The Bogosity of Napoleon Hill

Aside from Robert "Rich Dad" Kiyosaki (who is not really what you think he is), one of the most frequently mentioned names among MLMers, other than their own upline or company head, is likely to be Napoleon Hill. Without further information, you would probably think of Napoleon Hill as some sort of a self-help guru who managed to interview the most famous, the richest, and the `most influential people of his times and thus gaining secrets of success. He claimed to have advised President Woodrow Wilson and wrote Fireside Chats for FDR. He claimed he met with Andrew Carnegie as a no-name writer. Supposedly Carnegie took a liking to him, helped him write his paper, then challenged him to interview the successful people of his time, introduced him to Henry Ford, who then introduced him to others such as Alexander Graham Bell, Luther Burbank, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, Willian Wrigley Jr., John D Rockefeller, Harvey Samuel Firestone, and a few more. 

However, actual historians believe most of this is utter fabrication. Or in modern terms, total BS. Carnegie's biographer stated that he had ZERO evidence that Carnegie ever met with Napoleon Hill, muchless collaborated with him or introduced him to others. Outside of ONE documented short meeting with Thomas Edition in 1923 inpublic, there is NO documented evidence of Hill EVER meeting with the famous people whom he supposedly interviewed. All such evidence was "conveniently" lost in a fire. 

Hill claimed to have advised multiple presidents, including helping President Wilson write the treaty of Germany's surrender at Versailles at WW1, as well as advising FDR on how to write his fireside chats. However, White House has NO record of Hill at all. Hill also claimed to be an attorney though even his own biography notes that he never performed legal services for anyone. 

Frankly, this sounds like a lot of Kiyosaki to me. 

Both claimed to have known incredible people, gotten great advice from them, and wrote about such, but did not become tremendous success themselves, but merely supposedly inspirational people with controversy.  Kiyosaki was quoted at an interview by _SmartMoney "Is Harry Potter real? Why don't you let Rich Dad be a myth, like Harry Potter?"  Please keep in mind that "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is published as "non-fiction", similar to "How to Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill.  Only a decade later did Kiyosaki trot out Alan Kimi who claimed his father, Richard Kimi, is Rich Dad.  Frankly, given the decades of silence, and the supposedly "request for privacy" (much like Napoleon Hill's convenient fire destroying much of his rough draft and proof he had met with all those famous people) it's not impossible for Kiyosaki to established enough post-hoc backstops after two decades to cement his "legend". 

But this is about Napoleon Hill. 

Napoleon Hill is not a guru. He's a conman who published fictional interviews with famous people. 

How do we know? Because Carnegie did write "Wealth", later retitled "The Gospel of Wealth", where he stated that rich are mere trustees of their wealth and should dedicate their fortune to the "general good" and the family should live modestly. The advice was quite different from the ones he "supposedly" gave to Napoleon Hill after a supposedly prolonged interview. And it definitely wasn't 300 pages long that Napoleon Hill later expanded the conversation out to be. Even Hill's official biographers admit that it was “a somewhat contrived conversational format featuring Hill and Andrew Carnegie.”

His magnum opus was convincing people that he still is, decades after his death. 

And now you know. 

P.S. For further reference, check this article from Gizmodo. 

Why Law of Attraction / The Secret is bull****, according to Psychology Professor

What is "The Secret"? Some new-age mumbo-jumbo about just think positive and good things will happen to you because "Law of Attraction". What is law of attraction? It can summarized as "happy thoughts attract happy happenings (wealth, health, happiness)".  Why? Some bogus reference to ether, mind transfer, "positive electrons", and other pseudo-science.

Now you ask, why is this important? The short answer: it isn't, except it appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And anything touched by Oprah (or her spawn, "Dr. Oz") automatically becomes a popular phenomenon... and often, they are absolutely bogus.

The author of "The Secret", Rhonda Byrne, basically rewrote Wallace Wattle's 1910 book "The Science of Getting Rich", and melded other lessons from authors that echoed similar sentiment such as Napoleon Hill. But whereas Napoleon Hill and others advocate action, Byrne advocates laziness. According to the law of of attraction, just THINKING positively means good things will happen to you... no action needed.

The Secret is so lame, it got made fun of in The Simpsons ("Bart Gets a 'Z'") and Family Guy ("Brian Writes a Bestseller")

But do you know WHY is The Secret so lame? Let a psychology professor explain it to you...

Guest Post: Vemma and Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", part 4 of 6

Previously we had SlayerofScams, a fellow scambuster on IGN, posting his essay on how people misconstrue Napoleon Hill's advice to coerce the weak-minded sheeple.  Here is part 4 of 6.

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SlayerOfScams, January 8, 2014

Round Four of Napoleon Hill's Smackdown of Vemma/Verve From Beyond the Grave

Hill says that to become successful or rich, one must perform an annual self-analysis/self-inventory. With the New Year just starting, what better time for the Verve reps to do that?

Here are some questions from Hill's self-inventory that are especially pertinent to Vemma reps:

25. If I had been the purchaser of my own services for the year, would I be satisfied with my purchase? 
...
27. Has the purchaser of my services been satisfied with the service I have rendered, and if not, why not?

To help you consider the correct answers, ask yourself: are you happy with having lost and continuing to lose $150+ USD per month in order to buy cans of Verve that you do not want and cannot sell, in the false hopes that Vemma will pay you fat commission checks for the rest of your life off of the recruitment and purchases made by your fictitious, non-existent downline victims - fictitious and non-existent, of course, because real people (other than, perhaps, a few odd exceptions) are not actually stupid enough to sign up for this scam underneath you?

Next, ask yourself if any of the few downline victim suckers who you may have been lucky enough to dupe into the Vemma pyramid scam underneath yourself, and who are (like yourself) inevitably losing money every month to Verve, would be satisfied if they asked themselves the same questions given above.

Guest Post: Vemma and Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", Part 3 of 6

Previously we had SlayerofScams, a fellow scambuster on IGN, posting his essay on how people misconstrue Napoleon Hill's advice to coerce the weak-minded sheeple. [ Part 1 of 6 ] [ Part 2 of 6 ]

Here's part 3.  Enjoy

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SlayerofScams, January 7, 2014

This seems like a good time for Round Three of Napoleon Hill's Smackdown of Vemma/Verve From Beyond the Grave.

Here is Hill’s twenty-seventh cause for failure at life:

27. INTENTIONAL DISHONESTY. There is no substitute for honesty. One may be temporarily dishonest by force of circumstances over which one has no control, without permanent damage. But, there is NO HOPE for the person who is dishonest by choice. Sooner or later, his deeds will catch up with him, and he will pay by loss of reputation, and perhaps even loss of liberty.

First, a special message to Bob Proctor: You see that, Bob Proctor? Your biggest hero and favorite role model condemns you for your intentional dishonesty in telling countless (tens of thousands? millions?) of people that Vemma/Verve is a great company and legitimate business opportunity. By the same token, Hill condemns you for your intentional dishonesty in bastardizing his words, "a winner never quits," in order to brainwash the Vemma/Verve victims to think that eventually they will get rich if only they keep allowing Vemma/Verve to rob them blind month after month and year after year.

You, Bob Proctor, have said in your own seminars, and in The Secret movie, things like, "whatever you put out to the universe is going to come back to you, whether good or bad." If you really believe that, then you know that your shilling for the illegal pyramid scheme/scam Vemma/Verve is destined to cause the universe to repay you with negative consequences for your evil behavior. Your reputation is already ruined, just as Hill predicted it would be. Was some more money - in the form of ill-gotten gains that BK Boreyko pays to you - really worth forever throwing away your [former] good name and legacy for, Bob?

Guest Post: Vemma and Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" Part 1 of 6

Cover via Amazon

Many self-proclaimed financial gurus are fond of quoting Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich". I have that book around here somewhere, along with Dale Carnegie's "How to Gain Friends and Influence People". Those two books, along with "Rich Dad Poor Dad" sort of became must-have books in recent years, for income seekers.

However, it appears that many people have been quoting Napoleon Hill out of context.

"SlayerofScams", a fellow scambuster on IGN, had this to say about people who wrongly applied the sound advice of Napoleon Hill. Here is part 1 of 6 of his "Napoleon Hill, from beyond the grave", which is reposted with his permission. Content's unchanged except a few bits of editor's note, and slight formatting changes.

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SlayerofScams / Dec 30, 2013.

I have discovered that Bob Proctor is one of Vemma's most notable shills and that his wife, Linda Proctor, has been given a prominent position within the Vemma pyramid. Proctor disgraces his former good name and defecates all over whatever legacy he might have otherwise had by promoting the illegal pyramid scheme that is Vemma. Because of that foolish decision, Bob Proctor will now forever be remembered in history as nothing other than a lowdown dirty scammer.

(editor's note: Bob's daughter Colleen Filicetti, has the same Vemma rank as her stepmom, Linda: Ambassador, making about 15000 per month.)

Over the weekend, I was watching an old Proctor seminar video (it looked to be from the late 1980's although I am not sure exactly when it was released), in which he basically paraphrases the 1937 book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, along with a few other books. In that seminar Proctor appears to be a respectable guy. That seminar presents some good ideas (although Proctor admits that the ideas are not his own).

Then I watched a video of Proctor shilling at a Vemma convention from 2013, and presenting those same ideas that he presented in the old seminar, in order to justify Vemma as a great company, and to justify all of Vemma's victims as winners.

Proctor was one of the people behind The Secret which was big about 6 years ago. The Secret is basically a plagiarization of Hill's book, albeit The Secret also cuts out a vast majority of the sensible advice that Hill claims (many times!) to be mandatory parts of his book. That is why reasonable people usually condemn The Secret as crazy rubbish, whereas Hill's book remains famous and popular to this day.

In Proctor's seminar and in his Vemma convention shilling, Proctor directly gives credit to Hill and Hill's book, professes his undying love for Hill's book, and tells all his fellow Vemma shills that they too should get and read Hill's book.

All of that has led me to start to read Hill's book.

Here is some good news: Hill's book is in the public domain and so it is legally free for anyone to get and read. Here is a link to it:

https://archive.org/stream/Think_and_Grow_Rich/think-and-grow-rich-napoleon-hill_djvu.txt

To address the sane readers of this thread: for personal interest, you might want to read that book for some sensible advice on how someone, maybe yourself, might possibly get rich (of course, no guarantees exist). I am sure many of you have read it already. To give a brief summary of Hill's book: Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie, and Carnegie introduced Hill to most of the richest men in America during Hill's lifetime. Hill spent 25 years interviewing them in order to learn their secrets and find out what they had in common, so that he could present to his readers a sound theory about how someone might get rich.

For the remainder of this post, I will address not the sane readers, but rather, the Vemma shills/victims.