The 12 Miracles of Life

NAPOLEON HILL was born on October 26, 1883 in Southwest Virginia. Napoleon was born into a rural, poverty-stricken area where education was not important. At the time, boys quit school around age 13 or 14 and went to work in the coal mines. However, Napoleon wanted a different life, so he sought an opportunity to go to Tazewell Business School and later received a job as a secretary. Eventually, he took a job as a reporter and interviewed Andrew Carnegie, one of the world’s richest men. Mr. Carnegie urged Napoleon to devote his life to developing a simple success philosophy that anyone could follow, and Napoleon did just that. In 1928, he published his first book, The Law of Success, which was a result of studying 500 of the most successful men at the time. The Law of Success was a complex book and was over 1000 pages long, so Napoleon condensed his research and wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937. Think and Grow Rich has sold millions of copies all over the world and is a set of principles that we can all use to live successful lives. Napoleon Hill was a lifetime author and continued writing books until he passed in 1970. Today, the Napoleon Hill Foundation continues Napoleon’s work of making the world a better place in which to live and has published over 100 books by Dr. Napoleon Hill.

To learn more, go to naphill.org

DON M. GREEN (Wise, Virginia) is executive director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation and president of the foundation board at the University of Virginia-Wise. He became CEO of Black Diamond Savings Bank at 41 and studied under personal development master W. Clement Stone. He travels extensively, lecturing worldwide for the Foundation. Most recently, Mr. Green was featured in a United Nations forum on the importance of entrepreneurship within the national economy.

Green's first youthful business venture was charging admission to see his pet bear—yes, the living, growling kind! Since 2000, Green has traveled worldwide and used his finance skills to grow the Napoleon Hill Foundation’s funds in order to continue the Foundation’s educational outreach to prisons. Green has both modeled leadership skills as a CEO and taught them through the PMA Science of Success course at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise. Don specializes in discussing his personal experiences in leadership and providing audiences with proven methods of applying Dr. Hill’s success philosophy to business.

Green brings nearly 45 years of banking, finance, and entrepreneurship experience to his role as Executive Director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, and is the author of Everything I Know About Success I Learned from Napoleon Hill, Napoleon Hill My Mentor, Napoleon Hill’s Your Millionaire Mindset and The Gift of Giving. 

The author lives and works in the Wise metro area.

To learn more, go to naphill.org