Books by Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Thinking is the Norman Vincent Peale book in our library. Most of the modern motivational shelf is a response to it, for or against. It is worth reading as the origin of that argument, which is why the summary points out where the claim is strong and where it is not.
Its defensible core is narrower than its title. Expectation changes how long you persist at something, and persistence changes outcomes, which is a chain most people would accept. The parts of the book that claim more than that are the parts later writers have spent decades arguing with.
How to read it. Read it as evidence rather than as instruction. It explains why the genre looks the way it does, and that is a more useful thing to get from it than advice.
It sits in the Motivation and Inspiration bundle, next to the books that argue with it.
The book
The Power of Positive Thinking
Norman Vincent PealeThe origin of the genre, and more measured than its reputation suggests. Its case rests on the effect of expectation on persistence, which is the part the later books kept. Where it overreaches, it overreaches openly, which makes it a fair book to argue with rather than a dishonest one.
What it argues- Expectation changes how long you keep going, and persistence changes outcomes.
- Repeated difficulty is often met better by deciding in advance how you will respond.
- Confidence here is treated as a practice rather than as a personality trait.
- The book claims more than its evidence supports; the defensible part is narrower than the title.
- Its real importance is historical: nearly every later book on this shelf is answering it.
Suited to a reader who wants to understand the genre rather than be helped by it, and to anyone who has wondered why positive thinking has such a mixed reputation. Read it alongside The Subtle Art for the opposing view.
Where to start
Read it knowing that the useful claim is narrower than the title. The part worth keeping is that expectation affects persistence. Once you see that, the rest of the book reads as the genre working out its own position, which is genuinely interesting. Read the summary first if you want the argument without the repetition, and the book itself if you want to see how confidently the original claims were made.
Where this fits
This is where the motivation shelf starts. The Subtle Art argues directly against it, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind is its ancestor, and Mindset supplies the careful, testable version of the same instinct. Read it as the founding document rather than as a set of instructions, and read the later books as the corrections they were written to be.
The rest of this shelf
The Motivation and Inspiration shelf holds 5 books in total. These are the others, each condensed into a guide you can finish in about 15 minutes:
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
- The Wealth Money Can't Buy: The 8 Hidden Habits to Live Your Richest Life by Robin Sharma
- The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy
The genre, from its origin
The Power of Positive Thinking is in the Motivation and Inspiration bundle with The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, The Wealth Money Can not Buy and The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.
Five complete guides, about 15 minutes each.
Explore Motivation and InspirationExpectation changes how long you keep going.