeah he goes on to say it may be

00:33:23.480 of further help to know that the six steps here recommended were carefully scrutinized by the late

00:33:29.180 thomas a edison who placed his stamp of approval upon them as being not only the steps essential

00:33:35.000 for the accumulation of money but necessary for the attainment of any definite goal you do not

00:33:40.300 need this napoleon you can just list your steps i don't need thomas edison to approve i'm going to

00:33:46.460 send you a picture click on that wait what's this this is a picture of two middle-aged men on the

00:33:50.760 left thomas edison on the right napoleon hill is that true this is a picture of napoleon hill

00:33:57.460 with thomas edison the story of this photograph is that hill went to a convention edison was at

00:34:04.180 and asked for a picture he then started circulating the photo with the caption

00:34:08.260 describing the picture as being of quote two of america's famous men

00:34:11.800 never stop hustling napoleon he basically just photobombed thomas edison and then

00:34:18.420 used it to like help boost his career um but this is the only of all like the people that he says 0.98

00:34:25.440 he's met and shit. This is like the only one where it appears like, well, they did at least 0.83

00:34:29.540 meet once. He went and photobombed Thomas Edison once. This plan is not like you don't really need

00:34:34.960 Thomas Edison's approval for this. It's like write down a plan and then implement the plan. This is

00:34:39.200 like the most basic advice for like basically anything in your life. But what's interesting

00:34:42.560 about this is and what we'll see more of in the rest of the book is that he tells you like have a

00:34:49.500 plan and it's sort of unclear whether he thinks the purpose of the plan is like to be a set of

00:34:57.860 practical steps that get you money or whether having a plan impacts your vibration like the

00:35:04.900 if you have a plan you're vibrating closer to where you need to be vibrating but then like

00:35:10.660 once you start saying that it's just sort of like you're no longer talking about vibrations you're

00:35:15.300 just talking about doing stuff to try to get money then it's just like kind of practical advice

00:35:19.440 Yeah. If to align your vibrations with the universe, you need to do the practical steps,

00:35:23.600 then what is the difference between this and just a practical guide?

00:35:27.160 You're manifesting becoming a doctor and then the actual advice is like, well, go to medical school.

00:35:31.020 You vibrated yourself into medical school, but not really. I just did the steps necessary

00:35:35.060 to achieve my plan.

00:35:36.860 So the first few chapters of the book are really just about the importance of having this burning

00:35:40.820 desire for success and how it must transcend mere hope and become something you actually believe

00:35:47.480 will happen when he uses the term faith.

00:35:51.240 That is what he's talking about.

00:35:52.540 You have to really want to be rich.

00:35:53.660 Have you tried wanting to be rich?

00:35:55.360 But after the first few chapters, we actually move away a little bit from the more mystical

00:36:00.560 angles and he starts to provide more practical advice.

00:36:04.340 Yeah.

00:36:04.560 He talks about the importance of specialized knowledge, meaning expertise.

00:36:08.240 He talks about the importance of making concrete plans.

00:36:11.040 He talks about the importance of coordinating with reliable and talented people.

00:36:14.860 Something he has never done.

00:36:15.800 It's always run through with mystical language, but it's trying to be pragmatic.

00:36:21.000 Some of the most interesting parts of this book are him trying to talk about the real

00:36:24.900 world in more realistic terms, because then you can see his actual mind at work.

00:36:32.120 And so here's him talking business a bit.

00:36:34.520 He says,

00:36:34.840 The next flock of millionaires will grow out of the radio business, which is new and not

00:36:39.500 overburdened with men of keen imagination.

00:36:41.320 crooners and light chatter artists who now pollute the air with wisecracks and silly giggles 1.00

00:36:46.260 will go the way of all light timbers wrong bitch wrong bitch 1.00

00:36:50.220 i was gonna give you shit after this paragraph but okay and their places will be taken by real 0.99

00:36:57.900 artists who interpret carefully planned programs which have been designed to service the minds of 1.00

00:37:02.720 men as well as provide entertainment whatever go listen to this american life you fucking dork 0.98

00:37:08.180 They also said this when, like, TV was invented. 0.99

00:37:10.500 It was like, this will produce mass literacy.

00:37:13.260 We'll never need schools again.

00:37:14.380 It's like, anytime there's a new technology, it's like, we're all going to become good

00:37:17.340 and smart.

00:37:18.040 Cut to me watching Below Deck on my couch.

00:37:21.220 Just brain melting.

00:37:22.940 Never let it discourage you if you have no experience in radio.

00:37:26.380 Andrew Carnegie knew very little about making steel.

00:37:28.580 I have Carnegie's own word for this.

00:37:30.400 But he made practical use of two of the principles described in this book and made the steel

00:37:34.660 business yield him a fortune. 0.98

00:37:36.600 Well, then why don't I just do fucking steel then? 0.96

00:37:38.320 He loves the idea of radio. 0.97

00:37:39.720 He's like the, you know, he thinks the whole universe is built around radio waves.

00:37:43.000 It is funny to be like, oh, it's all about like metaphysical vibrations.

00:37:46.240 And then just be like, well, find a new technology that's growing and like get into that industry.

00:37:49.900 Let's talk about scale.

00:37:50.740 I actually think these portions of the book are really interesting because Hill himself has never had a business idea besides like, you know, start a business to sell my success principles, get an investor defraud.

00:38:03.520 Right.

00:38:03.740 That's like how he operates.

00:38:04.880 So it's interesting to hear him give advice about like what industries to go into, how to succeed in all these other ways that we know he's never succeeded in.

00:38:13.560 In one chapter, he named several fields that he believes will require new leadership.

00:38:18.320 But he basically names like every field you can imagine.

00:38:22.240 He says politics, business, industry, religion, law, education, medicine, and journalism will all require new leaders who are more empathetic to the public.

00:38:32.960 Plastics.

00:38:33.280 This is a window into his mind because coming out of the Depression, like, people are obviously looking for answers, right?

00:38:39.180 Right.

00:38:39.460 And his reasoning is all very based on this idea that people in all fields sort of failed on a moral level.

00:38:47.160 And in line with that, he seems to chalk up a lot of the Depression to rude customer service.

00:38:53.820 Wait, really?

00:38:54.400 He says,

00:38:54.740 Because nearly every railroad in America is in financial difficulty.

00:38:58.620 Who does not remember the day when, if a citizen inquired at the ticket office the time of

00:39:03.080 departure of a train, he was abruptly referred to the bulletin board instead of being politely

00:39:07.760 given the information.

00:39:09.320 He says the same about streetcars and bankers, and he attributes the rebound in the economy

00:39:15.560 to these people all recognizing the value of good customer service. 1.00

00:39:20.720 Why don't you just manifest a nicer bank teller then, bitch? 0.98

00:39:24.740 He says, behind the depression was a cause. 0.99

00:39:28.320 Nothing ever happens without a cause.

00:39:30.820 In the main, the cause of the depression is traceable directly to the worldwide habit

00:39:34.600 of trying to reap without sowing.

00:39:37.580 And he means here trying to reap money without sowing like the seeds of kindness.

00:39:43.140 This is insane, but also could get published in the Atlantic today.

00:39:46.180 Completely.

00:39:47.040 100%.

00:39:47.560 Yeah.

00:39:47.960 This is also on the It Books Could Kill bingo board.

00:39:51.240 You have this grand sweeping idea that explains all of history.

00:39:54.500 and then you keep zooming in on it until it's just like a grievance that you have.

00:39:58.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:39:58.820 Remember how the population bomb guy was annoyed that he couldn't find parking in Berkeley, California?

00:40:03.400 Right. And he's like, we're all going to fucking die if I don't get it. 0.99

00:40:08.460 There's more about his diagnosis for the depression that I want to share. 0.98

00:40:12.260 Here you go.

00:40:13.300 The depression served as a mighty protest from an injured public

00:40:16.600 whose rights had been trampled upon in every direction

00:40:19.260 by those who were clamoring for individual advantages and profits.

00:40:22.380 when the debris of the depression shall have been cleared away and business shall have once again

00:40:27.460 been restored to balance both employers and employees will recognize that they are no longer

00:40:32.120 privileged to drive bargains at the expense of those whom they serve the employer and the employee

00:40:36.500 of the future will be considered as fellow employees whose business it will be to serve

00:40:41.420 the public efficiently in times past employers and employees have bartered among themselves

00:40:46.160 driving the best bargains they could with one another not considering that in the final analysis

00:40:50.500 they were, in reality, bargaining at the expense of the third party, the public they served.

00:40:55.240 The future relationship between employers and their employees will be more in the nature

00:40:59.520 of a partnership consisting of A, the employer, B, the employee, C, the public they serve.

00:41:05.440 Peter, why did you make me read this?

00:41:07.180 This is gibberish.

00:41:08.240 What he's trying to say is that part of the reason that the depression happened is bargaining

00:41:14.080 for wages.

00:41:15.140 Oh.

00:41:15.580 He says, during the depression, I spent several months in the anthracite coal region

00:41:20.360 of Pennsylvania, studying conditions which all but destroyed the coal industry.

00:41:24.820 Among several very significant discoveries was the fact that greed on the part of operators

00:41:29.380 and their employees was the chief cause of the loss of business for the operators and

00:41:34.220 loss of jobs for the miners.

00:41:37.000 So again, this guy's career is 95% fraud, but he sees people bargaining for wages and

00:41:42.820 he's like, that's greed.

00:41:44.060 This should give you some sense of his actual politics, but just to be sure, his official

00:41:48.440 biographers describe him as an anti-union arch conservative. This is like the woman who went on 0.91

00:41:53.440 the Beast Games and said greed is idolatry. She was on the Beast Games twice. Are you watching 0.96

00:41:58.420 Beast Games? No, I'm watching video essays about Beast Games, which is significantly better.

00:42:02.060 Classic Hobbs, classic Hobbs. There's no fucking way I would watch that. You'll never watch TV, 0.97

00:42:06.220 but you will watch essays. I don't care about any of these shows, but I want an unwell zoomer to

00:42:11.220 explain them to me. He does at times make it very express where he stands on the issue of capitalism.

00:42:18.440 sending you this. We often hear politicians proclaiming the freedom of America when they

00:42:22.760 solicit votes, but seldom do they take the time or devote sufficient effort to the analysis of

00:42:27.660 the source or nature of this freedom. Having no axe to grind, no grudge to express, no ulterior

00:42:32.820 motives to be carried out, I have the privilege of going into a frank analysis of that mysterious,

00:42:38.540 abstract, greatly misunderstood something which gives to every citizen of America more blessings,

00:42:43.820 more opportunities to accumulate wealth, more freedom of every nature than may be found in

00:42:49.280 any other country. Dude, send this to Thomas Chatterton Williams. We beat your sentence

00:42:54.040 record. The name of this mysterious benefactor of mankind is capital. Capital consists not alone of

00:43:00.640 money, but more particularly of highly organized, intelligent groups of men who plan ways and means

00:43:06.500 of using money efficiently for the good of the public and profitably to themselves.

00:43:10.720 We finally got to the capitalism is good section of the book.

00:43:15.000 This is not necessary for the idea.

00:43:17.240 Not at all.

00:43:17.880 But I think it's important to the book because coming out of the Depression, a lot of Americans had lost some faith in the capitalist project for obvious reasons, right?

00:43:28.620 There's contemporary polling from like Pew and Gallup showing large amounts of support for government interventions into the markets.

00:43:36.220 Right.

00:43:36.400 Free health care, social security, et cetera.

00:43:38.720 like the number of people who supported free healthcare, it was like 75%. This book exists

00:43:44.220 within the context of a debate about what our society will look like and should look like

00:43:48.540 moving forward. And he's saying very expressly, we don't have systemic issues. In fact, the system

00:43:54.060 is great. It's the best system. What we have is a collection of personal moral failures.

00:43:59.780 So you can view this not just as like a self-help book, but a policy prescription. We don't need

00:44:03.520 socialism. We just need everyone to get their shit together. Also, what's actually so interesting 0.99

00:44:08.100 about this is that you could cast him kind of as the little guy like he he grew up poor like he

00:44:14.200 could have seen himself as somebody who was like taking from the rich i mean that would have been

00:44:18.120 false yeah he was doing all these scams at a time of like rapidly increasing inequality he could

00:44:23.700 have lived exactly the life that he had with an ideology of like we need to help out the little

00:44:27.980 guy right and like rich people have too much money but somehow he manages to like glaze

00:44:33.760 capitalist like Andrew Carnegie and stuff. Like it's weird to have his life and come up with this

00:44:38.660 ideology because it's not like he made money through capital accumulation. He made money

00:44:42.720 through scamming. There's something weird about like you'll you'll never encounter a guy who like

00:44:47.680 survives through fraud but is like self-aware enough to be like the little guy needs some

00:44:53.200 help around here. Right. I feel like every fraudster is just like yeah capitalism rocks

00:44:57.040 and it's like the best system. It's amazing. One chapter gives practical tips on landing a job

00:45:02.140 which revolve mostly around marketing your personal services he suggests taking out ads

00:45:07.300 in newspapers advertising yourself okay and i don't i i just thought that was interesting

00:45:13.340 because like you know how boomers will be like well why don't you just walk down to the store

00:45:17.080 and shake the manager's hand yeah two generations before that you didn't even need to do that you 0.96

00:45:21.320 just like took an ad out for yourself you're like i'm good as shit yeah if you need someone to like 0.62

00:45:26.100 chop down a tree or something i can do that and then you just get a job that way yeah yeah he also 0.87

00:45:31.040 lists out the 30 major causes of failure. Most of them are pretty normal, lack of self-discipline

00:45:38.080 and so forth, right? But there are some standouts, some odd ones. The first is unfavorable hereditary

00:45:44.440 background. Oh, wrong kind of whites. I actually thought this was going to be racist. I was like, 1.00

00:45:49.320 oh, this is going to be expressly racist. But he actually just means people who are naturally

00:45:53.540 stupid. He says there is but little, if anything, which can be done for people who are born with a 1.00

00:45:59.440 efficiency and brain power okay they can't place ads don't be placing ads if you're a dummy but

00:46:05.300 also like what happened to transmuting like you made your son here according to your right exactly

00:46:10.140 so can i transmute myself like 30 extra iq points or something yeah just a little bit yeah this is 0.99

00:46:15.660 the first one of of 30 major causes of failure he's like number one you're a dumbass like look 0.99

00:46:21.820 if you're dumb enough to buy this book that's why you're not succeeding there's also ill health oh 1.00

00:46:27.460 I'm going to send you this. 0.99

00:46:29.260 This is like number six.

00:46:30.640 The order of these is inexplicable.

00:46:32.760 He says,

00:46:33.320 No person may enjoy outstanding success without good health.

00:46:36.640 Many of the causes of ill health are subject to mastery and control.

00:46:39.980 These, in the main, are

00:46:41.220 A. Overeating of foods not conducive to health.

00:46:44.380 B. Wrong habits of thought, giving expression to negatives.

00:46:47.620 C. Wrong use of and overindulgence in sex.

00:46:51.240 D. Lack of proper physical exercise.

00:46:53.380 E, an inadequate supply of fresh air due to improper breathing.

00:46:58.500 So he's just like an RFK Jr. kind of guy.

00:47:00.460 I was enthralled by this little throwaway about getting inadequate fresh air due to bad breathing.

00:47:06.220 This is never mentioned again in the book.

00:47:08.540 It was not explained at all.

00:47:10.060 All he needed was like a parenthetical.

00:47:12.860 A long digression about mewing.

00:47:14.780 Here's another major cause of failure.

00:47:17.440 Lack of controlled sexual urge.

00:47:19.760 Sex energy is the most powerful of all the stimuli which move people into action.

00:47:24.540 Because it is the most powerful of the emotions, it must be controlled through transmutation

00:47:29.120 and converted into other channels.

00:47:31.480 I disagree.

00:47:32.360 You disagree with what?

00:47:33.660 I think you can be on Grandeur and have a podcast.

00:47:36.240 I think it's fine.

00:47:37.640 You know what? 0.93

00:47:38.120 So look, if the lesson here is don't be so horny that you ruin your life. 0.87

00:47:43.180 Fair. 0.97

00:47:43.780 But yeah, there's this little thing about transmuting your sexual urges.

00:47:48.360 that caught my attention and i don't think we can talk about anything else until we

00:47:54.360 talk about that so let's skip forward a bit to chapter 11 which is titled the mystery of

00:48:01.280 sex transmutation so he does elaborate on this there's an entire chapter on sex transmutation

00:48:08.500 okay i i know that you've already complained about how all of his rating is saying the same

00:48:12.640 thing over and over again. That is not about to improve. Here you go. He says, sex transmutation

00:48:18.360 is simple and easily explained. It means the switching of the mind from thoughts of physical

00:48:23.600 expression to thoughts of some other nature. Sex desire is the most powerful of human desires.

00:48:29.220 When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, willpower, persistence,

00:48:34.220 and creative ability unknown to them at other times. So strong and impelling is the desire

00:48:39.140 for sexual contact that men freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it.

00:48:43.660 When harnessed and redirected along other lines, this motivating force maintains all

00:48:48.660 of its attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, et cetera, which may be used as powerful

00:48:53.420 creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling, including,

00:48:57.980 of course, the accumulation of riches.

00:49:00.500 This is the Chatterton illness where he like includes all these lists of things.

00:49:04.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:49:05.200 Like you don't need eight examples of what this can do because it is like a really simple

00:49:09.080 concept so basically you take your boner energy and you put your boner energy into like painting

00:49:14.020 watercolors yeah although i actually still don't understand how yeah it's unclear to me if what he

00:49:20.020 means is like don't jerk off instead write something right or if what he means is something

00:49:27.880 else it's not entirely clear he never says like don't have sex right right in fact kind of the 0.99

00:49:34.320 opposite so let me send you this you need a boner of the mind you get a mind boner it's very similar 0.63

00:49:40.300 to an idea scoop he says scientific research has disclosed these significant facts one the men of 0.91

00:49:46.380 greatest achievement are men with highly developed sex natures men who have learned the art of sex

00:49:51.720 transmutation this is like the grit thing he's like making this thing up yeah two the men who

00:49:56.900 have accumulated great fortunes and achieved outstanding recognition in literature art

00:50:01.080 industry, architecture, and the professions were motivated by the influence of a woman,

00:50:05.900 the research from which these astounding discoveries were made went back through the

00:50:09.740 pages of biography and history for more than 2,000 years. Wherever there was evidence available in

00:50:14.900 connection with the lives of men and women of great achievement, it indicated most convincingly

00:50:19.540 that they possessed highly developed sex natures. What is he talking about?

00:50:24.080 I genuinely don't know. I will say this. When I was trying to figure out what the fuck he was

00:50:28.980 talking about i was just like googling around and a lot of like the nofap communities are like 0.93

00:50:34.500 by the way napoleon hill says that oh really so they some people think that it's like don't

00:50:39.480 masturbate and you will sort of like accrue power i mean whatever i don't think that's what he means

00:50:45.100 actually because he says that he says the successful men had a highly developed sex nature

00:50:49.100 implying they were having a lot of sex it seems like they he's talking about people who are just 0.99

00:50:53.400 fucking a lot. But then he also says like, I'm not talking about just libertines. I'm not talking 0.99

00:50:59.280 about being a libertine. So it's sort of, he's like, you have to control it, but he never actually

00:51:03.480 articulates what that means. What if the actual secret is if the clitoris is at the one o'clock? 0.55

00:51:08.580 Genghis Khan knew the secret. Mahatma Gandhi knew the secret. He says the reality of a sixth sense

00:51:14.000 has been fairly well established. This sixth sense is creative imagination. The faculty of

00:51:20.440 creative imagination is one which the majority of people never use during an entire lifetime

00:51:25.260 and if used at all it usually happens by mere accident that's not what a sense is i'm still

00:51:31.780 explaining this i'm like ready i'm like poised to fucking respond to this he says that the only

00:51:40.400 people who can use their creative imagination are geniuses and that only geniuses have made 0.96

00:51:45.740 the discovery of sex transmutation uh the creative imagination is triggered when the mind is

00:51:52.600 vibrating at an exceedingly high rate so what i think he's saying is that like being horny gets

00:52:00.700 your brain vibrating high and then you utilize that high vibration to think of good ideas bring 0.99

00:52:08.020 on chat gbt the ai robots are so much better than this shit what is he talking about what is he 0.98

00:52:12.940 He says that this is more powerful than standard reasoning because reasoning is based on your own knowledge and experience, which is flawed. 0.98

00:52:20.340 Whereas this is connecting you to the vibrations of the universe, which are infinite.

00:52:24.720 The blood that was going to go to my boner should go to my brain.

00:52:27.720 And that's the energy that I should use. 0.95

00:52:29.580 He's just got a boner so severe that his brain is draining of blood.

00:52:32.800 And he's like, this is it.

00:52:34.140 This is it.

00:52:35.200 I just sent you a little bit more.

00:52:36.740 And obviously it's very necessary.

00:52:38.200 This is an important part of the episode.

00:52:39.460 In connection with the facts available from the biographies of certain men, we here present the

00:52:43.860 names of a few men of outstanding achievement, each of whom was known to have been of a highly

00:52:48.360 sexed nature. Oh, and then he lists off dudes. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon

00:52:54.520 Bonaparte, Albert Hubbard, William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln,

00:53:00.460 John H. Patterson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Jackson, Robert Burns, and Rico Caruso.

00:53:05.240 So I just wrote LMAO under this situation, under this whole situation.

00:53:09.120 I like who are highly sexed.

00:53:11.220 The thing is, if I was writing a self-help book, I would absolutely include a list of

00:53:14.340 historical figures who could get it.

00:53:17.220 That's not a highly sexed nature.

00:53:18.660 Like I read the chapter twice because I was like, does he say anything?

00:53:21.700 Like, is he explaining this?

00:53:22.900 Yeah, no.

00:53:23.460 Because at first I was like, oh, it just means like you don't have sex.

00:53:26.440 Yeah.

00:53:26.680 Then he's giving examples of people who just he seems to believe had a lot of sex. 0.92

00:53:30.160 Had a lot of sex. 0.96

00:53:30.920 Yeah. 0.95

00:53:31.060 But then I still come back to the conclusion that like what I think he means is like you

00:53:34.480 get horny and then work yeah we're gonna move on to some other interesting later chapters he has a

00:53:40.480 chapter that is about the human brain it's so funny to me that in all of these books it's like 0.85

00:53:45.520 you have a self-help idea and then you can just write about literally anything sex transmutation 0.95

00:53:49.360 dude write about the brain write about sex who gives a shit i'm sending you the opening paragraph 0.98

00:53:54.360 he says more than 20 years ago the author working in conjunction with the late dr alexander graham 0.99

00:54:00.400 Bell and Dr. Elmer R. Gates observe that every human brain is both a broadcasting and receiving

00:54:06.920 station for the vibration of thought. Sure. At this point, I feel like I don't need to tell you

00:54:12.340 that this man did not meet Alexander Graham Bell, let alone helped him conduct some kind of brain

00:54:19.720 experiment. Because what does he mean here, broadcasting and receiving station? Does he

00:54:23.240 mean that we can like hear each other's thoughts? So most of the chapter is pretty boring. It's

00:54:27.440 about the same things, right? You got to get your brain vibrating right. But there is one bit where

00:54:32.020 he talks about telepathy, which of course he believes is real. He cites the work of Joseph

00:54:36.960 Rine at Duke University as evidence that telepathy exists. And so I start poking around. This guy is

00:54:43.200 fairly well known. He is the founder of the field of parapsychology. He's the one who came up with

00:54:50.000 the term ESP, extrasensory perception. And of course now his work is widely considered to be

00:54:55.840 a mess. The methodologies are poor. It's never been replicated. Some of his colleagues were

00:55:00.820 suspected of fraud in different circumstances. The very famous skeptic James Randi said he

00:55:06.820 believed that Ryan was like a naive but good faith actor. But I will say this. In the 1930s,

00:55:14.000 it was not crazy to see that research and think like, oh, maybe telepathy is real.

00:55:19.580 They were doing experiments with like cards where could people predict what card was what,

00:55:24.600 right yeah and the clever han stuff a lot of the stuff there's scenarios in which it looks like

00:55:29.120 somebody's reading your mind yeah right and there were real deal academics at the time studying this

00:55:34.580 and finding what looked like evidence right yeah the only reason i included this in the episode

00:55:39.720 is because there were so many times that hill references like something you look up and then

00:55:45.280 it's either not confirmed or it's confirmed as bullshit like right there was research about the 0.99

00:55:49.740 sexual natures of the great men in history and you're like what the fuck are you talking about 0.99

00:55:55.100 right yeah and then he says this and it's the one time he identifies actual science that you 0.97

00:56:01.600 can actually locate and you're like fair enough man and it's about fucking telepathy yeah i i was 0.74

00:56:08.600 like oh my god like even the real stuff is fake yeah yeah yeah it's there's something so crazy 0.87

00:56:12.880 about this because it's like he was vibrating on the fraud wavelength so hard yeah that like he

00:56:20.040 could like he was like subconsciously spotting the telepathy fraud without even knowing it like

00:56:25.520 the only things he can convey to you are fraudulent and so even when he thought he was

00:56:30.520 telling you about real science he was actually telling you about fake science yeah well maybe

00:56:34.920 that means telepathy is real he's like catching the grifter vibrations from other grifters so 0.96

00:56:40.140 he's correct about telepathy. And that is where we're going to end our discussion of the book. 1.00

00:56:44.160 The book just sort of winds down along these lines. Right. And it is a huge hit. And I think

00:56:51.760 a lot of the reasons why it's complete bullshit are also why it succeeded at the time. Like 0.97

00:56:58.440 coming out of the depression, like people don't want to hear about structural impediments. Yeah.

00:57:03.560 Right. They don't want to hear about why like capitalism is going to prevent you from

00:57:07.780 getting rich they want someone to tell them that they could be rich if they just get their mind

00:57:11.720 right because i did a little bit of research on the new thought stuff for the uh how to win

00:57:15.900 friends and influence people episode and this was kind of a new idea i mean all of us now in 0.99

00:57:19.940 america are just like we're awash in this dumb fucking power of positive thinking garbage but 0.97

00:57:24.460 like this was kind of new at the time the idea that you could like manifest things by envisioning 0.99

00:57:28.580 them yeah and it feels scientific yeah yeah and i think kind of culturally right he's he's expressly

00:57:35.640 says being rich is the result of your mindset being poor is the result of your mindset he says

00:57:41.040 poverty is attracted to the minds of those favorable to it i think to most sane people now

00:57:48.320 this just reads as blaming poverty on the poor yeah which is a crazy thing to do following the

00:57:53.060 depression but to a person in that situation you could see how it might be hopeful yeah it presents

00:57:58.400 you with a feasible solution and that solution is not like move to california in a wagon right like

00:58:04.900 write your senator or something. It's like, okay, I just have to believe in this and try really hard,

00:58:09.100 make a plan, et cetera. A little bit of epilogue here. When the book becomes a hit,

00:58:13.940 he signs the royalty rights over to his latest wife, the one who helped him write it, with the

00:58:19.080 idea being that his various creditors would not be able to get at the money that way. He does not

00:58:24.760 pay back the $300 loan his son Blair gave him to launch the book. According to Novak, the journalist

00:58:32.720 who wrote the gizmodo piece his wife wrote his son like a taunting letter about how about the 0.99

00:58:37.800 high life they were living i drank champagne on your dime bitch they are like they're like buying 1.00

00:58:46.100 mansions and cars and shit enjoy living in a shack you fucking loser that's so fucked up and they 1.00

00:58:52.760 blow they blow through the money in like two years that's nuts they had the opportunity here 1.00

00:58:57.760 to lead like a normal cushy life yeah but because he like spends all the money he gets immediately

00:59:04.780 he just never stops getting in trouble he starts associating with a weird cult called the master

00:59:10.940 metaphysicians who drew headlines for purchasing an old vanderbilt mansion and then announcing

00:59:18.740 publicly that they intended to adopt and raise an immortal baby using metaphysics and also a

00:59:26.260 vegetarian diet pill is the godfather of this child wait so it's a real child that's just not

00:59:32.100 immortal this is a real human child and that baby's name was brian johnson napoleon gets 0.97

00:59:37.460 divorced again he spends like the next 15 or so years doing the same shit he always did he's

00:59:42.040 giving speeches he's trying to get people to invest in success schools he's launching magazines 0.99

00:59:46.820 he's writing unsuccessful books it's wild he couldn't live on this for the rest of his life

00:59:51.860 They were like buying mansions, like estates and like Rolls Royces and shit like that.

00:59:56.660 He's getting run out of various towns, you know, he's just he's back to he's back to 0.68

01:00:01.500 classic Napoleon.

01:00:02.760 The man just loves scamming.

01:00:04.460 The pastor Norman Vincent Peale claimed that Hill helped him write The Power of Positive

01:00:09.960 Thinking in the early 1950s, which is notable, first of all, because it just boosts one book

01:00:16.620 theory, right?

01:00:17.560 We'll do that on the show eventually, but it is going to be precisely the same as this 0.99

01:00:20.640 fucking book. 0.97

01:00:21.080 And then also Peel was Donald Trump's pastor and someone who Trump for many years cited 0.99

01:00:28.320 as an influence.

01:00:29.500 There was recently a Vanity Fair piece about Peel's influence on Trump.

01:00:33.100 And it means that just maybe there's a chance that if Napoleon Hill never writes this piece 0.99

01:00:39.260 of shit book, a butterfly flaps its wings and Trump is not the president of the United 0.99

01:00:44.400 States. 1.00

01:00:45.060 And Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016 and somebody even worse would be in charge 1.00

01:00:49.200 now. 1.00

01:00:49.500 The phrase President Jillian Michaels would be appearing on this show constantly.

01:00:53.900 Or perhaps even better, Joe Biden, now 95 years old, is on his second term.

01:00:59.580 Does not know he's president, but is still the president.

01:01:01.760 One of the interesting themes of the Gizmodo piece is that Matt Novak is trying to get

01:01:06.860 Napoleon Hill's original writings from the Napoleon Hill Foundation, which is this like

01:01:11.320 nonprofit that's obviously meant to like boost his sort of profile.

01:01:17.060 And they won't give him access.

01:01:19.500 And they're like very cagey and weird about it and are like, we can like give you a tour

01:01:24.960 of his childhood home, but you'll have to donate $5,000 to the foundation.

01:01:29.820 No way.

01:01:30.360 And there's something so interesting about like, here we are a hundred years after this

01:01:35.600 guy was in his prime and his foundation is run by a bunch of people who are basically

01:01:41.520 like doing his fraud to this day.

01:01:44.460 It's like, did he live the values he espoused in his book?

01:01:47.080 No.

01:01:47.380 But did his work inspire millions of people to improve their lives?

01:01:51.360 Also, no. 0.88

01:01:52.960 It's a sad contrast to Dale Carnegie, who did write one of these dumb books, but also 0.81

01:01:57.340 seemed like a kind of a good guy. 0.79

01:01:59.180 Yeah.

01:01:59.460 Remember his little chapter where he just walks up to the boys cooking hot dogs and

01:02:04.260 he's like, you know, boys, I love it.

01:02:06.880 Gotta get out of the park, see?

01:02:08.680 I love the cooking hot dogs.

01:02:10.120 Everybody loves a Frankfurter, but perhaps do it a little more safely.

01:02:13.440 All right.

01:02:13.800 But just like a nice guy.

01:02:15.180 And then we have only a year later, we have the complete corruption of like this genre of book.

01:02:22.280 Yeah. 0.99

01:02:22.560 He's like, Dale Carnegie is a fucking bossy. 1.00

01:02:25.460 Yeah. 1.00

01:02:25.640 Like this fucking loser who's like trying to actually help you like make friends. 1.00

01:02:29.640 Get your mind vibrating and defraud everyone you know. 1.00

01:02:32.980 And fap, but not too much.

01:02:34.840 Fap the appropriate amount.

01:02:36.520 Dale Carnegie is like, try to be nice to everyone you meet.

01:02:39.220 And Napoleon Hill's like, get horny and think of ideas.

01:02:42.960 Get alone. 1.00

01:02:43.840 Yeah, use your boner to vibrate your way into a job in radio. 0.92

01:02:47.880 This book could have been one sentence.

If Books Could Kill - May 21, 2026

Think And Grow Rich

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