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Outwitting the Devil
The Secret to Freedom and Success
Napoleon Hill (annotated by Sharon Lechter)
(Sterling, 288pgs, $23h)
Following his 1937 runaway bestseller, Think and Grow Rich, a book that inspired the generation of the Great Depression with hope, Napoleon Hill penned the draft to Outwitting the Devil. Despite his previous success as a writer, his family and friends expressed grave reservations about it, feeling that it was too controversial because it purported to be an interview with the devil, a theme that might be misunderstood by a general reading audience. This is be understandable, being five years before the publication of C.S. Lewis now classic and groundbreaking The Screwtape Letters, which did much the same thing. But Lewis was Lewis and Hill was not. Maybe the esteemed British apologist could get away with putting words in the devils mouth but it was felt that Napoleon Hill, then a fledgling personal success author, could not. So, the original manuscript stayed within the family long after Hills passing, until a few years ago when it was turned over to the Napoleon Hill Foundation. The foundation, feeling that maybe twenty-first century readers would better understand Hills intention, decided the time was ripe for its publication and enlisted the help of Sharon Lechter, co-author of the bestselling Rich Dad, Poor Dad, to annotate the text.
Hill was a lifelong Christian and much of his philosophy was rooted in his faith. For example, the book begins with Hills personal account of what led him to write Outwitting the Devil. Following his now famous meeting with Andrew Carnegie in 1908, which launched his career, Hill slipped into a state of self-contempt. During this time, which stretched into the 1920s, Hill had an epiphany of sorts in which he confronted the devil (whether real or metaphorical is left to the readers interpretation). In a courtroom setting, Hills interview with the devil, occupying the bulk of the manuscript, reveals how negative thoughts like anxiety can paralyze a persons potential. During the course of the interview, seven principles emerge that show how adversity can actually lead to success and how the reader can outwit his own devil. Lechters in-text annotations help 21st-century readers relate to its principles.
In fairness I should mention that Napoleon Hill is a problematic figure among some evangelicals and I will confess that that fact may have prejudiced my attitude as I read the book. Objections to Hills self-help philosophy seem largely focused on his advocacy of what some consider a self-centered belief that we can all pull ourselves up by our bootstraps if we just infuse ourselves with a positive attitude; that materialism equates to success; that capitalism is biblical; that wealth is an end in itself; and his views of visualizing goals seem more metaphysical than orthodox. The other extreme, of course, is a cest la vie approach to life that sees mankind as simply victims of some predetermined fate and that we have little or nothing to do with our circumstance.
Hills aim is to identify the obstacles we face in achieving our goals: fear, procrastination, anger, and jealousy, as tools of the devil. These life-controlling attitudes lead us to ruin, and he offers seven principles to defeat them.
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Authors bio
Napoleon Hill was born on October 26, 1883 and passed away on November 8, 1970. He was an American author, who was one of the first authors who wrote and publicized the connection between success and the powers of the mind. His most famous book is Think and Grow Rich is one of the best-selling books of all times having sold more than 30-million copies since its publication in 1937.
Two years later, in 1939, Hill published How to Sell Your Way through Life, another best-selling book on personal achievement. By 1953 Napoleon Hill was working closely with W. Clement Stone teaching Stone's own "Philosophy of Personal Achievement." Hill began focusing more on the idea that "thoughts are things" and that an individual can manifest his or her success simply by sharing ideas and finding like-minded individuals. Hill also wrote about the importance of the "Golden Rule" of giving and the understanding the difference between giving and exchanging with the community.
Throughout his life, Hill was open about his Christian faith and believed that his religion played a very important supporting role in his beliefs about success. Faith, in fact, always played a major role in Hill's philosophies of achievement. Napoleon Hill died on November 8, 1970. His last book, You Can Work Your Own Miracles, was published after his death and now the newly published Outwitting the Devil written in 1938 but unpublished until now.
Hill wrote about the power of belief and faith, and the role they play in achieving success. One of his best known quotes is, What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Hill began his writing career at age 13 as a mountain reporter for small town newspapers and went on to become Americas most beloved motivational author. He dedicated many years of his life to define the reasons why people fail to achieve financial success and happiness in their life.
The turning point in his writing career occurred in 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous men, to interview industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who at the time was one of the most powerful men in the world. Napoleon Hill discovered that Andrew Carnegie believed that the process of success could be elaborated in a simple formula that could be duplicated by the average person. Carnegie commissioned Hill to interview over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.
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Sharon Lechteris a wife and mother of three, CPA, consultant to the toy and publishing industries and business owner. As co-author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (27-million sold to date) with 14 other books in the Rich Dad series, and The Cashflow Quadrant, she now focuses her efforts in helping to create educational tools for anyone interested in bettering their own financial education.
