Once upon a time the there was personal secretary in England named James Allen.
During his lifetime he never achieved great fame or wealth.
At the age of 38 he retired. He and his wife moves to a small cottage in Illfracome of Devon in England.
During the next decade he produced nearly 20 books. In 1912, at the age of 48, he passed away.
But the same year he retired he also published one of the most inspiring books on personal development I have ever read. Together with Napoleon Hill´s “Think and grow rich” James Allen´s “As a man thinketh” is probably the most well-known of what might be considered old school books on personal growth. Well, at least old school for the last century or so. 
The main thought of “As a man thinketh” is very simple but profound. It´s not a new thought now nor was it when Allen wrote about it. He tapped into wisdom that is thousands of years old. But Allen puts it eloquently and really drives the point home throughout the book.
The aphorism, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” not only embraces the whole of a man’s being, but is so comprehensive as to reach out to every condition and circumstance of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of a man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them. This applies equally to those acts called “spontaneous” and “unpremeditated” as to those which are deliberately executed.
Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does a man garner in the sweet and bitter fruitage of his own husbandry.
Many of the books I´ve read on personal growth are written in a well structured and lucid way. James Allen´s book is all that but more concise and decluttered of all the fluff. But what really stands out is Allen´s beautiful style of writing.
Asamanthinketh.net lets you download the book in pdf-format if you sign up for their newsletter. I suggest you do so to get this small 28-page book.
Set of a half hour tonight and read it through. It can have a profound effect on your life.
I´d like to end this short article with one of my favourite parts of the book.
Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. Here is a youth hard pressed by poverty and labor; confined long hours in an unhealthy workshop; unschooled, and lacking all the arts of refinement.
But he dreams of better things. He thinks of intelligence, of refinement, of grace and beauty. He conceives of, mentally builds up, an ideal condition of life. The vision of the wider liberty and a larger scope takes possession of him; unrest urges him to action, and he utilizes all his spare time and means, small though they are, to the development of his latent powers and resources.
Very soon so altered has his mind become that the workshop can no longer hold him. It has become so out of harmony with his mentality that it falls out of his life as a garment is cast aside, and with the growth of opportunities which fit the scope of his expanding powers, he passes out of it forever.
Years later we see this youth as a full-grown man. We find him a master of certain forces of the mind which he wields with world-wide influence and almost unequaled power. In his hands he holds the cords of gigantic responsibilities. He speaks, and lo! lives are changed. Men and women hang upon his words and remold their characters, and, sunlike, he becomes the fixed and luminous center around which innumerable destinies revolve. He has realized the Vision of his youth. He has become one with his Ideal.
Glad to see someone is staying on top of things.