Look into the habits of the successful and you will find that they are usually great readers. Many of the leaders and authors profiled in my recent book 50 Success Classics, for example, attribute the turning point in their lives to picking up a particular book that inspired them. So what are the all-time classics in the success literature that we keep going back to for guidance on how to lead a better life, get motivated, become a leader, or achieve prosperity?

 
One of the very early handbooks of success was Baltasar Gracian's The Art of Worldly Wisdom, written in 1647. Gracian was a Jesuit priest whose collection of acute observations about the nature of people and success is difficult to put down and very relevant for contemporary life. Neither should we forget Sun Tzu's ancient The Art of War, which despite its title, is actually a superb guide to managing conflict and winning by being aware of the way things are moving.

 
The modern success movement, though, is really an American phenomenon; two of the towering figures in the19th century were Horatio Alger and Orison Swett Marden. Alger wrote over 100 entertaining and instructional stories of poor-boys-made-good, mostly set in New York City. His most well known work, Ragged Dick (1867), is the inspiring story of a shoeshine boy moving up in the world through determination. Marden was a businessman who founded Success magazine. His Pushing to the Front (1894) was an encyclopaedic exploration of success based on the lives of great people.

 
Another great example of older success writing is the 1920s works of Florence Shovel Shinn (e.g. The Secret Door to Success). These authors raised the sights of millions of people over several generations and are extraordinary in the way they provide peace of mind in times of challenge. It is surprising how inspiring they still are.

 
After World War II, people naturally turned their thoughts to prosperity and 'getting ahead'. Millions of people had not had the opportunity of advanced education and had to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. They were inspired by titles such as Frank Better 's How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling (1947), which with its timeless principles of selling is still widely read today. Published a year later, Claude Bristol's idiosyncratic The Magic of Believing has also had amazing staying power. But perhaps the greatest success book of the post-war period, although not published until 1959, was Schwartz's The Magic of Thinking Big. Its references are mostly to suburban-corporate life in 1960s America, but its universal theme that 'the size of your success is measured by the size of your belief' quickly made it one of the landmarks in the motivational field.

 
Prosperity and wealth titles have always been an important part of success literature.

 

Benjamin Franklin knew the power of money to motivate back in 1758 when The Way to Wealth was first published in one of his almanacs. With a strong Puritan influence, it preached thrift, hard work, and the idea that 'time is money'.

 
A more spiritual approach to financial success is expressed in the writings of Wallace Wattles and Catherine Ponder who picture the world as an essentially abundant place that rewards those who appreciate the fact. This link between attunement with the infinite and wealth is also found in Napoleon Hill's 1936 Think and Grow Rich, arguably the greatest success manual ever published. The product of twenty years of research and a condensation of the monumental Law of Success, this book was first published in Depression-era America yet its focus on fabulous wealth continues to inspire today's entrepreneur.

 
More recently, Thomas Stanley's The Millionaire Mind has provided a fascinating look into the habits and attitudes of hundreds of wealthy individuals, most of who are self-made. There is Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which points out that the difference between being rich and poor is often a matter of developing a financial intelligence.

 

In the 1970s and 1980s success became its own industry, driven by seminars and bestsellers. Anthony Robbins's first bestseller, Unlimited Power , borrowed from the emerging science of neuro-linguistic programming and Robbins remains the most well known of present day motivational gurus. Other figures such as Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Og Mandino, Tom Hopkins, Denis Waitley and Brian Tracy also became pillars of the motivational profession. In the 1990s, it was given a new gravitas when Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People became a bestseller. And Chin-ning Chu's Thick Face, Black Heart : The Warrior Philosphy For Conquering The Challenges of Business And Life (1992) became a welcome alternative to the familiar diet of Western success wisdom as it shook up the conventional Western thinking on how to achieve.

 
Anthony Robbins has observed that '"success leaves clues", and there are few better ways to pick up on these clues than reading about highly successful people: the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, whose industrial achievements were surpassed only by his massive endowment of libraries, universities and peace organizations; and Henry Ford's My Life and Work, which puts you inside the mind of a man who changed the way we lived. The self-told stories of modern business legends such as Sam Walton, Michael Dell and Jack Welch provide inspiration for anyone wanting to start out on their own. And the life stories of great political figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and Eleanor Roosevelt show how each of them overcame great obstacles to leave the world with lasting positive achievements. All of these people thought big and clearly demonstrate that what we achieve is limited only by our own thinking. They saw opportunities and had the courage of their convictions.

 
Curiosity and the capacity to learn are vital for achievement, thus the saying "leaders are readers." The person who seeks growth, Dale Carnegie said, "must soak and tan his mind constantly in the vats of literature." Start reading the classic works of success and you cannot help but begin to emanate the successful.

 
Tom Butler-Bowdon (www.butler-bowdon.com) is the author of 50 Success Classics: Winning Wisdom for Work and Life from 50 Landmark Books and 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life, From Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus

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