10 Things You Can Learn From Hitler About Success.

NOTE: This post is in no way meant to trivialize or justify Hitler or any of his actions. It is meant to be an objective look at what people can learn from him and his mistakes.

Here are ten things you can learn from Adolf Hitler about success.

1. Be determined.

When Hitler failed in 1923 to overthrow the Munich government in the famous Beer Hall Putsch, did he give up? No. He did his time in prison and then came out more determined and passionate than ever and continued until reaching his goal of becoming the leader of Germany. It took him over 10 years to achieve his goal.

You’ll run into all sorts of trials and delays on your road to achieving your goals. You must be determined to reach your goal.

If you’re not, then don’t even bother starting.

2. Create alliances and a network.

Hitler had an extensive network and some powerful alliances. He had military leaders, politicians, religious leaders, businessmen, industrialists, etc all working with him helping spread his message.

Who’s helping to spread your message?

3. Learn how to public speak.

Hitler’s gift for public speaking helped him more than any other to communicate effectively with people. Through speech he was able to tap into people’s emotions and open them up to his message.

Tony Robbins is also great at doing this.

4. Brand yourself.

“Hitler is Germany. Germany is Hitler!” was the cry at Nazi rallies. Hitler’s supporters truly believed this. Now that’s personal branding.

What do the people you’re trying to reach think of you?

5. Take time out.

Hitler was quite busy and stressed running the biggest war the world has ever seen. However, he knew how to take time out. He would often head to his retreat, known as the Wolf’s Lair in the hills of East Prussia (now Poland) to relax. While sometimes holding meetings, he normally used the time there to spend with his girlfriend Eva Braun, watch movies and go for walks through the hills and forest.

Are you taking time to relax?

6. Know when to quit.

Sometimes you start out on a venture and it goes well at first, but after some time, you start to notice things aren’t going smoothly. You try throwing more money, resources and energy at it, but it just keeps costing you more.

This happened with a venture Hitler set out on. It was his Operation Barbarosa, the invasion of Russia in 1941. It was successful at first, but was failing two years later.

However, Hitler kept pouring more of his time, energy and resources into this failing venture. In the end, Operation Barbarosa cost him everything. It bankrupted him mentally and physically. He should’ve quit his Russian venture in 1943, two years earlier than he did.

It seems Hitler thought he was just in the dip when it was really time to quit. Know when to cut your losses.

7. Don’t multi-task.

Hitler was trying to balance his time by juggling wars on the eastern front, western front and southern front simultaneously. Historians say that if Hitler waited until he had a surrender from Britain before turning east and attacking Russia, the outcome of the war could have been very different. Multi-tasking was a deadly mistake that led to his three wars on three fronts failing.

Are you guilty of multi-tasking when you should be focusing on one thing at a time? What are you going to do about it?

8. Learn to say “no”.

You’re sometimes going to get requests where you just have to refuse. Hitler sometimes struggled to say “no”. This can be seen when he agreed to Mussolini’s request to help out the Italians in their failing conquest of North Africa. Hitler didn’t want to get involved in North Africa. However, lacking the willpower to say no, Hitler ended up squandering time and resources on someone else’s failed venture. Hitler could have politely advised Mussolini to pull out of North Africa.

9. Learn to listen.

All of us suffer from pride from time to time. It causes us to become stubborn and even arrogant. If you’re too proud, you run the risk of ignoring great advice because it differs from what you think is the right way to do things.

Hitler had some intelligent military generals, who even though fighting for an evil man, can’t be denied their brilliance. However, Hitler was too arrogant and refused to listen to them. He saw contrary advice as a personal attack on him. He lost his sense of objectivity.

Do you feel hurt or angry when someone tells you you’re doing something wrong, or that there’s a better way to do something?

Learn to listen.

10. Make sure your venture is ethical.

This is where Hitler failed miserably. Hitler lied, preached hate, and ultimately harmed millions of people to achieve his goal. As a result, the world turned against him because it knew what he was doing was just wrong.

Is what you’re doing making this world better for people or do you deceive your customers? Do you lie in your marketing? Do your products harm people?

Only you can answer that.

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