Think and Grow Rich

The word Persistence springs to mind when thinking about this book - a call to arms to the American public not to give up after the devastating Wall Street crash in 1929 and ensuing 1930s depression leading up to WWII.

It's a self-help book and a business statement to view that period as an opportunity rather than a time for financial despair, but it also feels dated and rather out of touch with modern society.

As entertainment goes this isn't a great read.

What it does well is emphasize the main reasons for failure and what we can do about them:

1. Lack of self-discipline and self-mastery.

2. Lack of control over unproductive desires and urges.

3. Too much procrastination.

4. Lack of persistence (failure cannot compete with persistence).

5. A negative outlook.

That pretty much checks all the boxes for me and explains why I'm not a billionaire with a fleet of executive cars and a queue of nubile ladies waiting at the door.

It's one thing to concisely list the basics of what you should and shouldn't being doing each day if you want success - go to bed on time, etc. - and another thing to actually implement those things, like reading an extensive list of new year's resolutions and religiously sticking to them, but this a positive book with a lot of good tips in it and I view it as a companion to How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie's, just not as instructive, friendly and practical.

I personally believe you can't change the fundamentals of your basic personality, and if you live in a self-induced dystopia it's probably because you're already comfortable there, and no amount of fist-pumping or positivity can change what or who you are, but it does help!

This is a valid read and has been really helpful in certain aspects of my life, such as dumping the grinding of video games for reasons that I thought were important to me at the time.

Over time YOU CAN learn to focus and concentrate your energies on what's beneficial to you at a social and psychological level, perhaps even financially if you're really persistent and determined, which is the point of this book.