Think and Grow Rich

Napoleon Hill
About this microbook
In Hill’s 1937 landmark publication “Think and Grow Rich”, he shares the secret of how to become
rich with relatively little effort involved. What really counts is the mindset you adopt. A positive
mindset will mean that positive things will come to you. A burning passion for your goal and
persistence in the face of challenges are the main ingredients to become rich.
Who is it for?
Best suited for future millionaires, those wanting to become rich, spiritually- minded people,
entrepreneurs.
In "Think and Grow Rich" you'll learn:
How thinking the right thoughts will make you rich.
Why you don’t need a fancy degree to become rich.
What auto-suggestion means.

Author's biography
Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill was a very influential American writer in the area of Personal Development and Self-
Help. He was a White House Foreign Relations Advisor during President Woodrow Wilson's tenure
and was also responsible for writing and preparing the celebrated speeches delivered by President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his tenure. Among other personalities who were part of the
research of Napoleon Hill we have: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Elmer
Gates, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, George Eastman, John D. Rockefeller. The
result of his research was presented in 1928, the year he published his first work "The Law of
Triumph". Before its official publication, this work was submitted to bankers, merchants and
university professors who, by their eminently practical spirit and superior culture, could analyze and
criticize it. He also presented to the two major universities in the United States of America to closely
examine the work to correct or eliminate statements that appeared to be unfounded from an
economic point of view. Not a single modification was proposed. Napoleon Hill, as well as a pioneer
in the study of human behavior for success, is still probably the thinker who inspires most authors in
this area of knowledge. Currently, The Napoleon Hill Foundation (USA) protects the memory of
Napoleon Hill and disseminates his ideas and works around the world.
Most of us have dreamed of becoming rich without having to put much effort
into it. This desire has been around for a long time, as Hill’s 1937 landmark
publication shows. In it, he explains how thinking can literally make us rich.
According to Hill, it’s just a matter of the mindset you adopt, so get ready to
discover for yourself the power of thought.

Thinking to grow rich

When Hill was just a little boy, Andrew Carnegie - one of the richest men in
history and the pioneer of the American steel industry during the 19th century
- shared with him the secret of becoming rich. That is, if you have the right
mindset, you can grow rich, no matter what.

Hill spent the next 25 years interviewing more than 500 of the richest people
of his time, to see if they all shared the same secret to success. To share
what he learned, he wrote “Think and Grow Rich.”

The power of thought is unfathomable, especially when coupled with a

burning desire to achieve an aim. Hill says - you can think yourself into
success as well - all you need is a sound idea. Just be aware: “When riches
begin to come, they come so quickly, and in such great abundance, that one
wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years.”

Be passionate about your goals!

First of all, you will need a definite goal that you feel passionately about.
Edwin C. Barnes, for example, had the definite desire to work with, not for,
Thomas Edison. In the beginning, he didn’t know Edison at all, but one day he
simply walked into his workshop and proposed working together. This
determination convinced Edison to hire him: “When a man really desires a
thing so deeply that he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of
the wheel in order to get it, he is sure to win.”

It is the thought that counts - when we are truly determined to achieve one
thing, it will manifest itself on the outside. Barnes actually managed to work
with Edison in the end, not for him, because he convinced Edison to let him
sell Edison’s Dictaphone. Barnes grew rich by doing so and literally thought
himself into a partnership with Thomas Edison!

You need this burning desire for your goal in order to achieve it. This means,
you can control your fate because you can control your thoughts. Persistence
is the other ingredient needed to become successful: will-power combined
with desire is the sure road to success. Your persistence will mean that you
won’t be held back by small failures or setbacks, and the intensity of your
desire will keep you going until you reach your goal.

An example for this is Henry Ford and his eight cylinder motor: He instructed
his engineers to create it and, even though they said this would be impossible,
he instructed them to persist until they made it work. After many setbacks,
they did manage to make it work in the end. 

Often, opportunity arrives in a different way than we expect it to; it can be

disguised as misfortune or temporary defeat. Most people fail because they
do not follow through on their goals, and let themselves be discouraged by
temporary defeat. R. U. Darby, for example, stopped digging for gold just
three feet away from a gold vein worth millions of dollars.

Have faith in yourself

You need to believe in what you want to achieve and have faith in yourself
and your goals. Faith will be transformed by the subconscious into its spiritual
equivalent, which will then transmit it to infinite intelligence, meaning that it will
then become true.

This belief in oneself can be strengthened by autosuggestion. All impressions

received through the five senses are stopped by the conscious thinking mind,
which then either delivers the impressions to the subconscious, or stops them.
This means that humans have absolute control over what reaches their
subconscious minds. Through autosuggestion you can control this process,
and consequently, this would allow you to feed the subconscious with creative
thoughts. 

To strengthen your ability of autosuggestion, write down your goal and read it
aloud twice a day, once at night and once in the morning. If you feed your
subconscious with thoughts that you are already in possession of what you
crave for, this will trigger automatic thought habits which can make your goals
become reality. This self-reliance will also boost your persistence in achieving
that particular goal.

Use your imagination

Your imagination is where your burning desire to become rich is translated
into action. It’s the workshop of the mind. Imagination has led mankind to
amazing achievements - including building up the expertise to explore the sky
and the solar system - as well as, facilitating communication over long
distances through the telephone. In truth, our imagination is the only limit to
what we can achieve. 

There are two kinds of imagination: synthetic and creative. The synthetic
imagination rearranges known concepts and ideas into new combinations.
The creative imagination, on the other hand, is where we come up with new
ideas and receive new inspirations (through direct communication with infinite
intelligence). Creative imagination is also where one communicates with the
subconscious thoughts of others. While the creative imagination works
automatically, it can only come up with new ideas when pushed by a strong
desire of the conscious mind.

Your imagination is where you will translate your ideas into a plan for action.
According to Hill, this imagination can be fed by sexual energy too. It is a
desire that cannot be suppressed, but when harnessed in the form of creative
expression, it can be usefully adopted to become rich. “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.”

Utilizing knowledge
    A good rule of thumb for any person wanting to become rich is to specialize
in something or achieve an admirable level of proficiency through practice,
and the good news is - you don’t need any formal recognition of your skills to
get there. According to Hill, schools and colleges teach general knowledge,
which is of little use in accumulating money, because educational institutions
“do not specialize on the organization, or the use of knowledge.”

The real meaning of education is the development from within, which is why
many people who became extremely successful have often had very little
formal education. Take Thomas Edison for example. He only received three
months of formal schooling in his life and still invented the light bulb!

To utilize knowledge in your chosen field, you don’t have to rely on your know-
how and expertise. You can create a “Master Mind group” of people with the
knowledge you need and harness this information to achieve your goal.
Similarly, you will need power to reach your aim but power in the sense of
“organized and intelligently directed knowledge” that will come as a by-product
of the diversity in skill in the group. 

On top of that, having this group will automatically lead to the creation of new,
innovative concepts by combining various points of views. “Economic
advantages may be created by any person who surrounds himself with the
advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group of men who are willing
to lend him wholehearted aid, in a spirit of perfect harmony.”

Planning the game

To achieve your goals, organized planning is essential - especially in terms of
your Master Mind group. Before forming it, you should be open about what
you can give each of the participants in return for their cooperation. Then,
arrange to meet several times a week until a plan is mapped out and during
the meetings try to address important issues in order to improve the cohesion
between members. Don’t give up if your first plan fails – simply pivot and
come up with a new one - repeat that process until you hit the nail on the
head. Thomas Edison, for example, failed 10,000 times before he finally
invented the light bulb.

When it comes to planning, you should also understand that there are two
types of people: leaders and followers. It is up to you to decide which one of
the two you want to be. Remember - even if you start out as a follower, you
don’t have to stay one. Intelligent followers will become leaders, eventually.
The major attributes of leadership are courage, self-control, a keen sense of
justice, decisiveness, conviction in your plans, a pleasing personality,
sympathy and understanding, and mastery of detail. You will also need to
regularly do more than what you’re being paid for, cooperate well, and be
willing to assume full responsibility to become a successful leader.

To become rich, remember that you will always have to operate within the
rules of the system that you are a part of. Once you have settled on a plan, do
not hesitate to follow through, and start working on it immediately. After all,
being decisive is one of the hallmarks of a great leader and procrastination is
the exact opposite of that. You should also be able to make split-second
decisions, and follow through with your decisions carefully. 
Think positive

The subconscious mind is the place where thoughts are translated into action.
Therefore, positive emotions and desires will be translated into the outcomes
you want, while negative emotions will translate into failure. 

Riches begin with a state of mind: “Success comes to those who become
success-conscious. Failure comes to those who indifferently allow themselves
to become failure-conscious.” This is because our brains are influenced by the
ether. They become magnetized by our thoughts and will then attract to us
that which we desire.

    This is why, to become rich, you have to adjust your mindset to a positive
one. The mind can either be dominated by a negative or positive emotion, so
you have to make a conscious effort to concentrate on the positive. “Form the
habit of applying and using positive emotions! Eventually, they will dominate
your mind so completely, that the negatives cannot enter it.”

Do not let yourself be influenced by indecision, doubt, or fear. They’re also

just states of mind and can therefore be controlled. So make it a habit; fear
can be cured by forcibly repeating acts of courage, or auto-suggestion.

Final Notes

Adopt the right mindset, and you will become richer than you could ever have
imagined. While Hill’s book has been a bestselling book over the decades, it
should be kept in mind that it was written in 1937. Many of his points are
based on outdated views of the human psyche and makeup of the human
brain. To modern readers his explanations will often seem to be bordering on
the spiritual. 

However, keeping that in mind, quite a few of his points still hold true today -
that a positive mindset, determination, a specific goal, and a passion for your
aims will help lead you to success.

12min Tip

Think of a definite goal in your life and write it down. Read it out loud twice a
day to stimulate your mind into becoming obsessed with it!