Immortality

No man yet living has discovered the secret to causing his body to live forever.  We all are born as babes, become toddlers, reach school age, turn into adults(some sooner than others), grow old and die. Yet, it is said that a man is never truly dead while there are those alive to remember him. Such a man lives on through their memories, his thoughts and ideals still alive and able to capture the hearts and minds of even more people. His stories can be taught from father to son, generation to generation, possibly forever.

So, while the body will die, it is still possible for your thoughts and ideas to live on through others. You may even be able to build a legacy where your thoughts and ideas continue to grow and take on a life of their own.  Think of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Martin Luther King, the prophet Mohammed and Jesus, Every one of those people have passed from this earth, yet if you look at their body of work it is still alive today.

In the early 1900's Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie gave a young Napoleon Hill the secret to creating huge financial wealth.  He suggested that Napoleon spend twenty years or more dedicating his life to preparing to bring this secret to the world, by sharing the secret with others and by very closely studying the lives of hundreds of the world's most successful people. He then suggested that Napoleon write a book about his findings to share them with the world.

Napoleon Hill did just that. And in 1937 his book was published. It was entitled Think and Grow Rich. From the title alone one would be inclined to think that the book is simply about making money. And while a majority of the examples are about principles and steps taken to create wealth, the philosophy taught in the book can be used to help people succeed in all lines of work and to do or be almost anything they want. Remember having lots of money is just one form of richness. With little to no money, one with great health or superb family relationships or lots of great friends can also consider themselves to be rich. And this book can help create all of that.

How are the above two paragraphs related to the first two? Think and Grow Rich is Napoleon Hill's form of immortality. Why do I think that? The 1960 version of the book, it has been reprinted several times over the last 76 years, has an introduction by W. Clement Stone. He was a great leader and motivational speaker at the time.  It says this :“More men and women have been motivated to achieve success because of reading Think and Grow Rich than by any other book written by a living author.” So what you say, that was only 25 years after the book was originally published. How do you know it didn't just make a big splash and disappear after that?

Well here's  the truly awesome part. At the suggestion of someone that I view as a coach and mentor I have been reading Think and Grow Rich. Also, for a little over thirty days, I have been watching motivational videos by some of the world's leading inspirational speakers. I watch about thirty minutes a day and most of them are about an hour and a half to two hours long. I am just finishing up the tenth one now. And you know something? Every single one of them has directly quoted something out of Think and Grow Rich. Some of them credited the quote as having come from there others didn't. But what was obvious to me is that every single one of them had read the book, absorbed the knowledge and made it their own. The book surviving and in fact still being a very high selling book nearly 45 years after Hill's death in 1970 is tremendous. What is even better though is that the thoughts and principles in it are literally alive and well in the minds of the world's top coaches and motivational speakers.

What will your legacy look like? How long will you live on after your body passes?