Admittedly, I’ve been scanning the jobs boards.  I came across a job posting stating something typical like “xyz company seeking abc candidate to perform 123″.  Then the last statement was simply this- “Do not apply if you don’t know who Napoleon Hill is!”  How intriguing.
Nowadays most people don’t have time for books but this extraordinary hiring manager has not only read significant books but has chosen not to even consider an applicant who doesn’t know about a particular author.  In fact, perhaps the reader of this blog does not know who Napoleon Hill is.  Well first he’s an author. An inspirational author of a best selling book of all time, Think and Grow Rich (1937).  Wikipedia has this to say about him:

Hill’s works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933-36. “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve” is one of Hill’s hallmark expressions.  Hill discovered that Andrew Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Andrew Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.  As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and Jennings Randolph.

Are you impressed with him yet?  I have referenced this book in a previous post and  am still currently in the middle of it.  I have recently become one of those people who allows life to interfere with the real life.  But I am on a better path now and will commit to finishing Think and Grow Rich and soon post my overview.

My new path includes finding a new home outside the city. So there I was sitting in an office, scanning the walls and I read a certificate of course completion for a Dale Carnegie seminar on the wall of my mortgage broker.  I commented on the certificate and he shared with me that this 12 week course changed his life.  Perhaps you are also unfamiliar with Dale Carnegie.  He wrote the popular book  How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936).  I related to him the same as I have above about the Napoleon Hill job post.  And as a matter of fact he had that book on his shelf as well. Which really brings me to the point of writing this post.

After connecting these two experiences, I believe there are certain books that should just be on the required reading list for life.  So here are my favorite personal development and life changer authors and their popular publications.

  • Napoleon Hill- Think and Grow Rich
  • Dale Carnegie- How to Win Friends and Influence People
  • Stephen Covey- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
  • Spencer Johnson- Who Moved My Cheese?
  • Thomas Stanley-The Millionaire Next Door
  • Charles Coonradt-The Game of Work
  • Jim Collins-Good to Great