The name Richard Buckminster Fuller is not widely known, but his inspirational life story and his extraordinary ideas are worth learning. His life, he said, was an experiment.

Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts. Born into a wealthy and patrician family, he never experienced lack of money or lack of popularity. In his teenage years he horrified his parents by getting expelled from Harvard twice: once for treating an entire New York dance troupe to champagne on his own tab and then, after having been readmitted, for his “irresponsibility and lack of interest”. To his family’s shock, he never completed his college education.

Between his sessions at Harvard, Fuller worked in Canada as a mechanic in a Cotton mill, and later as a laborer in the meat-packing industry.  At the age of 22 in 1917, he married his sweetheart Anne Helwett and joined the US Navy for wartime service, where for two years he eagerly served as a shipboard radio operator, and later as a crash-boat commander.

His life seemed almost perfect at the time, but in only a few years his familiar and secure world had turned upside down.

By the age of 32 Fuller was bankrupt and jobless, living in low-income housing in Chicago. His daughter Alexandra died from polio meningitis. He had no viable means to support his wife and his other new born child. His failures and misfortunes pushed him over the edge and he started drinking heavily.

Not seeing a way out, Fuller seriously thought about committing suicide. But before drowning himself in Lake Michigan, he decided to give himself one last chance.

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Who is Napoleon Hill?

Napoleon Hill can be considered one of the “fathers” of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He was one of the most successful writers, teachers and motivational speakers of his time. Not many people know that Hill’s theory was redeveloped by Bob Proctor in the movie “The Secret”. The “Law of Attraction”, which is widely discussed in self-help books, learning programs, and seminars, actually reformulates Hill’s book “Law of Success”, that was written 80 years ago!

The lessons that he taught others have helped thousands of people all over the world. Very often these were the same lessons that he had learnt himself the hard way.

Biography

Hill’s life was not easy. There was nothing grand about his beginnings. He was born to a poor family on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia in 1883. When he was 10 years old, his mother passed away and he was left in the care of his father. Two years later his father remarried, but the family’s financial situation did not improve much.

So at the age of 13 Hill found his first job as a “mountain reporter” for a local newspaper. Over time he saved money from his job as a writer and was accepted into law school. However, as he could not finance his way through college, he was forced to leave law school and return to work as a reporter. What had seemed as another setback, turned out to be a great opportunity…

Life-Changing Encounter

When Hill was 25 years old, he was given an assignment to interview and write a series of articles about the richest and most famous men of the time. One of these men was a steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. This encounter changed Hill’s life forever. During this fateful encounter Hill asked Carnegie, the regular question, “To what do you attribute your success?” and received an answer that he was not expecting.
This is what Hill himself wrote about this conversation:

“With a merry little twinkle in his eyes he said:
“Young man, before I answer your question will you please define your term ’success’?”
After waiting until he saw that I was somewhat embarrassed by his request he continued:
“By success you have reference to my money, have you not?”
I assured him that money was the term by which most people measured success, and he then said: “Oh, well – if you wish to know how I got my money – if that is what you call success – I will answer your question by saying that we have a master mind here in our business…”

The concept of the Master Mind would become one of the most important keys to success in Napoleon Hill’s theory. But we will talk about it later…

Carnegie was intrigued by idea that the average man could easily achieve financial abundance just by using a “success formula” (that Carnegie believed existed). He challenged the young writer to interview 500 of the wealthiest people in the world and find out what it was about their personality that made them successful.

Hill eagerly accepted the challenge and met with some of the great people of his era such as: Henry Ford, William Taft, Thomas Edison, John Rockefeller, Woodrow Wilson, F.W. Woodworth, and Alexander Graham Bell.

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Who Is Robert Baden-Powell?

Although the Boy Scouts are normally considered very American, the founder was British. Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was an extraordinary person, whose whole life can be described as an incredible adventure. Baden-Powell was a British soldier, a spy, an actor, a naturalist, a very good watercolor artist, and even a female impersonator. During his life he wrote 32 books and received honorary degrees from Edinburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Oxford, Liverpool and Cambridge Universities.

Oh, yes, he also founded the largest-youth movement ever created.

Biography

Robert Baden-Powell was born in London on February 22, 1857. He was the eighth of ten children of the Reverend Baden-Powell, a Professor at Oxford University. His father died when Robert was only three years old and the family was left not very well off. Robert was given his first lessons by his mother, but later he gained a scholarship for admittance to Charterhouse School. After school he served in British army from 1876 -1910.

A Spy Or A Writer?

Baden-Powell’s military career was interesting and outstanding from the start. In 1876, he joined the 13th Hussars in India.

In the early 1880s Baden-Powell together with his regiment were posted to South Africa, where amidst Zulu tribesmen he strengthened and honed his scouting skills. His skills were mentioned in dispatches and he was soon transferred to the British secret service. His favorite disguise was that of a mad butterfly enthusiast. He dashed, net in hand, around military forts in Germany, French Tunisia, and Algeria. At the end of each “sporting” day, Baden-Powell drew pictures of what at first glance looked like captured pets. In reality they were accurate layouts of forts with the size and location of its’ guns skillfully hidden in the sketches.

During the Boer war (1899-1900) Baden-Powell became a national hero when, with a small garrison he commandeered the defense of Mafeking. After this episode he became a Major-General at the age of only 43! During the Boer war he wrote a small manual entitled “Aids to Scouting”. Initially meant for military purposes the book reached a far wider readership than it was intended. When after 3 years Baden-Powell returned to England to his surprise he found that his book was being used by youth leaders all over the country.

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Probably like everyone else, I have tried to understand why when some people achieve stellar success and enjoy every second of their lives, while others spend their days in misery and poverty.

People who fail to achieve their goals usually put it down to unsupportive parents and family, lack of education, poor financial situation, lack of “connections”, ill-health, lack of time, personal characteristics or bad economy.

Most of us have been told since early childhood that, “You have to work hard for your money”, that “All successful people are evil, cunning, selfish, and greedy”, that “You have to have money/connections to make money and become successful”, and that “Some people are born under a lucky star, while others are followed by “bad luck”.

Indeed, the lives of many successful and wealthy people seem perfect and care-free. They live in gorgeous mansions, drive expensive cars, wear stylish clothes, go on vacations to exotic countries, date and marry beautiful people, appear on TV, or are smiling happily at us from magazine covers.

It is easy to believe that success and wealth has come to them easily and effortlessly. Whenever, we talk or read about famous people, we never equate ourselves with them. It is almost as if they belong to a “special group”. We can either envy or admire them, but rarely do we think of them as “regular” or “ordinary” (just like me or you).

I believe it happens because few of us realize that most successful people came from poor families, have had abusive parents, started at the very bottom and climb their way up, faced multiple setbacks, and made hundreds of mistakes before they achieved their goals.

These people have changed this world and demonstrated by their own example that nothing is impossible. We should seek inspiration in their success stories, learn from them, adopt similar mindset, develop success habits, and apply what we have learned to our own life.

No one has ever become wealthier from counting other people’s money or happier from discussing their personal life. But every success story can be used and applied as a method, technique or a guidebook for you to become successful.

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