Enthusiasm by Napoleon Hill
Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash
ENTHUSIASM is a state of mind that inspires and arouses one to put action into the task at hand. It does more than this—it is contagious, and vitally affects not only the enthusiast, but all with whom he comes in contact.
Enthusiasm bears the same relationship to a human being that steam does to the locomotive—it is the vital moving force that impels action. The greatest leaders of men are those who know how to inspire enthusiasm in their followers.
Enthusiasm is not merely a figure of speech; it is a vital force that you can harness and use with profit. Without it, you would resemble an electric battery without electricity.
“Enthusiasm is the vital moving force that impels action.”
Enthusiasm is the vital force with which you recharge your body and develop a dynamic personality. Some people are blessed with natural enthusiasm, while others must acquire it. The procedure through which it may be developed is simple. It begins by the doing of the work or rendering of the service that one likes best. If you should be so situated that you cannot conveniently engage in the work that you like best, for the time being, then you can proceed along another line very effectively by adopting a definite chief aim that contemplates your engaging in that particular work at some future time.
Happiness, the final object of all human effort, is a state of mind that can be maintained only through the hope of future achievement. Happiness lies always in the future and never in the past. The happy person is the one who dreams of heights of achievement that are yet unattained. The home you intend to own, the money you intend to earn and place in the bank, the trip you intend to take when you can afford it, the position in life you intend to fill when you have prepared yourself, and the preparation itself—these are the things that produce happiness. Likewise, these are the materials out of which your definite chief aim is formed; these are the things over which you may become enthusiastic, no matter what your present station in life may be.
Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. He began his writing career at age 13 as a mountain reporter for small-town newspapers and went on to become America’s most beloved motivational author. Dr. Hill's work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. Now you can preorder his illuminating memoirs, Master Mind, from Sound Wisdom and read previously unpublished, unpublicized details about his life, marriages, businesses, and experience teaching the seventeen principles of success by which the world’s most prosperous entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and cultural icons live.