Namaste - May whatever good you bring be returned to you tenfold

Think Better and Grow Richer: The Science of Living the Life and Livelihood You Really Want Now weaves together three of the most influential and long-standing classic books on the realities of getting rich and being a rich person.

As a Man Thinketh by James Allen explores the mystery and talent of the human mind, heart and will.

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles explains the key to attraction – how to overcome self-made obstacles to create the life you really want.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill reveals the one true “secret” of success by elaborating proven principles of personal achievement.

From Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

It Pays To Be Persistent

As these lines are being written, I look up from my work, and see before me, less than a block away, the great mysterious “Broadway,” the “Graveyard of Dead Hopes,” and the “Front Porch of Opportunity.” From all over the world people have come to Broadway, seeking fame, fortune, power, love, or whatever it is that human beings call success. Once in a great while someone steps out from the long procession of seekers, and the world hears that another person has mastered Broadway. But Broadway is not easily nor quickly conquered. She acknowledges talent, recognizes genius, pays off in money, only after one has refused to QUIT.

Then we know he has discovered the secret of how to conquer Broadway. The secret is always inseparably attached to one word, PERSISTENCE!

The secret is told in the struggle of Fannie Hurst, whose PERSISTENCE conquered the Great White Way. She came to New York in 1915, to convert writing into riches. The conversion did not come quickly, BUT IT CAME. For four years Miss Hurst learned about “The Sidewalks of New York” from first hand experience. She spent her days laboring, and her nights HOPING. When hope grew dim, she did not say, “Alright Broadway, you win!” She said, “Very well, Broadway, you may whip some, but not me. I’m going to force you to give up.”

One publisher (The Saturday Evening Post) sent her thirty six rejection slips, before she “broke the ice and got a story across. The average writer, like the “average” in other walks of life, would have given up the job when the first rejection slip came. She pounded the pavements for four years to the tune of the publisher’s “NO,” because she was determined to win.

Then came the “payoff.” The spell had been broken, the unseen Guide had tested Fannie Hurst, and she could take it. From that time on publishers made a beaten path to her door. Money came so fast she hardly had time to count it. Then the moving picture men discovered her, and money came not in small change, but in floods. The moving picture rights to her latest novel, “Great Laughter,” brought $100,000.00, said to be the highest price ever paid for a story before publication. Her royalties from the sale of the book probably will run much more.

Briefly, you have a description of what PERSISTENCE is capable of achieving. Fannie Hurst is no exception. Wherever men and women accumulate great riches, you may be sure they first acquired PERSISTENCE. Broadway will give any beggar a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but it demands PERSISTENCE of those who go after the big stakes.

Kate Smith will say “amen” when she reads this. For years she sang, without money, and without price, before any microphone she could reach. Broadway said to her, “Come and get it, if you can take it.” She did take it until one happy day Broadway got tired and said, “Aw, what’s the use? You don’t know when you’re whipped, so name your price, and go to work in earnest.” Miss Smith named her price! It was plenty. Away up in figures so high that one week’s salary is far more than most people make in a whole year.

Verily it pays to be PERSISTENT!

And here is an encouraging statement which carries with it a suggestion of great significance— THOUSANDS OF SINGERS WHO EXCEL KATE SMITH ARE WALKING UP AND DOWN BROADWAY LOOKING FOR A “BREAK”— WITHOUT SUCCESS. Countless others have come and gone, many of them sang well enough, but they failed to make the grade because they lacked the courage to keep on keeping on, until Broadway became tired of turning them away.

In our time, as scientific and spiritual disciplines continue to unravel the mysteries of life and the universe, they meet more often and more fully somewhere in the middle – where we are both observer and observed, forever serving and served, actively creator and created.

Read more articles from Think Better and Grow Richer: The Science of Living the Life and Livelihood You Really Want Now.