Page 166 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

creative faculty of the imagination. Chief among the stimuli with which this "step-
ping up" of the vibrations maybe produced is sex energy. The mere possession of
this energy is not sufficient to produce a genius. The energy must be transmuted
from desire for physical contact, into some other form of desire and action, be-
fore it will lift one to the status of a genius.

Far from becoming genii, because of great sex desires, the majority of men lower
themselves, through misunderstanding and misuse of this great force, to the sta-
tus of the lower animals.

168

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

WHY MEN SELDOM SUCCEED BEFORE FORTY

I discovered, from the analysis of over 25,000 people, that men who succeed in
an outstanding way, seldom do so before the age of forty, and more often they do
not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of fifty. This fact was
so astounding that it prompted me to go into the study of its cause most carefully,
carrying the investigation over a period of more than twelve years.

This study disclosed the fact that the major reason why the majority of men who
succeed do not begin to do so before the age of forty to fifty, is their tendency to
DISSIPATE their energies through over indulgence in physical expression of the
emotion of sex. The majority of men never learn that the urge of sex has other
possibilities, which far transcend in importance, that of mere physical expression.
The majority of those who make this discovery, do so after having wasted many
years at a period when the sex energy is at its height, prior to the age of forty-five
to fifty. This usually is followed by noteworthy achievement.

The lives of many men up to, and sometimes well past the age of forty, reflect a
continued dissipation of energies, which could have been more profitably turned
into better channels. Their finer and more powerful emotions are sown wildly
to the four winds. Out of this habit of the male, grew the term, "sowing his wild
oats."

The desire for sexual expression is by far the strongest and most impelling of all
the human emotions, and for this very reason this desire, when harnessed and
transmuted into action, other than that of physical expression, may raise one to
the status of a genius.

One of America's most able business men frankly admitted that his attractive
secretary was responsible for most of the plans he created. He admitted that her
presence lifted him to heights of creative imagination, such as he could experi-
ence under no other stimulus.