Sometimes, in forging ahead with new ideas, you can forget the most important of old ideas.

In this impressive recording, Napoleon Hill gives an account of his first meeting with Andrew Carnegie. The meeting took place more than 100 years ago and it changed Napoleon Hill’s life. In my view, Andrew Carnegie’s suggestion that you can shape your own destiny by thinking in the right way is as radical and powerful now as it was then.

After recounting this meeting, Napolean Hill offers some deceptively simple and valuable advice:

1. Get a notebook
2. On the first page write a clear description of your main desire in life, your idea of success.
3. On the next page, write down what you will give in return for this success.
4. Memorize these and repeat each a dozen times a day.

There are many reasons why such simple advice has been so effective for countless people and has spawned a whole industry of self-help manuals; few with the wisdom and simplicity of Napoleon Hill.

It provides you with a purpose and commits you to that purpose. In ‘Think and Grow Rich’ he talks about the value of such commitment. If you burn all your other boats and backups, success is your only option. But which of us is prepared to take that route?

It recognizes that you must offer something in return for success. Perhaps this is something that was forgotten in the boom years, recently. What is of value in money market speculation? Hollow business ideas will not succeed in the long run.

And it suggests that success has less to do with your opportunity or education and more to do with your own imagination and determination. How badly we all need to hear this! And this must be all the more true in an Internet world where the start-up costs are low.

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