Today I was talking about success and someone pointed me to the book Outliers of Malcolm Gladwell that she was apparently reading. So she gave me the book and I started reading, and right from the first chapter I realized it gives a new point of view additional or contrary of the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill. And no, while writing I realize that it is not really contrary to the Principles of Success of Napoleon Hill, the things I have been following for quite a while now, but it shines some new light on why some people are more successful than others, or why you (read ‘I’) sometimes feel something isn’t right, something like that the Principles of Success can’t explain why e.g. Bill Gates is so super rich, so super successful.
And the book indeed explains why Bill Gates has been somehow ‘lucky’ being so extraordinary successful. And also explains why Andrew Carnegie achieved such unimaginable success. The explains that those people indeed were talented, worked hard and things like that. But it also explains that related to those people some more things like time and circumstances were in their favor.
And the books starts with a very simple sample that we all know, that there are early students and late students, related to the ‘cut off date’ that schools, or actually governments, set, that cause some students in the same year, the same grade, are older, months older than other students. And of course in later life a few months don’t really matter. But based on research it can be proved that those few months just make the difference for some people to pass the mark for ‘next stage’ in something, where other people don’t pass that mark. And in many areas of life, that ‘passing the mark’ means that you get more coaching or time or whatever that makes the difference bigger. And depending on the situation it means that in some areas those who have the advantage can be successful in that area and that those who don’t have the advantage have no chance in being successful in that specific area.
And it was quite comforting for me to read why Bill Gates has been so much more successful than I have been. As e.g. he was just in the right age bracket to jump on the ‘computer band wagon’ and be extraordinary successful. And I am just something like eight years older, meaning that I was just too late to jump on the bandwagon that Bill Gates and some other people, including Steve Jobs, to be ‘really successful’ in the ‘computer world’.
So this book, the ideas in this book of course mean that I am thinking what that means for the Principles of Success, for this site that is built around the Principles of Success. Like the book certainly confirms that ‘luck’ is somehow involved in being successful.
But looking at the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill my gut feel says that the Principles of Success he describes still apply. And that these new insights just explains some of the reasons why some people are so extraordinary successful. As indeed, what I always felt, it appears that there is something involved in the extreme success that some people have. But that certainly doesn’t mean that applying the Principles of Success is invalid or something. And it also doesn’t mean that not anybody could achieve the success that those really successful people have had.
And thinking further, maybe Napoleon Hill does explain it, maybe it is included. As indeed, Napoleon Hill acknowledges something like Infinite Intelligence, some higher power helping us to achieve success, if we are open to it.