Law of Success (21st Century Edition)

CONCENTRATION 755

In the time since Hill wrote his ringing endorsement of Man from Maine

there have been numerous such biographies and autobiographies that speak to

the importance of concentrated effort and to all of Hill's other principles as well.

As of the 1980s, and continuing into the twenty-first century, the business

biography bestseller has practically become its own publishing genre. So much

so that there are literally too many bestsellers from which to select a "best-of"

listing for inclusion here. Any such choice we would make would not necessarily

be the best, but merely reflective of the interests of the person doing the

choosing. There are bestselling books and audiobooks by and about the insiders

who run every industry from airlines, automobiles, cosmetics, computers,

department stores, hotels, Internet companies, movie studios, multinational

conglomerates, real estate empires, television networks, toy companies, sports

teams, and wineries, to whatever industries start with x, y, and z.

However, there are two books that the editors recommend which are not by

or about a single individual or industry. These books are In Search of Excellence

by Tom Peters and Breakthroughs! by P. R. Nayak and John M. Ketteringham.

Each of these books deals with a broad spectrum of industries, and within each

industry they single out certain companies and individuals for analysis.

Both were published at the beginning of the business-book trend in the

1980s, but there have been few books since then that better convey the

importance of the person focused on a good idea. In Search of Excellence,

recently chosen by a panel of experts as the most influential book of the past

twenty years, was a runaway bestseller and will likely be in print for years to

come. Breakthroughs! may be harder to find but it will be well worth the effort.

MEMORY TRAINING

We have seen what an important part environment and habit play in
connection with Concentration. We shall now discuss a third subject
related to Concentration, and that is memory.
The three principles through which an accurate and unfaltering
memory may be trained are few and comparatively simple: