Money and Sex

Perhaps the most ludicrous thing we might ever hear is that sex is a key contributor to wealth creation and ultimately, success. Sex? How? Modest people might consider this to be blasphemy. What about hard work? Business acumen?  A great team of workers? What does a base human activity such as sex have to do with money and success?

Well, according to Napoleon Hill, this is certainly true and was explicated in his book: Think and Grow Rich. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to this subject, titled ‘The mystery of sex transmutation’. Transmutation is defined as “the transfer of one element or form of energy into another.” He describes sex transmutation as the “switching of the mind from thoughts of physical expression, to thoughts of some other nature.” Hill describes the sexual desire has the most powerful of human desires and when driven by this desire, men develop “a keenness of imagination, courage, will power, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times.” It is obvious that when a man fancies a woman, he finds creative ways to woo her and win her affection. He composes poems and suddenly develops the strength to cross the fictional seven mountains and seas just to get her attention. When he gains her attention, he does everything in his power to keep her; he becomes disciplined and religiously takes her out on dates; buys her gifts and dazzles her. Now, when a man channels this energy of emotions he feels for his woman to business, his mind is stimulated and produces creative genius that leads to success.

Hill reveals that scientific research has revealed  two significant observations, which are:

1. The men of greatest achievement are men with highly developed sex natures: men who have learned the art of sex transmutation.
2. The men who have accumulated great fortunes and achieved outstanding recognition in literature, art, industry, architecture, and the professions, were motivated by the influence of a woman.

He identifies ten stimuli of the mind and the desire for sexual expression tops the list with fear, narcotics and alcohol at the bottom (those being negative emotions and predictably lead to destruction).

George Washington, one of the founding fathers and the first President of the United States of America, was a renowned General in the army. He was a skilled statesman and one of the men responsible for the freedom of America from Great Britain during the American Revolution War. He had a ‘secret weapon’ – his wife Martha. History records that during long breaks from the war, George would invite his wife to be with him on the battlefield and “considered his wife’s presence as so essential to the cause, that he sought reimbursement from congress for her travelling expenses.” The men in his army said she always brought hope to them in camp and she was solely responsible for the peace and fine form of their general. She is the only woman in American history honoured with her face printed on a currency.

William Shakespeare, the renowned poet and writer of popular screenplays like Hamlet, Othello and the Merchant of Venice, lived in London to enable him be in the midst of the action. Yet, he would go home in the countryside to be with his wife, Anne Hathaway and children. He eventually retired to his home and subsequently died there.

The most glaring historical figure would be the self-proclaimed Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, who excelled in the art of war and became a General at the young age of 24. He fell in love with a woman six years older than him, Josephine and married her. He loved her so much that his love letters to her are still celebrated. His passion and desire to return to her fuelled his fervency in battle and he soon became formidable across Europe, rising from a non-descript family to becoming the Emperor of France. His desire for an heir led him to divorce Josephine and marry Marie-Louise. That was the beginning of his downfall as shortly after, he was defeated by the British army and banished to an island where he died. His son by Marie Louise made a statement that attested to the great influence Josephine had and her value to the monarchy of Napoleon, he said “If Josephine had been my mother, my father would not have been buried at Saint Helena, and I should not be at Vienna. My mother is kind but weak; she was not the wife my father deserved.”

There are so many other men who rose to power under the influence of their wives and subsequently crashed when money and fame got to their heads and they divorced the first wives for the another. Men who became unfaithful or abused sex and slept around, never amounted to much after their mistakes.

Modern examples of successful men on the FORBES list who fit this bill include Bill Gates married to Melinda Gates; Mark Zuckerberg married to Priscilla Chan, whom he dated since University and married and Warren Buffett, the “Oracle of Omaha” who loved his first wife Susan, till her death.

Balancing this, Hill states that unbridled sexual energy is dangerous as it wields a cyclonic force that can become very uncontrollable. He says that if a man is driven by sex alone to please a woman, he may be capable of great achievement but would become “disorganised, distorted and totally destructive.” He therefore advises that this emotion be balanced out with two other powerful emotions –  love and romance and if combined, “may lift one to an altitude of a genius.”

In conclusion, Hill says that “Men may be ‘giants’ with indomitable will-power when dealing with other men, but they are easily managed by the women of their choice and those who accumulate large fortunes, and attain to great heights of power and fame, do so, mainly to satisfy the desire to please women.”