Hacker News Books

The mastermind concept is laid out in "Think and Grow Rich" which was published in the 1930s

Buddhism (and better living): Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Siddhartha (by Hermann Hesse), The Way of Zen (by Alan Watts - I learned a lot about meditation and satori).

Also: Think and Grow Rich (by Napoleon Hill, the original self-improvement book)

Reminds me of 'Think and Grow Rich' by Napoleon Hill.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Two books...

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

This reminds me of "Think and Grow Rich" - Best book ever written. I cant even remember how many times I have read it.

If I could I would purchase a million copies and give them away for free. It's that good.

1. Think and Grow Rich - by Napolean Hill

2. Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story - by Arnold Schwarzenegger

3. The Motivation Hacker - by Nick Winter.

Think and Grow Rich - by Napoleon Hill

-Zaid

I've read "Think and Grow Rich" 5+ times.. in print great book. I make sure to listen to an audio copy at least once every six months to keep it fresh in my mind.

imp -- Thanks for the insight. I really need to re-read Think and Grow Rich. Awesome link. Had no idea Bruce Lee did that.

Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" is great. I would also recommend Dr. Thomas Stanley's book "The Millionaire Next Door" to this list.

It's 2018, quit recommending Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, or anything by him for that matter. It's made up. Hill was a scam artist, among other things.

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon...

Sounds like a modern adaptation of Napolean Hill's book Think and Grow Rich. Everything is a product of a burning desire. When you having a burning desire for something, you find a way to make it happen. You....Do whatever it Takes.

Think and Grow Rich, old as it is, is still the best book on getting rich I've ever read.

very interesting.. Napoleon Hill once said that he came up with the title of his global best seller "Think and Grow Rich" while he was asleep.

Thanks for the recommendations! I'd already read Think and Grow Rich and The 4-Hour Workweek, the others are new to me.

Some of the best advice I've read in this thread so far. I'd recommend reading:

1. The Richest Man in Babylon

The $7.89 I spent on this book, which I read in a single night, is the best investment I ever made.

2. Think and Grow Rich

An older book, but there are some golden nuggets within.

People should read Think and Grow Rich before they read the secret.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It really opened my mind to so many fascinating mental constructs. I’ve probably read a half a dozen times and take something new from it each time I re-read it.

For 2013 & 2014 I used the questionnaire from Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich". It was interesting to see my responses from last year compared to this year. The list can be found here: http://www.stephenfrasier.com/blog/self-development/grow-ric...

If you want a book-length version of the same advice, read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, a curious depression-era classic: http://books.google.com/books?id=c86H36mgiM4C&lpg=PP1...

Exercise, and books. To name a few (in no particular order):

"Choose Yourself" by James Altucher
"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill
"Mindset" by Carol Dweck
"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie

If you're after a better book on this subject, save your time and read the classic "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill.

I tend to read "Think and Grow Rich" at least once a year!

Two classic books that you should read

1. Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill.
2. Sidhhartha by Herman Hesse.

Extra read

3. The millionaire Fast Lane by MJ Demarco.

And so many others...

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (bit of a beast, but well worth it).

Books Read:
Never Split the difference by Chris Voss (FLIPPING AMAZING! This book is so good I didn't want to share it here.)

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
(Fantastic Look into how we as humans work and how to deal with each other and ourselves)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
(Enjoyable and entertaining)

The Martian by Andy Weir
(The Audiobook of this was AMAZING! The book is still amazing especially for technical people)

The Hard thing about Hard things by Ben Horowitz
(I think it would be a great book for people who are already running companies.)

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
(It had some interesting parts. Wasn't a bad book, but also not crazy memorable)

Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud
(I found the advice for the christian dating relationship to be a honest eye opener. This book taught me a lot about myself.)

The Launch Pad by Randall Stross
(How I found Y Combinator and Hacker news. I really enjoy the startup community and love the fact that this introduced me to it)

The richest man in Babylon by George S Clason
(OMG EVERYONE SHOULD OWN THIS BOOK!!! It teaches you about handling money in one of the most entertaining ways I've ever read. It was crazy good and I reread it often.)

Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull

(Great read about the interesting problems solved and the fight for survival to one day bring about a worthy ideal)

The above. Also Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Thanks. Added to the list for the next Amazon purchase.

Somebody should do a meta-book on success/self-help literature. I guess it started with "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill? I dunno, but there's a boatload of it out there.

My top priority books:

    Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers

    Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny

    Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan

    Design Patterns - Gang of Four

    Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler

    Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler

    The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt

    CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl

    Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers

    Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates

    Code Complete - Steve McConnell

    Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco

    Clean Code - Robert C. Martin

    The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin

    Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin

    Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

    Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin

    The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer

The best books I've ever read:

    Principles - Ray Dalio

    The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

    The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker

    Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

    Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

    Influence - Robert B. Cialdini

    The Startup Way - Eric Ries

    The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

    12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson

    Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page

    The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen

    The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber

    The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh

    Management - Peter F. Drucker

    Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows

    Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

No doubt this book has been an inspiration to many (including myself), but what I find most fascinating about it is the author.

Here's a quote from the link below: "Napoleon Hill is the most famous conman you’ve probably never heard of. Born into poverty in rural Virginia at the end of the 19th century, Hill went on to write one of the most successful self-help books of the 20th century: Think and Grow Rich. In fact, he helped invent the genre. But it’s the untold story of Hill’s fraudulent business practices, tawdry sex life, and membership in a New York cult that makes him so fascinating..."

https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon...

Wanna change your mindset? Ill keep it simple to save us all time to START reading.

Read these 3 books, even if its just one chapter of each book in any order, but READ them!

They will change your mind more than any money ever can.

·THINK AND GROW RICH - Napoleon Hill
· GRIT - Angela Duckworth
· THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE - Rick Warren

I totally disagree with the premise of this article, unless I don't get the authors definition of "self help book"

> there is an entire book industry that is focused on the premise that you are merely one good idea away from the future

Many famous people started out with one good idea

> The entire business-focused self-help industry is built on the fallacy that successful people read a lot of books

Many famous successful people promote the face that they read a lot of books, such as Bill Gates and Barack Obama. It's not a fallacy.

There's a lot of junk self help books to wade through, but I have found some jewels among the trash and by jewels I mean they were just right for the situation and age I was at.

Edit: I put together a list off the top of my head of self help books I found useful (again, at the age I was at)

I'm OK – You're OK, guide to transactional analysis by Thomas Harris

Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne

Trances We Live by Stephen Wolinsky

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Zen and the Art of Leadership by Thomas Cleary

I am not much into fiction, my gift depends on the kind of person I gift to, few books I most of the time prefer gifting,

1. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, for those spiritual minds. I am a huge fan of this book, I am traveling this week to Dharamshala to learn about Buddhism after reading this book.

2.Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, for those aspiring young minds.

3. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, for my adventure loving friends. I had an intense desire to see Mt.Everest after reading this book, I traveled to Everest base camp.

4. Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, for everyone, I don't remember how many I have gifted.

5. Imitation of Christ, I have gifted it, but haven't read it myself. It's in my list.

6. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

I posted this a few weeks ago, it didn't get much traction but was an excellent read if you have been exposed to "Power of Positive Thinking" or it's spiritual predecessor "Think and Grow Rich".

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon-...

Always kind of figured the authors were hucksters (not to discount whatever valuable insight they might actually have).
The article somewhat confirmed my suspicion.

Hey, confidence is a broad topic made up of a lot of skills, habits and forces. Think of it as an ecosystem of parts... To speak simply, it comes and goes. Like waves. No one is 100% confident all the time. You're 'secure' around people you hang out with because you're comfortable around them the same with the area you focus on. That's not confidence. Confidence is elusive and reacts well with the unknown. You cannot play safe with confidence. You have to go outside the barriers and push limits further than you can imagine. No one can guarantee confidence, but you, its a road of bumps and bruises. Hit the gym, work on your appearance, take daily risks and expand your knowledge, you'll feel better about yourself to harness the power and responsibility that comes with confidence. Which most don't. Most people fake it to make it. This doesn't work. It's like building a robust program. Strong code, strong functionality, Great User Interface. You got a hit. Fight for something in your life. That's a huge one, that's where passion lives.
Check out a book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Those are the 13 skills to master to become confident. Real World Experience that you can use immediately. Books on Leadership is another great resource.

I second both "Richest Man in Babylon" and "Think and Grow Rich." Both were recommended to me by a very successful VC that attributed much of his success to those books. Both are very good. "Babylon" covers many principles of wealth while "Think" is more about the psychology, so they complement each other well.

My five year old is a voracious reader. I feel like this is one of the most important educational tools you can give anyone. We stress to her that if you can read, and comprehend, there's nothing you cannot learn. That's why I included the first two on this list.

How to Read a Book - Mortimer Adler

How to Read Slowly - James Sire

The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham

Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

I'll add to my Amazon cart. Currently reading: "Reinventing Your Life" and rereading "Think and Grow Rich" for the dozenth time.

I like to be the dumbest person in the room, I force myself into situations where my ego is starved so I can grow from the inside and learn at a deeper level. I'm currently learning Framer and React hoping to reapply to YC in the fall, I got rejected for Summer 2017.

Thanks a lot, this thread is something I'll refer to a lot. I want to respond to every reply but I just can't because of 'you're commenting too fast. slow down!' You're right about HN being the most helpful place for me. It's amazing how supportive this community is to anyone who is sincere.

I recommend these books, in this order:

Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill (this is timeless!! MUST READ)

The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman (this will give you a well-rounded education on business, if I had this before college I wouldn't have been a Business Management major!!)

The First 20 Hours - Josh Kaufman (rapid skill acquisition)

The 4-Hour Workweek - Tim Ferriss (how to break down complex stuff into the most essential parts, and win)

Tools of Titans - Tim Ferriss (stand on the shoulders of giants and see how other prominent folks are successful)

thx for reading. For me, learning about goals all started with a talk at work. This pretty amazing guy, Tommy Romero, taught a small goals class at work and started off by saying that <1% of people set goals. Then he talked about how 87% of US companies fail in the first 2 years, 50%+ of marriages fail, and a bunch of other daunting facts which helped build the case that maybe we should plan better.

Other resources:
• The Art of Exceptional Living, by Jim Rohn (https://www.amazon.com/Art-Exceptional-Living-Jim-Rohn/dp/07...)
• Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill (https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-Bestseller/d...)
• Research on how to set SMART goals, e.g. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_90.htm

Hope this helps.

I've avoided "Think and Grow Rich" for a long time due to the title and premise of the book. I picked it up a few weeks ago and really like it.

Heck, I think if I read it 10 years ago I wouldn't even have the emotional maturity to appreciate it. There's a beauty to some of these books --- some of the ideas seem obvious and can easily be written off until you have the emotional wherewithal and maturity to appreciate the difficulty of what they are suggesting.

"Think and Grow Rich" is a good example. What do you mean... I just have to write a vision for myself that I believe I can achieve, and read it twice a day? Sounds stupid.

... and then you realize how difficult it is for people to truly come up with a vision statement for their success that they legitimately believe they can achieve within a specific time frame... And that doing this correctly is the hard part.

Brilliant.

1. Think and grow rich: Thought me about goal setting, opened my eyes to the fact that a man can rise from his humble beginnings to any height he want's to attain if he is willing to work for it.

2. PHP for dummies: My first exposure to the world of programming, since then I've never looked back.

3. Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Changed my thinking about finance, I don't know how I would have handled my finances if I hadn't come across this book as a teenager, I feel so lucky to have read this book. I would have been stuck in society's harmful way of handling finance.

"The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change."

- Well said. I have read my share of business books, and wish I had stuck to this philosophy. I have begun to take a lot of notes on index cards, and attempted to apply at least one principle from each book that I read (think of it as "Deliberate Practice" [http://tinyurl.com/6da4ey]).

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of bad books out there, so its hard to know whether you are wasting your time with a bad book, or wasting your time because it happens to be a really good book but you don't happen to do anything with it. The problem that I face is separating the wheat from the chaff - most business books that hit the bestsellers normally have a huge marketing engine behind them, which does not necessarily make them great books. On the other hand, books like "Think and Grow Rich" which you can pick up at Half Price Books for $3 is something I read every year (once).

On a side note - "Programmers get amazing value because for $30 they are presented with everything they need to program a certain tool." I disagree. A lot of programming books I have read just don't cut it and provide little or no value. Mainly because a lot of authors are playing catch up with the latest and greatest technologies and invariably the book is rushed to the printers just so that they are not a version or two behind. The ones that provide real value are the ones that have proven to be timeless (SICP, PAIP which I am yet to read).

Some Iconic Business Books I loved and are Worth Reading IMHO.

Use Your Noodle and Get The Boodle (aka Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill - that was his proposed but rejected title),
Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini,
Be My Guest - Conrad Hilton Autobiography,
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography,
The Success System That Never Fails - W. Clement Stone,
Winning Through Intimidation - Robert Ringer,
Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins,
The Ultimate Marketing Plan - Dan Kennedy,
How to Win Friends and influence People - Dale Carnegie,
The Psychology of Intelligence - CIA Manual - Richard Heuer https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... ,

There are literally thousands of books worth reading, but the above are the ones I found to be the most enlightening.

tl;dr is in the one-to-last paragraph:

“A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.” In 1937, a self-help pundit named Napoleon Hill included that phrase in his very popular book Think and Grow Rich. Hill was inspired in part by the rags-to-riches industrialist Andrew Carnegie. These days the phrase is often attributed to Vince Lombardi, the legendarily tough football coach. What a lineage! And it does make a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Of course it takes tremendous amounts of time and effort and, for lack of a more scientific word, stick-to-itiveness, to make any real progress in the world. But time and effort and even stick-to-itiveness are not in infinite supply. Remember the opportunity cost: every hour, every ounce of effort you spend here cannot be spent there. So let me counter Napoleon Hill’s phrase with another one, certainly not as well known. It’s something that Stella Adler, the great acting coach, used to say: Your choice is your talent. So choosing the right path, the right project, the right job or passion or religion — that’s where the treasure lies; that’s where the value lies. So if you realize that you’ve made a wrong choice — even if already you’ve sunk way too much cost into it — well, I’ve got one word to say to you, my friend. Quit.

I love the whole self-help genre. I love anything that helps people to think more positively. For many people, that's half the battle.

I just don't think that hackers are affected nearly as much as others. Do affirmations, examine past lives, move your body, make lists, think good thoughts, everything will be alright, etc., etc., etc. All good stuff.

The problem is that it's just too easy to get caught up "doing all that good stuff" that you lose focus from your project.

OK, I'll compromise a little. Read HTWF and Think and Grow Rich. Then get back to work.

I once co-authored a book called Beyond Blogging that my co-author and I took great pride in writing. It was the first book I'd ever written, and we wanted it to be the "Think and Grow Rich" for bloggers. We put a lot of time into writing it, and felt it was a great product.

We opted to do what Nathan did and sold it for $30-$50 for a PDF. I can't remember the cost exactly.

We took a lot of heat for the price, but it did do well, and people still buy it and email me about it, many years later. We've since quit selling the PDF and posted it on Amazon and BN via Createspace, but at the time, the cost of producing a nice looking and readable PDF was not cheap. Launching was hard, as was keeping up with support.

While I don't regret our decision to price high and launch PDF only, as we needed something meaty to get launch partners involved, I often wonder what would have happened if we took a long view and opted for a book proposal and/or gone to print first, at a reasonable price of say $9.99 or $14.99.

It's my thought that we'd be selling more today than we currently are, would probably have a 2nd or 3rd version, and might have received a follow-on book deal to write a follow-up volume.

Instead, I have a book that once made me some decent cash, but isn't really part of my average day's business plan.

It feels like a waste.

Moral of the story is:

If you want to make a ton of quick cash, this pricing model will work, and you'll be happy as people laud you for the strategy (which really isn't new) and the amount of money you made. But I don't think it's a good long-term strategy, and I don't think it helps you build authority of any lasting kind.

There is a reason there is no Knowledge base of psychological tactics in social apps or otherwise. It's because those that really understand people and these tactics appreciate how valuable it really is and more importantly know how to make you want to throw gobs of money at them for this information!!!

Here is what I can tell you without getting in trouble.
People take action because of emotional reasons, and justify that decision with logic and "objective" reasons to defend their decision to others.

Every single thing you want your users to do is causing them pain. They do not want to click... Before they do even the simplest thing possible, they will rack their brain for excuses to not do it and avoid the pain you created for them.
Your job is to make it MORE PAINFUL NOT TO TAKE ACTION!!!

There are two ways to do this. (you should do both)
1. Make the process as painless as possible.
2. remind them and aggravate the pain that led them to your app in the first place.

Make sure your messaging not only hits on the emotional triggers at play and focuses on the benefits, not the features... (People buy the hole, not the drill)
but more importantly gives them the tools to defend their action to their friends and everyone else who they need to defend the decision to.
------------

You should read Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich," if you read it carefully, you will see it is literally a bible of understanding human nature and the world, etc...

Here is a slightly relevant excerpt and list from the book, "The 10 Mind Stimuli. The stimuli to which the mind responds most freely are:

1. The Desire For Sex Expression
2. Love
3. A Burning Desire for fame, power, financial gain, money...
4. Music
5. Friendship between either those of the same sex or those of the opposite sex.
6. A Master Mind Alliance based upon the harmony of two or more people who ally themselves for spiritual or temporal advancement.
7. Mutual Suffering, such as that experienced by people who are persecuted.
8. Autosuggestion
9. Fear
10. Narcotics and Alcohol.

I hope this helps... Good Luck!

To paraphrase you are asking what should people who are not achieving their goals do?

I have read that the meaning of life is love and freedom and doing what you enjoy. What that means is different for everyone, but you have to ask yourself what that means to you. If that means have millions of dollars in just a few years, great. Read "think and grow rich" to see who you need to become. Otherwise don't waste you time following what others think success looks like.

Important edit: I recommend buying books if you can afford it. Many reasons for this. One, it's fun to receive packages in the mail. I get a rush every time I rip a package open. Two, it's good for the ego. It helps you keep perspective on how much you've been reading. Three, you can underline the books as you read them, this can be VERY helpful. Unfortunately I do not recommend loaning books to friends, you will never get them back.

Awesome! You can start by reading 1 book a week, which is an aggressive but doable goal. To some it may not sound like much but if you have not been making a habit of reading regularly, it will take you a while to get back into it. In a year you will have read 52 books. I am of the belief that compound interest is most effective when you have staggering sums of money. It is second most effective when it comes to knowledge.

Amazon will sell you books for cheap, but there are many business classics that will probably be available at the local library. I bet your local library will at least have one of these seven books:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

{anything} by Seth Godin

Positioning by Al Ries

Getting Things Done by David Allen

21 Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

Think and Grow Rich is an amazing book.

You should read the book itself, it's not long, but the premise of the book is basically that most wealthy people got wealthy the same way:
1. Making a through, detailed plan on how they will get rich.
2. Doggedly and relentlessly following that plan with incredible perseverance and not giving up.

It's simple. but if you think about it, it could change your life.

Personally, I don't feel bad for these people at all. It's not the economy, it's mindset. Some people have an entrepreneur mentality, and some people have a victim mentality.
If I sat around all day drinking beer and buying lottery tickets, I would probably be in the same place he is. Instead, I'm going to spend the next 12 hours setting up advertising campaigns with the expectation that 90% of them will fail. I will continue working until I hit that 10% that will succeed, which enables me to live comfortably and earn more than I could at a day job running my own business.

My point is that the bad economy often makes an all to convenient scapegoat for some people. Living paycheck to paycheck is not a good financial strategy regardless of economy.

You should really read Napolean Hill's "Think and Grow Rich." Your comment was written by him in the 1920's.

He discusses how there are two types of creativity, one comes from applying your knowledge and experiences to other situations, and the other comes from what he calls, "infinite knowledge" that is floating out there and can be tapped into under the right circumstances.

Its not that self-help books are bullshit, its that most people don't have the willpower to actually change their lifestyles. They're afraid of stepping outside of their comfort zone, because they're afraid of failing, being criticized, working hard, etc. The excuses vary. Self-help books possess a lot of great knowledge, but if people actually followed the advice they read, every self-help writer would be out of a job. I once read through a few books but never took initiative to change anything in my life. Then I stumbled upon "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, and it was so effective at changing my attitude that I've never bothered to read any more self-help books or blogs afterwards.

Yes. The book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill does exactly this. It's an oldie but goodie.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Napoleon-Hill/dp/04492...

It's how Bruce Lee set his goal:

I, Bruce Lee, will be the first highest paid Oriental Super Star in the United States. In return I will give exciting performances and render the best of quality in the capacity of an actor. Starting 1970 I will achieve world fame and from then onward till the end of 1980 I will have in my possession $10,000,000. I will live the way I please and achieve inner harmony and happiness.

Bruce Lee

January 1969

On my personal bookshelf, next to my Bible, are:

Sun Tzu's "Art of War" - a fundamental philosophical work for life management

Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" - well-known, enough said.

Felix Dennis' "How to Get Rich" - the best book that I have ever read about how the world really works

Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" - a timeless classic.

I'm in the same boat. I have always loved and tried to make startups work. I read all the books and all that jazz. I took a giant leap of faith and failed. Slowly but surely I have started to get my life in order again. I have tried sucide before and failed. After that I have refused to try again. I see that as the easy way.

Now I'm starting to get my hopes back up and there are people around me that believe in me. I would highly recommend reading "think and grow rich". Ever heard of the book "the secret"? They ripped off that book.

I often find myself too making new friends only to not keep them after a year or so. Sometimes less. That's part of life.

Find something you like to do and obsess over it. That's what I'm doing now.

Also you will always need balance in your life and the focus and motivation will come.

Again, if you haven't read think and grow, read it and follow the instructions outlined within that book. If you have read it, read the damn thing again.

Think and Grow Rich is a classic and I'd also recommend reading it. But it's less about Confidence and more centrally about Drive. What makes this a good recommendation though is that Drive, in my experience, renders Confidence essentially moot. If you're sufficiently driven, you won't let low confidence or low self-esteem get in the way of getting what you want/winning. But that said, Drive doesn't help you be more successful/participatory in a team meeting.

I have no idea what I read, maybe Flow, maybe Think and Grow Rich, that mentioned when you're in tune with a presenter/speaker, you'll often find yourself finishing their thoughts. I used to subscribe to that HEAVILY and constantly look for it. But over time, I find when I'm making a point and taking my time to ensure that what I am saying is clear and no extra parsing language is needed, I do not need, or want, a person audibly trying to be engaged. Especially when they're wrong. It actually isnt that big of a deal, we just all have our thing

There have been so many insightful comments that are worth considering. For inspiration, take a look at Richard Branson. Despite having a poor academic record and having dropped out of HS, he figured out how to sell stuff that people wanted. I'd also suggest reading "Think and Grow Rich." It's an old book (1937); it's out of copyright, so you can find it free online. If you can get past the older English, you'll find that many people have been in your shoes and they've made remarkable contributions with their lives. You might also want to check out Ryan Blair. He turned his life around to the point where he could write the book, "Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain."

The only depressing thing is how the family is handling their situation:

"Scott and Kelly spend much of their time watching TV, or playing games on their cellphones since they lost their jobs. Every day has become a slow-motion version of the one before, sitting around the house, each in the same spot, Kelly in the recliner, and Scott on the couch. Scott has gained 40 pounds since his last day on the job... On Monday, Scott picks up his and Kelly's unemployment benefits. After paying some bills, he sometimes goes to the Winners Circle bar, the tan building reflected in the glass, where he recently won $100 in a NASCAR betting pool."

Something tells me that is probably not the best approach. I have written to the reporter for their address so I can send a copy of Napolean Hill's Think and Grow Rich. A single passage from the book lifted me from a deep depression while stuck penniless in Japan to creating and surpassing my most cherished goals.

The Law of Success by Napolean Hill
Reasons Why:
- I learned that every thought you have is a vibration, every vibration you send out can be picked up by others.
- It breaks down alot of skills for success and how to develop them in a practical way
-If you have read Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill this is a basically a better/more in depth version.