764 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION
having discovered the strength that lies dormant in their own minds.
Now and then something happens that awakens a person and causes
them to discover where their real strength lies and how to use it in
the development of industry or one of the professions. Result: a genius
is born!
There is a given point at which the human mind stops rising
or exploring unless something out of the daily routine happens to
"push" it over this obstacle. The individual who discovers a way to
stimulate his or her mind artificially, to cause it to go beyond this
average stopping point frequently, is sure to be rewarded with fame
and fortune if their efforts are of a constructive nature.
COMMENTARY
Hill's own mind never did reach its stopping point, although he found it taking an
unexpected direction at the same time he reached what he'd intended would
be semiretirement.
W Clement Stone had been a devotee of Napoleon Hill's philosophies since
he first read Think and Grow Rich in 1938. The owner of an insurance company
selling one-dollar travel policies, Stone had purchased many thousands of copies
of the book, making it required reading for each of his thousands of salespeople.
In 1952 Stone's friend and dentist, Dr. Herb Gustafson, had recommended
Napoleon Hill as speaker for a dental convention in Chicago. It was to have been
one of Hill's last public engagements, and Gustafson invited Stone to attend.
When they met, Stone told Hill of the numerous copies he had bought of
Think and Grow Rich and said that he attributed his success and great wealth to
that book. In A Lifetime of Riches, author Michael Riff says that to Hill it "was
an endorsement of his life's work, and it came from a man who was more than
accomplished-Stone was, in Hill's eyes, an empire builder cut from the same
mold as the giants of early twentieth-century American industry whose philo-
sophies had provided the basis for Hill's principles of success. "
W Clement Stone's primary goals were to increase his business from
a thirty-two-million-dollar enterprise to one hundred million and, personally, to