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Speaker 1: What's murdering my chickens. I'm Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bassards,

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Speaker 1: the show where we tell you everything you don't know

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Speaker 1: about the worst people in all of history. And I

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Speaker 1: was just talking about Zanku Chicken in Los Angeles, which

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Speaker 1: has a dark past, with our guest today, a comedian

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Speaker 1: and director, the Los Angeles based Sarah June. Hello, thank

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Speaker 1: you for having me. Thank you for not attack Amy

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Speaker 1: over that pretty bad introduction. That's not one of my

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Speaker 1: best ones, have you. Oh yeah, that's nice to hear. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know you're not the worst. Is that good? That's

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Speaker 1: my thing? Yeah, that's my goal. This is leaving dark podcast,

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Speaker 1: so I feel like I can be very gray with

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Speaker 1: my compliments. Hey, that wasn't terrible. You're not the worst? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean as a person, that's always my goal when

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Speaker 1: I like leave a social interaction is that everyone agree, well,

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Speaker 1: that's not the worst person. Yeah ever talk to Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so hey, man, shoot for the moon even if you miss. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: hopefully people won't hate you and talk about how much

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Speaker 1: they hate you right after you leave. That's definitely not

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Speaker 1: happening because no one does that. To Neil Armstrong, who

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Speaker 1: did shoot for the Moon. I don't know that guy

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Speaker 1: did a lot of bad stuff. I think Neil Armstrong.

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Speaker 1: Uh no, I'm thinking of buzz Alder. Okay, let's just

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Speaker 1: leave that at that. I'll just I'll tease that about

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Speaker 1: I'll tease that about Neil Armstrong. Time's up, Neil Armstrong,

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Speaker 1: no further comment. Yeah, yeah, we will slander an astronaut

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Speaker 1: and then just move right on without explaining it. I

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Speaker 1: like this idea. Yeah, beautiful, perfect, that's right, you're on blast.

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Speaker 1: I had a friend talk to me like a year ago.

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm going to put you on

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Speaker 1: a show with this guy. And he's like, oh, that

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Speaker 1: guy And I was like, yeah, what's up with him?

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Speaker 1: He's like, oh, that guy sucks. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, what are you talking about. Who did

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Speaker 1: he hurt? And he was like no, I just mean

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Speaker 1: like he's like really awkward and not funny. I was like,

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Speaker 1: you can't in this environment, you can't just say oh,

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Speaker 1: that guy sucks and expect me to not assume that

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Speaker 1: means he raped one of your friends. Yeah. I had this,

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Speaker 1: not this specific. When somebody's just annoying, just be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that guy's really annoying. Don't be like, oh, that guy sucks,

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Speaker 1: because I think it's something much worse. Yeah. I had

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Speaker 1: a year's long running joke about hating Will Wheaton and

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Speaker 1: would make cryptic comments about how terrible he is and

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Speaker 1: the awful things he's done. And it was just like

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Speaker 1: a joke because he just seemed like the most harmless,

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Speaker 1: possible like person to make fun of. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: but then times being like, what do you know about

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Speaker 1: Will Wheaton? Did he attack somebody? I was like, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: this is not I didn't want to. Yeah, you can't

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Speaker 1: do that anymore. Yeah, but then he wound up kind

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Speaker 1: of defending a guy who did do a bunch of

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Speaker 1: fucked up shits. So there you go along. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: a hero. Is he speaking of heroes? No, we are

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Speaker 1: talking about a fella named Napoleon Hill. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard of Napoleon Hill? No? Have you ever heard of

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Speaker 1: a book called Think and Grow Rich? Oh? Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there we go. Everybody's seen. Everybody listening to this. If

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Speaker 1: you don't have a copy of the book, you have

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Speaker 1: a friend er family member who has this somewhere on

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Speaker 1: their bookshelf. It's like secret. Yeah, it's very very much

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Speaker 1: proto this secret. This is my problem with Mary and

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Speaker 1: Williamson is like she's funny and all, and she talks

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Speaker 1: about governing with love and all. But then like I

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Speaker 1: read her book and it's kind of thinking grow rich. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's what part of why I want to talk

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Speaker 1: about thinking Grow Rich today because Napoleon Hills sort of

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Speaker 1: founded the the He wasn't like the first self help author.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't like the first business advice author, but he

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Speaker 1: was the first guy to kind of, in a modern sense,

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Speaker 1: do this sort of quasi almost spiritual approach to like

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Speaker 1: business and personal like life advice, where like you're mixing

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Speaker 1: in success advice on like how to run a company

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Speaker 1: with like weird metaphysical theories. Like he was the guy

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Speaker 1: who invented that. Yeah yeah, yeah. He was the one

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Speaker 1: who brought you know, the the idea of the law

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Speaker 1: of attraction to Wall Street. Yeah yeah, and yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the guy that we're talking about today. But before we

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Speaker 1: get into him in his life, I want to talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the New Thought movement. Now, whether

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Speaker 1: or not you've heard of it, the New Thought movement

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Speaker 1: has had a big impact on your world. The central

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Speaker 1: idea of the movement was that your thoughts and your

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Speaker 1: affirmations can materially alter the nature of reality. That's megic.

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Speaker 1: It's magic. It's magic, but it's magic for people who

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Speaker 1: like who want like, yeah, because they're Christian or whatever,

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Speaker 1: they just like, don't they see weird? Yeah, or they're

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Speaker 1: atheists and they want to like come up with a

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Speaker 1: scientific justification, Like new Thought contains multitudes. There's Christian chunks

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Speaker 1: of it, there's atheists chunks of it. The secret you

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Speaker 1: can Christian chunks are trying so hard. The Christian chunks

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Speaker 1: are trying so hard to not be considered witchcraft. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty funny. Yeah, I I I. One of my favorite

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Speaker 1: things is like people who are like hardcore fundamentalist Christian

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Speaker 1: and hate witchcraft but also talk the same way that

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Speaker 1: my friends who are into Alister Crowley do about certain things.

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Speaker 1: Like Alex Jones was just talking about on info Wars

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Speaker 1: how Donald Trump's fourth of July speech was a ritual

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Speaker 1: ritual magic. But he said he like he had to

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Speaker 1: emphasize it's Christian ritual magic. But like he's still talking

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Speaker 1: about like it's just so baddy, but this is this

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Speaker 1: is this is less baddie than that, which is the

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Speaker 1: point of it is that it's supposed to be. They're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be arguing that like this isn't magic. This

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Speaker 1: is just like like part of how the physical world works, right,

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Speaker 1: it's but create reality magic for sad nerds. So the

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Speaker 1: Secret would be one example of a modern day descendant

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Speaker 1: of then Thought movement that's sort of on the more secular,

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Speaker 1: not necessarily atheistic, but certainly secular Oprah side of things.

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Speaker 1: The Secrets meant for anybody. Yes, Now, Prosperity Gospel Christianity

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Speaker 1: would be in another descendant of the New Thought movie Wow,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite things in the world. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like it's absolutely abhorrent if you haven't lived in the

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Speaker 1: Deep South or watched that one John Oliver special. Prosperity

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Speaker 1: Gospel Christians are the folks who essentially will like get

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Speaker 1: on their TV stations and beg little old ladies to

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Speaker 1: take on credit card debt in order to make thousands

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Speaker 1: dollar of dollars in donations to their church. Then they'll

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Speaker 1: use those donations to buy like fancy private jets and

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Speaker 1: mansions and stuff. And the claim that they make to

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Speaker 1: these people they're fleecing out of money. Is that God

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Speaker 1: needs them to show their faith by making a seed

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Speaker 1: donation that will magically cause God to bless them with

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Speaker 1: even more money. So the prosperity gospel is another descendant

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Speaker 1: of the New Thought movement, and by it's more widespread

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Speaker 1: than you'd guess. By some count seventeen percent. You're just selling,

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Speaker 1: selling God's love. You're like, you got to invest in

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Speaker 1: godspel right now, this is gonna climb, trust me, babe.

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Speaker 1: This is going to sky rocket. You're going to be

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Speaker 1: rolling in money and it's clean because it's all from God.

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Speaker 1: Because it's all from God. Baby. Yeah. The term that

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Speaker 1: they use a lot is prove God with your donation,

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Speaker 1: which is like, seems like it should be blasphemous. Yeah. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm not a Christian, but that seems blasphemous

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Speaker 1: to me. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in the

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Speaker 1: Bible about money, and most of the stuff that Jesus

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Speaker 1: said is kind of contrary to a lot of the

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Speaker 1: other stuff, which is a lot of like rules about

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Speaker 1: debt and borrowing and you know what's allowed and not

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Speaker 1: allowed and what you have to do to your debt. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that interest is an abomination. Yeah, yeah, I remember him

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Speaker 1: beating the shit out of bankers. Yeah, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of that. I remember. If I'm not mistaken, that's the

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Speaker 1: only time Jesus beats somebody with a whisp. It was

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Speaker 1: real pissed. Yeah. Anyway, So, but the prosperity Gospel Christianity

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Speaker 1: is and very ripe for parody, but it's also really popular,

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Speaker 1: and it's also incredibly destructive. Yeah, yeah, very destructive and

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Speaker 1: very popular. About seventeen percent of all American Christians adhere

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Speaker 1: to prosperity theology in some form or another. Wow. Roughly

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Speaker 1: one million Americans attend prosperity Gospel preaching churches every single Sunday.

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Speaker 1: So this is a sizable movement. There's a lot more

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Speaker 1: to say about this stuff, and our current president ties

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Speaker 1: into it. But before we get to Napoleon Hill and

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Speaker 1: his role in all of this, I want to keep

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Speaker 1: on this track for a little bit. So the New

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Speaker 1: Thought movement sprang up in the late eighteen hundreds, and

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Speaker 1: the name new Thought embodied the belief that, of course,

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Speaker 1: thoughts could create reality without the need for prayer or worship.

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Speaker 1: The founder of the movement was a Portland, Maine clockmaker

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Speaker 1: named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, which is a great name for

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Speaker 1: a guy who founds a weird cult style and make clocks.

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Speaker 1: Let's not forget anything. Guy who lived in Maine and

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Speaker 1: makes clocks. I already don't trust him. I feel like

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Speaker 1: they hand you a clockmaker kit as soon as you

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Speaker 1: come out of the womb named Phineas, Like, here's your

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Speaker 1: fucking clock. Can't get used to it. Yeah. He focused

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Speaker 1: like his teachings focused on like curing illnesses with positive thinking,

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Speaker 1: and Phineas theorized that disease could be banished by the

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Speaker 1: redirection of thoughts. One of his students was a woman

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Speaker 1: named Mary Baker Eddie, who went on to found the

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Speaker 1: Christian Science religious tradition Christian Scientists. Yeah exactly. These are

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Speaker 1: the folks who like, will let their kids die because

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Speaker 1: they try to treat lymphoma or whatever with prayers. They

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Speaker 1: don't believe indice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I've got a

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Speaker 1: lot of I've had a lot of information on the

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Speaker 1: New Thought movement and a very solid write up by

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Speaker 1: a website called The Conversation, who does some pretty good

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Speaker 1: stuff having conversations. Yeah, I love conversations too. Well this, yeah.

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Speaker 1: H Their article notes that by the eighteen nineties, new

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Speaker 1: thought had morphed away from healing disease and onto helping

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Speaker 1: people achieve success through positive thinking. So the starts as

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Speaker 1: a guy being like, we're going to redirect people's thoughts

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Speaker 1: to make them healthier, and then over the course of

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Speaker 1: a couple of decades it turns into like, positive thoughts

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Speaker 1: make money. Well, what could be healthier than being super rich? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is. Statistically the healthiest thing for you is being

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Speaker 1: rich as shit. So that article quotes historian Beryl Satter's

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Speaker 1: explanation for the reasoning of the thought of New Thought believers. Quote,

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Speaker 1: since human thought had creative power, negative thoughts materialized in

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Speaker 1: negative situations, while spiritual thoughts could form a positive reality.

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Speaker 1: So you can see how that could be a harmless

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Speaker 1: thing for just like, I don't know, you're the lady

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Speaker 1: who lived like one of your friend's moms growing up,

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Speaker 1: who was always into like weird books about self help, Like,

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Speaker 1: you could see how it could be harmless, but you

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Speaker 1: could also see how those beliefs could lead to kind

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Speaker 1: of toxic attitudes towards the poor. Yeah. Yeah, because if

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Speaker 1: you just have to think yourself into a better situation.

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Speaker 1: Then you're kind of blaming people who are poor and

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Speaker 1: sick on their sickness and their poverty. Yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: because they didn't vibe high enough. And it removes all

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Speaker 1: of societal organization as a factor for why someone might

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Speaker 1: be poor, you know, or just you know. It removes

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Speaker 1: the idea that that social class is like not entirely

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Speaker 1: your choice, which is kind of I thought that was

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Speaker 1: the whole point of class, was that you didn't really

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Speaker 1: get a choice, you know, and if you wanted to jump,

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Speaker 1: it was gonna be like almost impossible. But they were like, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: poor people, they're just not thinking enough about money. They

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Speaker 1: don't want it really. Yeah, they don't want it really,

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Speaker 1: and that's why they're poor. And it's no coincidence that

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Speaker 1: the New Thought movement, this shift in the New Thought

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Speaker 1: movement towards this sort of more toxic attitude happened in

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Speaker 1: the Gilded Age, which which is the previous period in

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Speaker 1: American history that's most like our current period in American history.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to quote again from that Conversation article, quote

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Speaker 1: a book that illustrates the New Thought movement shift towards

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Speaker 1: individual prosperity is Ralph Waldo Trene's In Tune with the Infinite.

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Speaker 1: A popular writer and lecturer, Trene taught that one's ability

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Speaker 1: to channel positive thoughts would lead to success. Published in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven, the book sold millions of copies and

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Speaker 1: gained Tren a wide following, including from the automobile industrialist

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Speaker 1: Henry Ford. So. Trene was one of the first people

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Speaker 1: to really push the idea that happiness was the product

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Speaker 1: of positive thinking, not brain chemistry or your physical circumstances.

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Speaker 1: He wrote in his book quote, if one holds themselves

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Speaker 1: in the thought of poverty, they will be poor, and

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Speaker 1: the chances are that they will remain in poverty. If

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Speaker 1: one holds themselves, whatever present conditions may be, continually in

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Speaker 1: the thought of prosperity, they set into operation forces that

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Speaker 1: will sooner or later bring them into prosperous conditions. Hmm, yeah,

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Speaker 1: hold on, I'm thinking really hard about everyone femoing me

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Speaker 1: six dollars. I'm thinking about yeah, yeah, how bad I

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Speaker 1: want to manifest so hard? Yeah, I gotta check my vemo.

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Speaker 1: I'll check it at the end of the episode June

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Speaker 1: ye venmo mey six dollars. If you believe in the secret. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: your seed donations to Sarah June will be uh will

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Speaker 1: be given back in kind by the gods. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: seed donations that you give to me will manifest in

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Speaker 1: my purchase of weed. Uh and and that is how

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Speaker 1: your your investment will blossom. Here. In fact, me getting

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Speaker 1: high is in a way a proof of God through

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Speaker 1: your donation. So prove God by donating Caronjuana money to

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Speaker 1: Sarah June. Yeah. So yeah, I think it's time now

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Speaker 1: to uh to get into our main subject for today.

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Speaker 1: I just thought some of that background would be would

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Speaker 1: be you very helpful? So. Oliver Napoleon Hill was born

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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty three, the son of an unlicensed dentist

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Speaker 1: slash moonshiner and a woman named Sarah, who I'm sure

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Speaker 1: was quite nice dentist slash moonshiner. What a cool dad. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a fucking great dad. You're pulling out teeth drunk

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Speaker 1: as fuck, just like making white light. You know. He

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Speaker 1: had a bunch of like bottles of like pure ethanol

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Speaker 1: that he kept teeth in just a crazy lab in

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Speaker 1: the shed, just preserving all kinds of gums. No wonder

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Speaker 1: his I'm a big fan of like like efficient synergy.

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Speaker 1: You know, totally researching this podcast, but listen to an

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Speaker 1: audiobook on a run or whatever. Wow, And I love

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Speaker 1: the efficient synergy of both ripping teeth out of people's

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Speaker 1: heads and making the moonshine. You need to sterilize them

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Speaker 1: and cut and work as a painkiller. Like yeah, dude,

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Speaker 1: I mean he sounds like he would get you super

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Speaker 1: fucked up and then oh you blacked out. He would

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Speaker 1: pull your teeth, which you know, what a great guy. Yeah, No,

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Speaker 1: they have to pour you home from fucking the doctor Hill,

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Speaker 1: the safe doctor dentist. No, no, but they did. Okay,

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Speaker 1: they were you know, I don't know if you'd even

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Speaker 1: call him middle class, but they weren't impoverished. They grew

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Speaker 1: up in rural Virginia at Wise County as a child,

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Speaker 1: all over family count Wise. Ah, but it was a

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Speaker 1: pretty white county, I think. Yeah, I mean, I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna guess, but I am talking out of my ass there.

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Speaker 1: As a child, his family called him nap Years later,

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Speaker 1: Napoleon would write that his family represented three generations of quote, ignorance, illiteracy,

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Speaker 1: and poverty, but The New York Times notes that this

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Speaker 1: was probably not the case. Quote. In fact, his grandfather

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Speaker 1: was a printer. His father became a self taught dentist

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Speaker 1: and treated his neighbors until the state licensing authorities got

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Speaker 1: wind of his activity a self taught dentist, and he

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Speaker 1: got down for doing it. But then he went to

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Speaker 1: dental school at age forty and practiced legally. Wow, he

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Speaker 1: was like, I'm going straight, Yeah, I'm going straight to

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Speaker 1: the dentist. Did he still illegally make moonshine even after

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Speaker 1: becoming Oh he must have. You know, you don't stop

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Speaker 1: making moonshine. That's just the hot that's a calling. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of divine in the world, Yeah, I would consider

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Speaker 1: the concept of moonshine to be proof of divine intervention. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: Napoleon's mom died when he was nine years old, and

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Speaker 1: his father remarried the next year to a woman named Martha,

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Speaker 1: who was the widow of a school principal and seemed

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Speaker 1: determined to push her new son towards a life of

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Speaker 1: the mind. See as a kid, I'll show you that

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Speaker 1: I had a reputation for wildness. What's that? No, go ahead.

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Speaker 1: Napoleon had a reputation for wildness. He loved hiking around

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Speaker 1: the woods in the middle of nowhere and Virginia with

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Speaker 1: a handgun, firing at whatever he saw. Now, he was

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Speaker 1: twelve at the time when he was doing this, so like,

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Speaker 1: that's twelve years Napoleon wandering around the woods with a handgun,

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Speaker 1: shooting stuff all the time. It sounds like so yeah,

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Speaker 1: that sounds like that sounds like Virginia. So Miss Martha

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Speaker 1: comes into the picture as his step mom, and she

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Speaker 1: sees this kid like living half faral in the trees

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Speaker 1: with a gun and decides maybe he could use some parenting.

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Speaker 1: So she buys him a typewriter, and she tells him,

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Speaker 1: if you become as good with the typewriter as you

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Speaker 1: are with that gun, you may become rich and famous

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Speaker 1: and known throughout the world. You can get pretty rich

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Speaker 1: by shooting people with a gun. You can actually get

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Speaker 1: very rich by shooting people with a gun. Now, it's

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Speaker 1: possible that conversation never happened. Napoleon Hill, Like, that's based

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Speaker 1: on his recollections and an unpublished autobiography. And Napoleon Hill

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Speaker 1: was a notorious and inveterate con man, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of what we're going to talk about is based on

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Speaker 1: his recollections of Jesus and since he was clearly full

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Speaker 1: of bullshit his whole life, and all we know about

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Speaker 1: him is his lies. Yeah, we know a few other things.

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Speaker 1: So my primary sources for this article are a New

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Speaker 1: York Times article published in nineteen ninety five, which is

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Speaker 1: good but fairly short, and a Gizmoto article by Matt

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Speaker 1: Novak called All American Huckster. An article would be kind

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Speaker 1: of an unfair way to describe what mister Novak wrote.

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Speaker 1: He essentially put together like a short nonfiction book that's

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Speaker 1: just published on a website. It's like tens of thousands

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Speaker 1: of words long, exhaustively researched and clearly took him. I

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Speaker 1: think he spent at least like six straight months putting

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Speaker 1: this thing together. So he like he like traveled around

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Speaker 1: and like found went through archives to like find original

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Speaker 1: like articles about Napoleon Hill written while he was alive,

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Speaker 1: and like it's a very very good article. So I

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Speaker 1: want to I want to kind of highlight mister Novak's

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Speaker 1: work up front, because he did some great work, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think I can't really found any other journalists

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Speaker 1: who's dug into Napoleon Hill. To this kind of extent,

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Speaker 1: so's he's pretty critical. So from what we can put

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Speaker 1: together based on a variety of sources, young Oliver's first

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Speaker 1: job was writing up news articles for a small newspaper.

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Speaker 1: Some of his articles would be picked up by local

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Speaker 1: newspapers in Virginia, and this became a source of spare

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Speaker 1: cash for the enterprising young teenager. His biographer's right quote,

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00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,439
Speaker 1: Napoleon would soon become a prolific source of stories. His

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00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:13,320
Speaker 1: writing was unpublished, if not crude, but he compensated with

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Speaker 1: unbounded verve and a vivid imagination. Indeed, he later recalled

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Speaker 1: that when news was scarce and there weren't stories to tell,

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00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 1: he simply made them up. So that's his first child.

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Speaker 1: Great career will be a pattern. Yeah. Now. Hill claims

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Speaker 1: to have first gotten married when he was fifteen years old,

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Speaker 1: in a convoluted story for which there are no records

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00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:38,639
Speaker 1: and no evidence outside of Hill's autobiography, He claims a

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Speaker 1: young woman fell in love with him, and she was

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Speaker 1: pregnant from somebody else, but she lied and said that

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Speaker 1: the child was his, And when Napoleon married her thinking

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Speaker 1: the child was his, but then had the marriage annulled.

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Speaker 1: When he learned the truth. Now, there's no records of

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Speaker 1: this marriage anywhere. We don't know what actually happened. Based

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Speaker 1: on the rest of his life. My guess is that

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Speaker 1: he just abandoned this woman and her child, who was

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Speaker 1: his child too. But he claims he go she got

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Speaker 1: he got hoodwinked by her. Yeah, yeah, he knows. Yeah so.

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00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:14,560
Speaker 1: Oliver Napoleon Hill graduated high school at age seventeen and

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Speaker 1: went to a business school until nineteen oh one. When

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00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 1: he was eighteen, he started to work with a coal

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Speaker 1: magnate named Rufus Ayers. In his article for Gizmoto, Matt

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00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:26,200
Speaker 1: Novak writes, quote, Ayers was said to be impressed with Hill, who,

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Speaker 1: according to the official biography, compensated for his youth and

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Speaker 1: five foot six stature by adopting the appearance of a

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Speaker 1: serious young executive, ramrod straight posture and peckable double breasted suits,

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Speaker 1: immaculately pressed white shirts, conservative bow ties, and white handkerchiefs

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Speaker 1: neatly posed in the breast pocket. I hate this guy.

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Speaker 1: That's how young Napoleon. Yeah, you know you're not a fan.

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Speaker 1: What is it? Is it the handkerchief? It's not the handkerchief.

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Speaker 1: It's the immaculately pressed white shirts. It's also the you know,

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Speaker 1: I bet he uh wow, Yeah, this is the kind

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Speaker 1: of this is like a young Republican kind of guy.

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Speaker 1: You know, yeah, he looks like he looks like the

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Speaker 1: kind of guy like I'm sure he's the kind of

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Speaker 1: guy who'd wear a full suit in DC in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the summer. Yeah. Yeah. But also like as

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Speaker 1: a seventeen year old, this is you know, the guy

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Speaker 1: who who wears a suit like when he doesn't have to,

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Speaker 1: and he kind of thinks everybody else is worse for

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Speaker 1: not wearing a suit. Like he kind of acts like

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Speaker 1: it's a joke. He's like, Haha, it's my thing. I

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Speaker 1: wear suits, but he actually thinks everybody who doesn't wear

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Speaker 1: suits all the time is a loser. Yeah, you get

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00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: that feeling from Napoleon. Or it may just have been

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Speaker 1: it may just have been like a calculation because he's

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Speaker 1: a con man, where he was like, well, everyone trusts

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00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:35,159
Speaker 1: a guy in a suit, and I need extra trust

389
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 1: because I'm conning people, so I should always wear a suit.

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00:21:38,440 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about that last quote where he's like,

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00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:42,400
Speaker 1: you know, when there's not any news, I make it up.

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Speaker 1: Aren't I a good journalist? Like he doesn't know what

393
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:49,159
Speaker 1: being a journalist is. Well, in a little bit of

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00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:51,879
Speaker 1: fairness to him, at that point in time, there was

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00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 1: there was a lot of weird bullshit in paper. Yeah,

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00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 1: I know that's true. There was a lot of crazy

397
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:58,320
Speaker 1: shit in papers. But like you weren't supposed to tell

398
00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 1: people we make it up, you know, supposed to tell

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00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,720
Speaker 1: people we know a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah, you're yeah,

400
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: it's he's he's from the beginning, not somebody to whom

401
00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:12,960
Speaker 1: the truth is important A major concept. Yeah, yeah, just

402
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 1: not a not a fully fleshed out concept. Truth. It's

403
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 1: like sketchy, sketchy outline. There's something there. If you say something,

404
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: maybe it's the truth, maybe it's not. It's a nice idea. Yeah.

405
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,240
Speaker 1: To Napoleon Hill, it's like, oh, that's so, that makes

406
00:22:27,280 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: me think of something else, some bullshit. Yeah. So, six

407
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:36,600
Speaker 1: months into his employment, Oliver Napoleon Hill was promoted to

408
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 1: work as a clerk for a mine in Richland's Virginia. Now,

409
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 1: the first major tests of his professional acumen, other than

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00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: his ability to wear a suit, came when the manager

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00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 1: of a bank which was also owned by his employer

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00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,400
Speaker 1: the same guy who owned the mine. This bank manager

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00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,440
Speaker 1: got wasted and accidentally shot a black bell hop to death.

414
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,719
Speaker 1: Now we have a couple of different versions of the story.

415
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 1: It's possible he dropped his gun and it fired by accident.

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00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: It's possible it was an active, outright murder. We just

417
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: really don't know. But the New York Times reports what

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00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 1: happens next. Quote with the boss away, Hill took charge,

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00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:12,399
Speaker 1: arranging to have the death covered up. As a result,

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00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:14,399
Speaker 1: his employer made him manager of the mine at the

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00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: age of only nineteen. Yeah, this all tracks with the

422
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:22,360
Speaker 1: suit thing. Yeah, this all tracks with the suit thing. Now.

423
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: According to Napoleon Hill's autobiography, when he arrived at the

424
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: bank after the shooting, the drunken manager had left the

425
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: vault open and thousands of dollars were scattered around. Hill

426
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,120
Speaker 1: goes out of his way to note that he scrupulously

427
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: recorded and reorganized all of the money without taking anything.

428
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, I could have appropriated fifteen to twenty

429
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or perhaps more, without the slightest indication that

430
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 1: I had taken the money. You absolutely took the money

431
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,400
Speaker 1: if you make the point of noting like I could

432
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: have stolen all this money, but I didn't nobody, the

433
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,280
Speaker 1: kind of nobody would bring that money from there. They

434
00:23:58,320 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 1: had done it. Don't bring that up. Yeah exactly. I'm

435
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: gonna guess he stole some money. But Hill claims that

436
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 1: in gratitude for his honesty, rufus Ayers promoted him to

437
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 1: manage the coal mind. Yeah, that's the thing bankers do,

438
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:14,359
Speaker 1: reward honesty. Yeah, yeah, one way or the other. Napoleon

439
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: Hill covers up a murder and winds up in charge

440
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: of a coal mine and makes out with you know,

441
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen thousand dollars, yeah atimate, Yeah, by his own estimate, Yeah,

442
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen grand. So yeah, that's that's the story so far.

443
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: This guy is like is like Pete Butterage so far

444
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,439
Speaker 1: or like everything, he just keeps like moving upward, you know,

445
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: and he's like, aren't I great at this? And everyone's like,

446
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,439
Speaker 1: I don't know, but sure, and then he just he

447
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: just keeps going up. Ah. Maybe maybe I don't know

448
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: much about Pete Butterage. Always kind of like he was

449
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: like a top of his class, you know, like went

450
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: to an IVY league, like did it really good grades?

451
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: You know, the high achiever. Yeah, I wouldn't say Napoleon

452
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: was a high achiever. I think he was more of

453
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: a I think he was more of a guy who

454
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: kept sliding into their place at the right time with

455
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: the right lie, and and that that's that's where he

456
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: is so far. Is he like gets into this good

457
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: situation and kind of wangles a job by covering up

458
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: a murder like who I don't know whom, but yeah,

459
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 1: that's where he is right now. So we're gonna break

460
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: for ads because it's time for a product and maybe

461
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: a service or two. But when we come back, we're

462
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 1: going to talk about a whole bunch of fucking cons

463
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: just a whole lot of conning people out of money.

464
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: So after the break products, we're back, and we we

465
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 1: found who Napoleon Hill does remind us a little of,

466
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: and it's Roger Stone, Like, I, yeah, I think that's

467
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: a that's a good comparison, Sophie. I think this is

468
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 1: what Roger Stone would have been if he'd never gotten

469
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: into politics, because he is he is. Yeah, Well, well

470
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: we'll tell the rest of his story so that you

471
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: can understand why I think that. So on June seventeenth,

472
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: nineteen oh three, Napoleon Hill married a woman named Edith Whitman.

473
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,280
Speaker 1: Their daughter, Edith Whitman Hill, was born two years later

474
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh five. The family moved to Marbury, Alabama

475
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: when their daughter was six months old, but Napoleon sent

476
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: them back to Virginia five months after that. Then in

477
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, he moved to Mobile, Alabama to start

478
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: a timber company, with his family still waiting behind in Virginia.

479
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: So he spends maybe a couple of months in total,

480
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: like actually living with his family, and then he's off

481
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: to start this new company. Now, one probable reason that

482
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 1: he spent so much time moving about outside of his

483
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: business is that Napoleon Hill had a tremendous addiction to prostitutes.

484
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: One of Napoleon's friends later testified during divorce proceedings that

485
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: his wife instituted about his behavior on a nineteen oh

486
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: six business trip. Quote soon after we reached Bluefield, West Virginia,

487
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: we went to a house of ill fame between eight

488
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,400
Speaker 1: and nine o'clock of that night, and mister Oliver in Hill,

489
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: within a few minutes after arriving there, took one of

490
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 1: the girls to a room in the same house and

491
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 1: stayed with her until about twelve o'clock that night. Both

492
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: of the women who stayed at this house were of

493
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: easy virtue, and mister Hill went there for the purpose

494
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 1: of having sexual intercourse with these women. He admitted to

495
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: me that night, when we were going to the hotel,

496
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: that he had sexual intercourse with the girl that he

497
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: took to the room. That's pretty clear, yep, the one

498
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: he told his wife about. Well, no, no, this is

499
00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: the one that This is the one that one of

500
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: his friends told the judge about when his wife sued

501
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 1: for divorce. Oh oh, I see, Okay, great way to

502
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: find that out. Yeah, now, I think she probably guessed,

503
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: although he was again never around. Napoleon and Edith were

504
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: together for five years, but only actually again together for

505
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: a fraction of that. In court proceedings, Edith claimed that

506
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: he was frequently violent when they were together. At one point,

507
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: during a visit to Virginia, he left with their young

508
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: daughter and delivered her to his stepmother, and then threatened

509
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: his wife that he would never give their daughter back

510
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 1: to her. In January of nineteen oh eight, he wrote

511
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: his wife this letter quote, I'm leaving the country where

512
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: you'll never bother me. You can only communicate with me

513
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: through my father and not unless he thinks best. Wow,

514
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: very excited to see this guy become extremely rich. Well,

515
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: I have some good news there, but but we'll get

516
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: to that. I don't wanna. I don't wanna. I don't

517
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 1: want to bury the lead he does. Briefly, it does

518
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: seem interesting to me that this is basically the same

519
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: thing l Ron Hubbard did to his second wife, kidnapping

520
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: their baby and moving away, except for in Hubbard's case,

521
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,200
Speaker 1: he took the baby to Cuba and drank heavily while

522
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: writing a book, whereas Napoleon at least left his infant

523
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: daughter with family. So we can say conclusively that Napoleon

524
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: Hill was a better father than l Ron Hubbard. There

525
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: are worse things you can do with a baby then

526
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: give them to their step mother. Yeah. Worst things you

527
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: can do with a baby that you steal. M M yep,

528
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: that that that you steal. Look, if he's not abandoning babies,

529
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: he's stealing them. Yeah, that's that's this guy. He's he

530
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: mostly abandons baby. Mostly fairness to Napoleon, he only stole

531
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: the one baby, and it was his baby, and it

532
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,719
Speaker 1: was his baby. I mean, most babies are stolen by

533
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: their parents. But yeah, so three months after writing that letter,

534
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: Edith managed to get back her baby and successfully file

535
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: for divorce. She alleged that Napoleon sometimes threw their small

536
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: child on the bed and choked her. So, actually he's

537
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: not a better father than el Ron Hubbard. Yeah, no,

538
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: that guy Hubbard. Hubbard didn't beat his kids. Well he

539
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: Actually this is really a pointless thing. They're both terrible parents. Yeah, yeah,

540
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't kids too. I don't know why I

541
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: try to evaluate them. Yeah, you know, we want somebody

542
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: to be the guy here, but it turns out they're

543
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: all bad. I shouldn't look for the good guy and

544
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard. Right, but this podcast isn't called behind

545
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: the Good Guys. No, no, so. Edith also alleged that

546
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: at one point her husband threatened to blow her brains

547
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: out on a crowded city street. Numerous people who worked

548
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: with Napoleon testified to his constant alliances with prostitutes and

549
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: habitual infidelity. Now so, yeah, the marriage splits up, and

550
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: think the point in time, Napoleon's timber business isn't exactly

551
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: doing well either, because it turns out that rather than

552
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: being a business, it was just kind of a scam.

553
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: So Napoleon bought ten to twenty thousand dollars worth of

554
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 1: lumber using credit from companies around the country. So he

555
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: would like buy the lumber and like sign a contract

556
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: saying he would pay them back later with interest, and

557
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: then he would just take the lumber and sell it

558
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: like individually to people for cash. But he had no

559
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: point credit. Yeah, essentially, Yeah, he was just driving around

560
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: like you guys wants some fucking wood. Yeah, he would

561
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: sell the wood for cash and just keep moving so

562
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: that nobody could ever Yeah, like that that was the

563
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: whole plan. Truck selling it on the street. Yeah, out

564
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: of a truck, really advanced. Yeah, he's not a great

565
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: con man, but he's a constant one. Yeah. It's like

566
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: makings telling everybody and fucking stealing wood. Yeah. So the

567
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: most traceable crime thief, wood thief and fake journalists at

568
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: this point is his his resume and stole a baby once. Yeah.

569
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: So by late nineteen oh eight, many of his creditors

570
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: had realized they were being fleeced. Matt Novak sits an

571
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: article in the October issue of the Pensacola Journal covering

572
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: Hill's lumber fraud the whereabouts of Owen Hill, said to

573
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: be the president and general manager of the Acree Hill

574
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: Lumber Company, is causing considerable anxiety among creditors of the

575
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: concern in the state and several other lumber sections. Hill

576
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: has not been at his office since September eighth. Warrants

577
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: were issued for Hill's arrest at the same time, the

578
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: Post Office started looking into claims of mail fraud, which

579
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill had also been busy committing. Wow he was

580
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: charged with Czech fraud as well. Hill spent the fall

581
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: and winter in nineteen oh eight on the run, dodging

582
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: law enforcement and creditors as he's gradually made his way

583
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. That's what I'm saying. You can't

584
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: be weighed down by a baby when you're dodging creditors,

585
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: you know, running up and down the country. The wife

586
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: is she's just like really holding him back from being

587
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: the slimiest bag he can be. And once he's free

588
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: of his wife and free of his creditors and all

589
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: of the people that he fleeced in his lumber business

590
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: and his check fraud, and he moves to Washington, d C.

591
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: He drops the first name Oliver and starts going by

592
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill because he's a new man there. He's changed,

593
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: just like disease. That'll make it harder to be found. Yeah.

594
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: So nineteen oh nine, when he winds up in DC

595
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: is a time in which cars were still new and

596
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: very exciting to just about everybody. There's a lot of

597
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: money to be made in the Nason automobile industry, and

598
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 1: more importantly for mister Hill, there was a lot of

599
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: money to be made in lying to people about the

600
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: Nason automobile industry. In order to understand this, you have

601
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: to think of cars not as the ubiquitous tools they

602
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: are today, but more like the Internet and social media

603
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: were a decade ago. Scams are always going to be

604
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: rampant with any new technology doing that sweet spot after

605
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: it becomes clear how valuable it is, but before anyone

606
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: really understands it. So like cars are in that place

607
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh nine when Napoleon Hill winds up in

608
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: d C. So he joins immediately an automotive enthusiast group

609
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: called the Automobile Club of Washington, and it inspires him

610
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: to create his own organization, the Automobile College of Washington.

611
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: In early nineteen oh nine already already fake already, not

612
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 1: a college, just a coluge, not a college. It's a club.

613
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: What is he gonna? I don't know what what is

614
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: Automobile College? Is it a college? Does he train? Does

615
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: he learn? It's a college kind of in the same

616
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: way Trump University is a college. Okay, so they're it's

617
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: a little more legit. It's a little more legit than

618
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: Trump University. So the idea is that the Auto College

619
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: is a training program that would that would teach you

620
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: how to build cars with six weeks of true. Oh oh,

621
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: like a camp but for cars. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like

622
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 1: he's promising graduates that they'll be able to earn between

623
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: seventy five dollars and two hundred dollars per week, which

624
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: is like really good money, and all they have to

625
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: do is like pay to learn how to build cars. Now,

626
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation, these people were building cars,

627
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: so there is actual learning how to build cars going

628
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: on here. But what Napoleon has done is basically set

629
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: up a car factory wherein people pay to work there,

630
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 1: like that's that's that's the business. That's the scam. Yeah,

631
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,840
Speaker 1: this is his best one yet. Yeah, this is a

632
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:23,760
Speaker 1: good This is mm hmm yeah, like there's an actual product.

633
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: People are presumably learning something, right, but you're making a

634
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: bunch of money and no, like presumably folks aren't realizing.

635
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: Are we just paying to work in a factory. Yeah.

636
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: I kind of want to do like a coal mining college.

637
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: Like I'll teach you how to mind coal. You just

638
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: got to mine coal. Look your mine. Uh no, you're

639
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: not doing it right, do it for another few years.

640
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: You need another few years of coal school. Yeah. It's

641
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 1: like if the Washington Post rebranded as a journalism school

642
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: and started charging people to write op eds. Wow. Yeah,

643
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:04,439
Speaker 1: well yeah, now so yeah. Hill worked out a deal

644
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,720
Speaker 1: with the Carter Motor Corporation in nineteen ten and nineteen eleven,

645
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: and basically they that's who he was making cars for.

646
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: So his students were producing vehicles that were then sold

647
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: by the Carter Motor Company. And you know, it's a

648
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: great deal for Carter because they get free labor and

649
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: Napoleon gets free money and the students. You know, you

650
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: might even think that it's semi legitimate because at least

651
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 1: the students are going to learn how to assemble cars

652
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: and they could presumably get a job elsewhere that they

653
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: didn't pay for. Yeah, that they didn't pay for. That

654
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: is an actual job, So presumably like this, this is

655
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: I would say, this is the high point of Napoleon

656
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 1: Hill's life as a person who did things that were

657
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 1: almost legitimate. Yeah, he's doing a classic capitalist scam here.

658
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: You know, it involves slavery, it involves new technology, and

659
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 1: it involves a lot of lying. So this is you know,

660
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: he's really he's got the three hmah together beautiful. But

661
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: like all great scams that involve slavery, it involves like

662
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: it's slavery where the people who are kind of slaves

663
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: don't think of themselves that way because they're paying for

664
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 1: the privilege. Like it is slavery voluntary servitude. So I

665
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: don't know, slavery. Might slavery is a bit far. He's

666
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: just tricking people into into being employees and telling them

667
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's I don't know what you call

668
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 1: people in this situation. It's like running a film school

669
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: and like secretly having them make the new Like Disney

670
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: started a film school and secretly had people make new

671
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:41,800
Speaker 1: Marvel movies and didn't pay them. Yeah, like like yeah,

672
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: so while he's running this kind of half scam car college.

673
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 1: Napoleon meets another woman named Elizabeth Horner. Now, his main

674
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: attraction to Elizabeth seemed to be that her family was rich.

675
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: They got hitched, and shortly thereafter, Napoleon's bogus car college collapses.

676
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: Now did everyone just kind of hard to say, Well,

677
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: it seems like what happened is that the Carter car

678
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 1: company who he was making vehicles for, fell apart, probably

679
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: because their vehicles were being assembled by people who didn't

680
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: know how to make cars. The one fatal flaw in

681
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: the perfect scam. Yeah, because Napoleon didn't know how to

682
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: make cars. So this is the issue. Were like, I

683
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: don't think, I don't think very functional cars were not

684
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: being produced by the sodom the school. So it was

685
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: also alleged that Napoleon had stolen a car from some

686
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: of his business partners, and he was arrested and his

687
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 1: college was put into receivership. Now none of this stopped

688
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: Napoleon from continuing to operate his automotive college. Instead, he

689
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 1: just changed the focus of the school from teaching people

690
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: how to build cars to teaching people how to sell cars. So, yep,

691
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: you got to be able to pivot if a scammers

692
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,760
Speaker 1: how to pivot now. As time went on, the focus

693
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 1: of a schools drifted further and further away from teaching

694
00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: any kind of marketable skill and words, the sort of

695
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 1: multi level marketing schemes we're very familiar with in the

696
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: twenty first century. That the motor article I've been citing

697
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: highlights an early exposee of hills scam, an article in

698
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: Motor World magazine titled pointing the easy route to get

699
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: rich Quickland. I went ahead and I found an archived

700
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: copy of that report, and I'd like to read it

701
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: now in my best old timy voice, because I really

702
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Please. Astonishing and enticing means employed by the

703
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: greatest automobile college in the world to catch the wood

704
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: be Chaufur's coin Masters of gas Engines evolved in twelve

705
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 1: weeks and before graduation and after there's money, money everywhere,

706
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:38,359
Speaker 1: if not a cent to spend fun, that's pretty good fun,

707
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: Sun times. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, uh so. The author

708
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: of this article wrote about Napoleon's revamped fake college that quote.

709
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 1: The whole business is so cunningly planned as to appeal

710
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,399
Speaker 1: not only to the cupidity of the indolent naird Weell, who,

711
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,280
Speaker 1: in his ignorance thinks he sees the gates of prosperities

712
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 1: standing ajar. But also to the ill informed but really

713
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: ambitious youth who has an honest desire to make something

714
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 1: of himself, and who is willing to devote his scanty

715
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: savings and infrequent spare hours to the task. Those those

716
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 1: near Duell's always screwing it up for the ambitious, the

717
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:17,320
Speaker 1: ambitious do well. Yeah, now that that statement could apply

718
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: equally well to like Amway or Young Living Essential Oils

719
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:23,240
Speaker 1: or any modern day MLM. Like this is before people

720
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: use the term multi level marketing. They weren't even calling

721
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,439
Speaker 1: these pyramid schemes at this point. So Napoleon Hills really

722
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 1: fucking groundbreaking at this stuff. And like the actual business

723
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: practice that he evolved for his Auto college is like,

724
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: it's really groundbreaking. Basically, I'm just gonna read from the

725
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: article breaking it down. The very day you enroll, the

726
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:48,720
Speaker 1: flow of language ripples on. You may note the Grace's

727
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: permission begin to send in the names of the young

728
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: men whom you think might be interested in our course.

729
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 1: It is estimated that half of such men will enroll

730
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: and as the school pays three dollars ahead for every

731
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: student brought in. According to this plan, it is suggested

732
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 1: that you should pay for your course several times over.

733
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: In this manner, he stops, he stops even selling, like

734
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: he says, like, Okay, now, this is a school where

735
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: you teach people how to sell cars. But the real

736
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: business is getting your friends to sign up for the college,

737
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: and then you get a cut of what they like.

738
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: It's it's well, you know, it's a thing, Robert. Everybody's

739
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: making money, So why are you mad? Well, I mean,

740
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: the only downside is that after like at a certain

741
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: like six weeks or so into this process, there's no

742
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: people less than six weeks. You know what. I don't

743
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:35,360
Speaker 1: like to I don't like to think that far ahead.

744
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: I like to live in the now. That's actually why

745
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 1: I'm so wealthy and successful, because I'm not gonna you know,

746
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: these are negative thoughts, and I'm thinking prosperity, thinking for prosperity.

747
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: You're thinking and growing rich, I am, I am. You

748
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 1: should try thinking and growing right. On November eleventh, nineteen twelve,

749
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 1: Napoleon and Florence had their second baby boy, and the

750
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: second of their three children. This son was born deaf. Now,

751
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: according to Napoleon's biography, A Lifetime of Riches quote, the

752
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: baby boy was not only born deaf, he was completely

753
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: without ears. In the years to come, despite the intense

754
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: fighting with both family and school teachers, Napoleon would never

755
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:16,720
Speaker 1: allow the boy to learn sign language. Oh my god,

756
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: it gets why he was determined to single handedly teach

757
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,799
Speaker 1: his death son to speak and even to hear. As

758
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 1: the boy was growing up, Hill would talk to him

759
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: for hours with his lips pressed against Blair's cranial bone

760
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:31,799
Speaker 1: at the base of the neck, just behind where his

761
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: ears would normally have been. Wow, that's so creepy, just

762
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:38,080
Speaker 1: shouting into his kid's skull. Oh my god, Well, not

763
00:41:38,120 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 1: even shouting, just talk like that. Yeah, wow yeah. Now,

764
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: Napoleon's biography claims that this eventually worked out because Napoleon's

765
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: son had a weird bone deformity. Uh And like, yeah,

766
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read from the biography. I want to note

767
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: clearly lies, like obvious lies. But this is how his

768
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: biographers with the Napoleon Hill Foundation explain why it was

769
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: good that he refused to teach his death son's sign language.

770
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: Years later, the boy did begin to hear, for it

771
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: was discovered that the bone itself was conducting sound to

772
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: his brain, and eventually he wore a specially designed hearing

773
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 1: aid that dramatically improved his hearing and speaking abilities. But

774
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: it was Napoleon who inspired Blair's desire to overcome his handicap.

775
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: His father never allowed his son to give up. He

776
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: didn't even allow Blair to consider himself handicapped. He taught

777
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: his son that deafness was simply an adversity that could

778
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: be triumphed over. Think and become not deaf if yeah,

779
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 1: think and grow ears. What the fuck? Wow? Yeah, that's

780
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 1: you know what's crazy? Is another way to quote overcome

781
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: the handicap of being deaf is to have sign language

782
00:42:48,239 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: and speak sign language. That's actually how you overcome that disability.

783
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,919
Speaker 1: You know. It's so can you imagine, Oh my god,

784
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: I feel that kid, just having to sit with your

785
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: dad talking to your skull for hours. Yeah, and he's

786
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: probably talking all sorts of bullshit about how like being

787
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: deaf is your fault because you didn't think hard enough

788
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: about ears while you were growing or something. Your attitude

789
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: is not positive enough. Yeah, you're not deaf. You're not incredible,

790
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 1: and then to completely and to completely censor and mute

791
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: him his entire life, to give him no way to

792
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:31,319
Speaker 1: express himself, while constantly telling him you're not deaf. I'll

793
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: say this, It's not as bad as it sounds, Sarah,

794
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: because Napoleon abandoned his children for the vast majority of

795
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: their lives, so he's not around all that much. You know,

796
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: I mean right now, that doesn't that seems like the

797
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 1: nicer thing to do. Yeah, I would say it's better

798
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: to be abandoned by Napoleon Hill than parent advice. Absolutely,

799
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 1: Now you know what it's not good to be abandoned

800
00:43:54,800 --> 00:44:00,080
Speaker 1: by Sarah. No, well anything, products and services that support

801
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: the show. They would never not abandon you, never, never, never,

802
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: they'd never abandon you products. We're back, so uh, as

803
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: I noted, Napoleon's college collapsed eventually, like all scams do,

804
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: and he moved his family in with his wife's family

805
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: to leach more money off of them. His wife's family

806
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 1: helped him get a job at a university by having

807
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: a family friend who was a judge write him a

808
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: letter of recommendation. The job was in sales and advertising,

809
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: but since Napoleon now had a piece of paper in

810
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: which a judge had written like that he was a

811
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,840
Speaker 1: good guy. Napoleon started using this to claim to be

812
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 1: an attorney at law. Even his own biographers admit this. Yeah,

813
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: even his own biographers admit this highly exaggerated claim looked

814
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: impressive on paper, but there is no record of his

815
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: having performed legal services for anyone. Hey, man, I'm a

816
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: self taught attorney. Okay, oh you want a license? Well

817
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: how about this. I got a note from a judge,

818
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 1: says I'm cool. Yeah, it doesn't even say I'm a lawyer,

819
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: but would anyone who's not a judge, No, a lawyer,

820
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 1: who's not a lawyer, No a judge. I'm just swee,

821
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: just imagining. It's like a beautiful like a gilded looks

822
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: like a diploma, But then in Gothic fond instead of

823
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: saying his name, it just says this guy's chill. And

824
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: then there's a judge signature, this guy's chill, guess, judge,

825
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: judge at judge. If anyone listening to this is a judge,

826
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: hit me up on Twitter at I write, okay, and

827
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 1: I'll give you my mailing address and you can send

828
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: me a piece of paper that says, I'm chill because

829
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: I would love to practice law, just as Napoleon Hill didn't. Yeah,

830
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: that sounds like a whot. Tape it to my shirt. Hey, guys,

831
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: I'm representing myself in court. Yeah. So Napoleon Hill worked

832
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: at that university for a couple of months before quitting

833
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:54,760
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen and getting involved with a candy company,

834
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: which he and his partners renamed the Betsy Ross Candy Shop.

835
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: Hill was quickly pushed out of the judge by his partners,

836
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: likely because they realized he was a gigantic con man

837
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: who was stealing from them, stealing, stealing money. I think

838
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: they bought this company together and he was probably just

839
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 1: stealing from the company because he's Napoleon Hill. We don't

840
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: know exactly what went down. Thinking about growing rich. Look,

841
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: he's not stealing, He's manifesting wealth from the cash register

842
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: to his pockets. Yeah, we don't know exactly what happens

843
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,319
Speaker 1: happened there, but Hill claims that his business partners had

844
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,960
Speaker 1: him quote arrested on false charges. He never specified what

845
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 1: those charges were, but he claims he was forced to

846
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: hand over his stakes in the company so Napoleon Hill

847
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: would spend most of the nineteen teens, leaping from one

848
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: failure to another. In September nineteen fifteen, he created another

849
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: fake school, the George Washington Institute, which he claimed was

850
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: dedicated to teaching the principles of success. Part of this

851
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,520
Speaker 1: class was apparently having his students write hundreds of letters

852
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 1: to newspapers supporting Napoleon Hill's race for a seat in

853
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: the US Congress. Now, he never ran for Congress, but

854
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: it seems so like, wait, we don't know why he

855
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 1: did this. This seems like he was just trying another scam,

856
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: but it didn't get off the ground. Yeah, he just

857
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: had so many scams going yeah, yeah, what what a

858
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 1: what a weird move. It's like, you know, maybe maybe

859
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 1: it's so when he if he was like, if I

860
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: run later, I can be like, look at all this

861
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: grassroots support I have. Yeah. I think a guy like Napoleon, like,

862
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 1: you know, abs always be scamming. Yeah, So, like, you know,

863
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: while you got your main scam you're working on, you're

864
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 1: trying to see little other scam because not all scams,

865
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: not all scams will last. So you got to plant

866
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: a lot of not all scams will last. You got

867
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: to diversify, right, because I was like, Wow, he's already

868
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: running He's already running a school scam, right, He's already

869
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:48,439
Speaker 1: getting money out of that. Now he's gonna like let

870
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: that feed into a larger, more legitimate scam of being

871
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: a politician. Wow, this is like really good. But I

872
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 1: guess he couldn't. He couldn't hack it, Like the George

873
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 1: Washington Institute is his day job, and having people write

874
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 1: letters to newspapers telling him to run for Congress is

875
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 1: his equivalent of a four oh one can. Like, that's

876
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: like his that's like his security. Like he's putting some

877
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: scam away for later. Yeah, exactly exactly. This was my kids. Yeah,

878
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 1: uh no, he wouldn't leave anything of his fucking kids.

879
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: This is Napoleon Hill we're talking about. They can think

880
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: and grow rich themselves. Uh. Next, I'm gonna quote again

881
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: from Gizmoto's Matt Novak quote. Some students of the George

882
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,360
Speaker 1: Washington Institute would accuse Hill's unaccredited school of fraud, and

883
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: it too had a very short life. According to his biographers.

884
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 1: He'll return the favor of one student's criticism by alerting

885
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,319
Speaker 1: the FBI if the German American kids suspicious activities. The

886
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 1: student was supposedly arrested for the duration of World War One.

887
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: Oh my fucking god, such a piece of shit. Wow, damn.

888
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 1: He does not play at all. No, he does not.

889
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: Just if you're like, hey, this school is a scam,

890
00:48:54,000 --> 00:49:00,360
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm sending you to jail a spy. Wow.

891
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 1: Cool guys. He uses his children, immigrants, all people trying

892
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: to learn a trade. Definitely. I have not run across

893
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: any racism in this story. So, like, as far as

894
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,879
Speaker 1: I know, Napoleon Hill would have scammed a black man

895
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,439
Speaker 1: as well as a white man. You know, Napoleon didn't

896
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,799
Speaker 1: see color. Just green baby, just green baby, that's the

897
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:29,720
Speaker 1: only color. Yeah, although it's also possible he just only

898
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: fleeced white people because he completely ignored that anyone else existed.

899
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 1: That's pretty I really don't know anything about his attitude

900
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,319
Speaker 1: on race relations. I mean to assume not we can.

901
00:49:39,400 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: I think we can safely safely surmise now. The George

902
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 1: Washington Institute quickly collapsed, and by nineteen seventeen, Napoleon Hill

903
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: was trying to sue the Illinois General Railroad because he

904
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: said the lighting on their cars was bad. For his

905
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,640
Speaker 1: eyesight and had caused him to need glasses, so he

906
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: gets a little bit desperate. Yeah, he's a really diversity,

907
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: but not in a great way. Yeah, he's this has

908
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: been like a sad arc you get from like this

909
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: legitimately kind of cunning automotive college, like suing the railroad

910
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 1: for fucking up your eye. Yeah, I mean ambulance chasers next,

911
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. By nineteen eighteen, the Better Business Bureau

912
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:19,959
Speaker 1: attacked him after revealing that his success school was really

913
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: just a barely camouflaged stock selling scheme. The magazine Postage

914
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: reported that quote. While it appeared on the face of

915
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 1: the operation that he sought students for the educational course

916
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 1: he offered, there was evidence that his chief object was

917
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:34,359
Speaker 1: to sell stock in the enterprise. Napoleon apparently convinced people

918
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:36,359
Speaker 1: to buy stocks in his college by claiming it had

919
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: a capital value of over one hundred thousand dollars. In reality,

920
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: the entirety of the enterprise was worth around twelve hundred

921
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 1: dollars at best. Napoleon was once again yeah yeah, he

922
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: was arrested again, and this arrest seems to have convinced

923
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: his long suffering wife to finally cut ties with him.

924
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: All these failures in a row certainly had a deleterious

925
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: effect on Hill's morale, as you might imagine. The New

926
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:01,479
Speaker 1: York Times noted quote hilbergard such setbacks as a test

927
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,320
Speaker 1: of his faith, but he was not immune to despair.

928
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: After another one of his business failures, he confessed, I

929
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:08,360
Speaker 1: had spent the better portion of my life chasing a rainbow.

930
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: I had begun to place myself in the category of

931
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: charlatans who offers a remedy for failure which they themselves

932
00:51:13,840 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: cannot successfully apply. Wow. A lot of self awareness for

933
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: such a piece of shit. That is a shocking amount

934
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 1: of It is also insane that at this point in

935
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:27,240
Speaker 1: his life he's like, people think I'm a charlatan. You guys,

936
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: well better start another success. Be honest with me. Does

937
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: everyone think I'm a charlatan? Yes? Yes, he says that,

938
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: like as he's setting up like a shell game or

939
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: something like that in the middle of the like downtown. Yeah,

940
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: do you want to buy some lumber? By the way?

941
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 1: Trust me now. By nineteen nineteen, Napoleon Hill had gotten

942
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 1: tired of jumping from scam to scam, sometimes a step

943
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: of the ahead of the law and often several steps

944
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: behind it. He decided that from now on, his life

945
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: was going to be different, and his first step to

946
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: winning that different step was to weaponize the Golden Rule. Yes,

947
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 1: the Golden rule do unto others as you would have

948
00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: them do unto you. On its surface, it seems like

949
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: one of the least problematic things a human being could

950
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: believe or advocate. But our friend Napoleon found a way

951
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:19,480
Speaker 1: to make it problematic. He founded Golden Rule Magazine, which

952
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 1: he used to outline his new philosophy on life. This

953
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:26,839
Speaker 1: is Napoleon Hill's philosophy on the Golden Rule. Quote. It

954
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 1: seems ridiculous to refer to the Golden Rule as a weapon,

955
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:31,319
Speaker 1: but that's just what it is. A weapon that no

956
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: resistance on earth can withstand. The Golden Rule is a

957
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: powerful weapon in business because there is so little competition

958
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: in its application. What a psychopath? Yeah yeah, so, Matt

959
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 1: Novak explains. Quote. Hill's understanding of the Golden Rule meant

960
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:48,800
Speaker 1: that people would become indebted to you for providing something

961
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: to them. It was a weapon rather than do unto

962
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 1: others as you would have them do unto you. He

963
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:55,360
Speaker 1: believed that by providing something to someone or simply showing

964
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: them kindness, they owed you something in return. So that's

965
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: how the Golden Rule works for the Oh my god. Wow. Okay, yeah,

966
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:09,760
Speaker 1: all right, yeah cool. Now. Golden Rule magazine was founded

967
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 1: using money from a couple with the last name of

968
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: Cox and they were a wealthy couple who owned the

969
00:53:15,719 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 1: General Oil Company, and they were looking to drum up

970
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 1: more investors for their business. And that was kind of

971
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: the purpose that they had magazine that Hill was running.

972
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: So their plan was for Hill to basically use his magazine.

973
00:53:29,800 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: I hate this so much, Oh god. Their plan was

974
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 1: for Hill to use his magazine to convince people that

975
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 1: General Oil was a great thing to invest. It's an

976
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 1: oil company starting a magazine. That's like remember what Jesus said,

977
00:53:44,800 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 1: Here's how you can use it to make yourself rich. Yeah.

978
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: In April of nineteen nineteen, Hill wrote an article in

979
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 1: his magazine titled an Interesting man and his wife the Coxes,

980
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: who have made a million dollars for other people. Wow.

981
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 1: The article that the Coxes were using a million dollars

982
00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:09,360
Speaker 1: of their profits to fund scholarships for American veganarilanthropy is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

983
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: this was untrue. Obviously, there was no million dollars set

984
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 1: aside for veterans, and Hill and the Coxes would be

985
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: sued by the FTC in October that that year for

986
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: fraudy and advertising. But being sued for fraud did not

987
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: stop Napoleon Hill from producers this magazine about the Golden Rule. Yeah,

988
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 1: in May of nineteen twenty two, he awarded a chiropractor

989
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: by the name of B. J. Palmer what he called

990
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: Hill's Golden Medal. Hill claimed that the award was based

991
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand votes cast by subscribers of

992
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,800
Speaker 1: his magazine, who, among them from places far away as Japan, Italy,

993
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: Australia and England. Woodrow Wilson came in second place. What now,

994
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: there were no subscribers course Golden Hill Magazine, just a couple,

995
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe a couple of dozen. This was all

996
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 1: a lie. But this is like what he was getting

997
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: at when he with his Golden Rule philosophy. It was

998
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 1: basically the way that he actually acted on. That is,

999
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 1: he would present awards to prominent citizens, politicians and celebrities

1000
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 1: and then use that opportunity to like get pictures with

1001
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: them and talk with them and try to get them

1002
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: to either invest in his scams or to let him

1003
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: use their name and credibility so he could trick other

1004
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:17,319
Speaker 1: people into scams. Wow, so that's what that's how. That's

1005
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 1: the golden rule as used by Napoleon Hill. Yeah. Well

1006
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: you know, now we call it swag baby. You give

1007
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:27,879
Speaker 1: him some free stuff. They got agream about it. Now

1008
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:31,000
Speaker 1: it's just being an influencer. Yeah. Yeah. Napoleon Hill was

1009
00:55:31,040 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 1: like the original influencer. Yeah. In nineteen twenty two, Napoleon

1010
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: Hill used this tactic to start up a partnership with

1011
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:42,120
Speaker 1: t O Ted, a prominent chaplain and humanitarian. Hill and

1012
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 1: Teed started a charity that, on its face provided educations

1013
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:47,799
Speaker 1: to prisoners in Ohio to help rehabilitate. Well, don't tell

1014
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:51,319
Speaker 1: me what it real. I don't want to. Yeah, it's

1015
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 1: please Yeah. Yeah. So Napoleon would go from town to

1016
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: town raising money for this program, telling newspapers like, what

1017
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: we're trying to do here is mentally meet these men

1018
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: who are shut off from the outside world. We're going

1019
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: to prove to them that they have something to look

1020
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:08,479
Speaker 1: forward to, then put in their hands the tools which

1021
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,800
Speaker 1: they can carve out their future. Yes, absolutely, yes, I

1022
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: the oppressor, am going to give you the oppressed to

1023
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: the tools you need to escape my oppression. That's what

1024
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:19,680
Speaker 1: I'm going to do. Because I'm really good and nice.

1025
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:24,359
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call Napoleon an oppressor just because he's been

1026
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: arrested a shitload of times and spent a lot of

1027
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 1: time in jail himself, like because he's a criminal convey Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1028
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:35,759
Speaker 1: But of course there was no actual charity. He was

1029
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: essentially running like the mono rail scheme from The Simpsons,

1030
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: but with a charity aimed at raising money to provide

1031
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,319
Speaker 1: education to prisoners. In Shelby, Ohio. In nineteen twenty three,

1032
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:48,280
Speaker 1: Napoleon collected more than one thousand dollars from kind hearted

1033
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 1: locals who were happy to raise fund Steve convicts a

1034
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:52,720
Speaker 1: chance at a better life. A lot of the money

1035
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: came from a group of local school children who raised

1036
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: the cash because they were just so compassionate about the

1037
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 1: convicts that he'll had, you know, pain picture of how

1038
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: who's going to help them. Hill spent much of the

1039
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties following the same basic pattern. He'd go from

1040
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: town to town sweet talk decent folk into donating money

1041
00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 1: to help these people, and then he'd skip town, never

1042
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,760
Speaker 1: to be seen again. By the late nineteen twenties, however,

1043
00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: this scam had run its course. Napoleon's wife he had

1044
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 1: a new wife. Now Florence was starting to get pissed

1045
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,720
Speaker 1: off with him. He wound up in Philadelphia, broke, and

1046
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: befriended a publisher named Pelton. And this is sort of

1047
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:33,280
Speaker 1: when Napoleon's life starts to change. So the late twenties,

1048
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 1: like he's been run out of most of like the

1049
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 1: Midwest and the South and is hiding out in Philadelphia.

1050
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 1: He's got a new wife and she too has some

1051
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 1: family money, but she's pissed at him and kim befriends

1052
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,680
Speaker 1: of public. Yeah, I can't imagine why. So he befriends

1053
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 1: a publisher, a guy named Pelton, and convinces this guy

1054
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 1: that he has a great idea for a new self

1055
00:57:56,520 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 1: help book called the Law of Success. So Napoleon started

1056
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:03,919
Speaker 1: to weave a fantastic story for Pelton, claiming that back

1057
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:06,240
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh eight, he'd sat down with Andrew Carnegie,

1058
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: one of the wealthiest and most successful men in America,

1059
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: had been handed a sacred task to collect all of

1060
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: the success secrets of the greatest men in history and

1061
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: to still them into a sort of science of success. Yes,

1062
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 1: it's like the divincion code, but for success. Yeah, exactly.

1063
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:30,680
Speaker 1: The success code should be obvious under the loof yeah

1064
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 1: he's well, he's still alive at this point. Well, so, yeah,

1065
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:38,640
Speaker 1: as should be obvious to everybody. This meeting never took place,

1066
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:44,400
Speaker 1: Like he there's zero evidence whatsoever that Napoleon Hill ever

1067
00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: met Andrew carry But do you mean there's no evidence

1068
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill said it happened. He did say it happened.

1069
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: And here's how his biography describes this, uh like historic

1070
00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 1: meeting between Andrew Carnegie and Napoleon Hill, the two greatest

1071
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: minds in the history of success. Quote. The richest heritage

1072
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: a young man can have is to be born into poverty.

1073
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 1: Carnegie told him he saw his own humble origins not

1074
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: as a deterrent to success, but rather as the inspiration

1075
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: to overcome all obstacles and attain seemingly impossible goals. If

1076
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:17,800
Speaker 1: one had a strong sense of self worth, Carnegie claimed,

1077
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:20,960
Speaker 1: no degree of impoverishment could hold one back. Individuals who

1078
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,000
Speaker 1: achieve outstanding success are not born with some peculiar quality

1079
00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 1: of genius, not possessed by others. Confidence is a state

1080
00:59:26,840 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 1: of mind. It is under the control of the individual,

1081
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 1: not an inborn trait, and the starting point for developing

1082
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:34,920
Speaker 1: that self confidence is the definiteness of purpose. This was

1083
00:59:34,920 --> 00:59:38,040
Speaker 1: Carnegie's cardinal rule in his philosophy of personal achievement. The

1084
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:40,040
Speaker 1: man who knows exactly what he wants, has a definite

1085
00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: plan for getting it, and is actually engaged in carrying

1086
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:44,440
Speaker 1: out that plan has no difficulty in believing his own

1087
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 1: ability to succeed. Only the man who procrastinates soon loses

1088
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,000
Speaker 1: confidence and winds up doing nothing. But what happens Hill asked,

1089
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: When a man knows what he wants, has a plan,

1090
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:56,000
Speaker 1: put it, and puts it into action, and meets with failure,

1091
00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:59,440
Speaker 1: doesn't that destroy his confidence? Carnegie smiled, I hope you

1092
00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: would ask that, because it is important to understand what

1093
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,880
Speaker 1: I'm about to tell you. I believe that every failure

1094
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,440
Speaker 1: carries with it and the circumstances of the failure itself

1095
01:00:06,600 --> 01:00:09,120
Speaker 1: the seed of an equivalent advantage. If you examine the

1096
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 1: lives of truly great leaders, you will discover that their

1097
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 1: success is an exact proportion to their mastery of failures.

1098
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: Life has a way of developing strength and wisdom and

1099
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 1: individuals through temporary defeat. So you can see why people

1100
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:23,720
Speaker 1: would find this compelling. Yeah, it kind of leaves out

1101
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 1: all of the exploitation of other people that went along

1102
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,920
Speaker 1: with Andrew Carnegie's financial success. Yes, completely, Yes, And it

1103
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 1: also again it puts the onus of failure on the

1104
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 1: people who are not materially success. Right, if you're not rich,

1105
01:00:37,640 --> 01:00:40,880
Speaker 1: then it's because you're not good. It's just you're not

1106
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:45,080
Speaker 1: brave enough or good. Yeah, you're just not and it's

1107
01:00:45,120 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: a thing. It's not your fault. But you're also just

1108
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: not good or brave or smart. So if you were,

1109
01:00:51,080 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: then you would be richer. Because that's what that's what

1110
01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 1: I did, And it was all because of me. You

1111
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: could have chosen, and because I to be real hard

1112
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: about success every night, I thought of itout it. Yeah,

1113
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: why didn't you think thinking about if you did, your

1114
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:10,240
Speaker 1: kids would have bread? And again, I just want to

1115
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:13,680
Speaker 1: make it clear, I don't think Andrew Carnegie ever exprastinating

1116
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: like this. This is all Napoleon Hill putting words into

1117
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:18,440
Speaker 1: Carnegie's mouth. I don't know anything about the man, but

1118
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure he didn't say this shit. So next, according

1119
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,880
Speaker 1: to Hill, Carnegie explained to him that in his conversations

1120
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: with other rich men like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison,

1121
01:01:28,800 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: he'd learned that all wealthy men had similar stories. They

1122
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 1: had all risen to greatness via trial and error and

1123
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:37,439
Speaker 1: totally earned the wealth the universe had bestowed upon those

1124
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: Carnegie told Hill that he'd become convinced that the average

1125
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 1: person could gain wealth by studying the lives of great

1126
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 1: businessmen and replicating their tactics. All that was necessary was

1127
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: for some enterprising soul to go out talk to the

1128
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:53,960
Speaker 1: great leaders and successful men of the world translate their

1129
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:57,840
Speaker 1: wisdom into an easy to read guide for the average reader. Wow.

1130
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:02,000
Speaker 1: So this is the ask that Andrew Carnegie. You know what,

1131
01:02:02,040 --> 01:02:05,080
Speaker 1: he didn't ask for. It was merely bestowed upon him

1132
01:02:05,120 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 1: as a mission. It was thrust upon thrust go out,

1133
01:02:09,720 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: you know, like an explorer, collect the gem secrets of

1134
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: business success and uh, and then bring them to the

1135
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:20,360
Speaker 1: common man so that we can all become as successful

1136
01:02:20,520 --> 01:02:24,960
Speaker 1: in money as him. A con man. Yeah, He's like,

1137
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:27,880
Speaker 1: I want you to be the Indiana Jones of rich people,

1138
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 1: and like like of rich people to call the Golden

1139
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:35,000
Speaker 1: idols of how to run businesses from their temples of Okay,

1140
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: that's yeah anyway, uh so yeah, yeah that this is

1141
01:02:40,560 --> 01:02:43,400
Speaker 1: like so Hill claims that like Andrew Carnegie sets him

1142
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: this task, and that Carnegie tells him it's going to

1143
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 1: take twenty years to complete the mission, and Carnegie is

1144
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 1: like old like elder who lives on a mountain and

1145
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: is like, my sign, you must collect the secrets I

1146
01:02:55,560 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: give you. That's exactly the story that that Hill tells.

1147
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:03,080
Speaker 1: And conveniently enough, he pitches this book in nineteen twenty eight,

1148
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: which is twenty years after he claims he had his

1149
01:03:06,120 --> 01:03:08,840
Speaker 1: fake meeting with Andrew Court. He spent the last twenty

1150
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:13,040
Speaker 1: years not tricking people into building cars for him, but

1151
01:03:13,520 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 1: collecting success secrets. Yeah, in between fleecing small towns out

1152
01:03:19,840 --> 01:03:24,160
Speaker 1: of their spare money and running multiple fake colleges, he

1153
01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 1: was interviewing the great thinkers of the world about success.

1154
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 1: So next, according to Hill's biography quote, Hill confessed that

1155
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 1: he not only shared Carnegie's utopian vision, but believed it

1156
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 1: could be accomplished. That was exactly what Carnegie wanted to hear.

1157
01:03:39,320 --> 01:03:41,640
Speaker 1: With his usual bluntness, he turned to Hill and without

1158
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 1: for any further preamble inquired if he felt equal to

1159
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:47,600
Speaker 1: the challenge of undertaking this great work himself. Hill was

1160
01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 1: honored and amazed that Carnegie saw in him someone worthy

1161
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: of the task, but Napoleon Hill believed he was. It

1162
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 1: took him less than half a minute to accept the offer.

1163
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: In fact, it took exactly twenty nine seconds, according to Carnegie,

1164
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 1: who had taken out his style watch and was timing

1165
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 1: Hill's response. Afterwards, he told Hill that he had given

1166
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:06,160
Speaker 1: him a maximum of sixty seconds to come to a decision.

1167
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 1: If it had taken even one second longer than that,

1168
01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 1: Carnegie said, the offer would have been withdrawn because a

1169
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 1: man who cannot reach a decision promptly once he has

1170
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,680
Speaker 1: all the necessary facts cannot be depended upon to carry

1171
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,280
Speaker 1: through any decision he may make. It's bad to think

1172
01:04:19,320 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: through your decisions, that's true. Yes, it's definitely. It's bad

1173
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:26,000
Speaker 1: to spend more than a minute, yes, deciding whether to

1174
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: take on an unpaid twenty years. I mean, this is

1175
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 1: why I'm not rich, is because I think about decisions

1176
01:04:31,080 --> 01:04:34,760
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, I don't know, if you know,

1177
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 1: could I have accepted such a daunting task, The daunting

1178
01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: task of going around to old rich men and asking

1179
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: them how they got so rich. I don't know, man,

1180
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have the strength of character

1181
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: for that. No. No, that's why you know you're not

1182
01:04:47,160 --> 01:04:50,560
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill. You lack the strength of character to kidnap

1183
01:04:50,600 --> 01:04:55,480
Speaker 1: your own child, run a fake automotive school, and steal

1184
01:04:55,560 --> 01:05:02,000
Speaker 1: lumber man. That's all wrong. I got to read the book. Yeah, yeah,

1185
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 1: that's why I'm telling this story so other people can

1186
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:07,120
Speaker 1: follow in Napoleon's I've done sort of what he did,

1187
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: and I'm taking all of the wisdom of his life

1188
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 1: and condensing it for you. Yeah. So, yeah, everything I've

1189
01:05:13,640 --> 01:05:16,560
Speaker 1: just read you that's the story that Napoleon Hill told Pelton,

1190
01:05:16,600 --> 01:05:19,240
Speaker 1: the guy who you know, the publisher that he befriended,

1191
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: and it was it's a good story. Like, that's a great,

1192
01:05:22,080 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: great idea for a bo So the thing about I

1193
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:27,040
Speaker 1: only had thirty seconds to decide and he would have

1194
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:29,440
Speaker 1: with you know, that's just like a real heightening of

1195
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 1: the stakes. That he was a good a good storyteller. Yeah.

1196
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:36,400
Speaker 1: Now there was only one problem because he had Pelton

1197
01:05:36,440 --> 01:05:38,440
Speaker 1: as soon as Pelton Pelton being a smart guy, like

1198
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: here's the story and He's like, oh, yeah, I could

1199
01:05:39,880 --> 01:05:43,240
Speaker 1: sell a book with that with that premise. But there's

1200
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: an issue, which is that Napoleon Hill is destitute and

1201
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:49,120
Speaker 1: if he'd spent the last twenty years learning all of

1202
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 1: the secrets of success, he would probably not be destitute.

1203
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:57,520
Speaker 1: So Napoleon had to find a way to pretend to

1204
01:05:57,600 --> 01:05:59,920
Speaker 1: have some money in a meeting with this guy, or

1205
01:06:00,160 --> 01:06:03,680
Speaker 1: he's been training his whole life for this, Yeah, exactly.

1206
01:06:03,920 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about how he did that and

1207
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:11,160
Speaker 1: Napoleon's first major financial success in part two. But right now,

1208
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:16,040
Speaker 1: Sorrow June, would you plug some pluggables because it is

1209
01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:19,680
Speaker 1: the end of this Absolutely, I will plug my website

1210
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 1: Heysarrow June dot com h E y s A r

1211
01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 1: A j U n E. You can see where I

1212
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 1: am doing comedy shows. You can come to my comedy

1213
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: show High Priestess if you're in La High Priestesscomedy dot com.

1214
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: I'm on Venmo and Instagram at heysar at June. I'm

1215
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: on the Daily Zeitgeist sometimes and this is a great podcast.

1216
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:40,200
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to it. I'm Robert Evans. You

1217
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:41,920
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at I write. Okay, you

1218
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:43,800
Speaker 1: can find this podcast and all the sources for it

1219
01:06:43,840 --> 01:06:47,439
Speaker 1: at behind the Bastards dot com. You can find us

1220
01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:49,959
Speaker 1: on the Gram and the twits at at bastards pod

1221
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:52,800
Speaker 1: and those are the only places in the world that

1222
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:56,000
Speaker 1: you can find us, So don't don't go look in

1223
01:06:56,040 --> 01:07:01,320
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Mountain, use them into the success you seecret.

1224
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:04,800
Speaker 1: If you can track me down on the top of

1225
01:07:04,840 --> 01:07:07,320
Speaker 1: the mountain where I live, I will quest, I will,

1226
01:07:07,400 --> 01:07:09,280
Speaker 1: I will. I will put you with a quest of

1227
01:07:09,360 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 1: talking to all of the worst dictators in the world

1228
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:15,800
Speaker 1: and distilling their secrets of success. Uh. And once you

1229
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: put all the success in the crown, then you will

1230
01:07:20,040 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: manifest richness, but not for you, for some other guy,

1231
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 1: for for another guy who's a bud. Yeah, all right,

1232
01:07:28,560 --> 01:07:32,000
Speaker 1: that's the episode. Uh. We'll be back on Thursday with

1233
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:37,680
Speaker 1: part two. H