I WAS ASTONISHED!

To make my point, I displayed five of his books and mentioned his name, fully expecting most of the class before me to smile knowingly and nod in approval at the mere mention of this great master of personal achievement. Instead, I was facing a room filled with blank stares.

I asked for a showing of hands of people who were familiar with him and his great body of work. One single hand raised timidly.

She qualified her action with a confession that she had no personal experience other than having seen his name referenced by another author who’s work she had read. She had thought at the time to “look him up,” but had not done so.

I WAS ASTONISHED! My own open-mouth gape from this realization facing back at the room filled with blank stares must have been an amusing site, had there been anyone looking in who had not participated in that perplexing exchange.

Recovering as quickly as possible from my moments of total dis-belief, I briefly introduced this room filled with attorneys, educators, environmental activists, political activists, social workers, corporate executives and entrepreneurs to Dr. Napoleon Hill and five of his great books: “Think and Grow Rich,” The Master Key to Riches,” “You Can Work Your Own Miracles,” “Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion” and my personal favorite, “Grow Rich With Peace of Mind.” I pointed out that “Think and Grow Rich,” by itself, has sold over 70 million copies, and remains high on the list of top 10 best sellers of all times.

Having filled this unexpected gap in knowledge of the existence of Dr. Hill, I continued by pointing out that “Purpose,” the subject of the class I was about to present, was the starting point in each and every one of the great books that he had written.

As I continued, I was comforted by the fact that my class was being presented in conjunction with a projected Power-Point presentation that I had prepared earlier, because my mind was proceeding in two different directions:

• first, to present the class with as much excellence as I could muster, and,
• processing the sudden, disturbing realization that the works of Dr. Hill are no longer paramount in the consciousness of industrial, administrative and community leaders.

Forty years before, my life had been dramatically impacted by the lessons of Dr. Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, W. Clement Stone, Dr. Maxwell Malts, Dr. Leslie Lecron and many others. I certainly had not been alone with that experience. As I had the opportunity to visit the offices of corporate executives and other very successful people, I found a well-worn copy of “Think and Grow Rich,” as a minimum, on nearly every one of these people’s bookshelves. Conversely, when I examined the meager bookshelves of people who were struggling to get by, I NEVER saw a copy of any such wisdom!

I became passionate about sharing this impactful knowledge with others so that they too could reap the rewards of successful thought and behavior. I created, then presented, a study course titled “Developing the Habit of Success” based on my research of their combined works.

Presenting that class had been a self-serving avocation for me, as I was concurrently employed full-time as an engineer in the aerospace industry. I knew from having previously been an instructor for the U. S. Army Signal Center and School that the best way to deeply learn something was to teach it to others.

Since the course I developed was presented one evening a week over six seeks, then began again in a new location, the empowering principles remained constantly in my own mind. They became habitual in my own performance at work. This resulted in my being rapidly advanced into management positions that consumed so much time and energy that it appeared that I no longer had the time to spend teaching the principles and techniques to others (and, reminding myself).

As time passed, I found myself riding on the inertia of the past rather than re-enforcing the habits that I had learned. My highly effective level of achievement began to back-slide to the ineffective patterns of my younger days. Life was still “good enough” that I didn’t bother to refresh my knowledge of the science of success.

Then, in that astonishing moment of realization that the world is forgetting about Napoleon Hill and the other great teachers in favor of ill-fated get-rich-quick MLM schemes and Internet marketing gimmicks, I realized that I had allowed most of my success-building habits to slip away from me, and that they had been silently replaced by some old and some new ineffective behaviors which have not served me, my family, my businesses, my community or my creator.

It is time for Habits of Success to be Developed again!

Fortunately, over the years, I have continued to learn new techniques and technologies that I expect will propel the “New and Improved Developing the Habit of Success” to a world-wide audience through webinars and teleconferences, UStream broadcasts, Google Meet-ups and all the social media opportunities that make brick-and-mortar classroom presentations almost a thing of the past. As much as I enjoy speaking to a “live” classroom of students, the joy of knowing that the knowledge of the science of achievement is reaching millions of fresh, eager, new minds will more than make up for the less-personal approach.

So, herein and herewith, I declare that a definite, major PURPOSE (the class subject through which I received notice that awareness of the science of achievement had faded) is to rectify that trend by re-establishment of Developing The Habit Of Success–this time as the world’s largest study group, open to and affordable by every person on Earth.

Eager To Get Started?

DON’T WAIT FOR ME!  There is absolutely no need to. Everything I learned is already available to you. Allow me to blaze the trail for you:

1. Buy and study Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
2. Take the Express Train to success — Learn Self-hypnosis!