by Napoleon Hill (1937) - 320 pages. 8/10
The Book in 3 Sentences;
Your thoughts shape the person you are and will be in the future - you need to consciously desire and become obsessed with money.
You can use auto/self-suggestion to hijack or deceive the subconscious mind through repeating reaffirming messages.
People often quit right before success - don't stop three feet from gold - keep on keeping on.
How I Discovered it
This was one of the books I read quite early on, during the first year of starting to read heavily. It was a best-seller upon release and is in a lot of 'recommended' lists.
Who Should Read it?
My view is that, the benefit of self-help books comes through repetition. In other words, the lessons in this book are echoed in a lot of other books, but to only read one of the books once wouldn't be sufficient to help you make a change, and this book notes it well when it talks about needing to consciously repeat certain thoughts to embody them. You should read it if you're on a journey of self improvement.
Drawing Connections
Success comes to those who become SUCCESS CONSCIOUS. - A sentiment echoed in 'The Richest Man in Babylon" - Why are we not rich? we never desired it...
Talks about the law of attraction but in other words - something often mentioned by Mcgregor.
The book at one point mentioned burning bridges behind you so that you have no way back. Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke about this. Make it so that failure isn't an option.
Top Quotes:
It’s not what you say or how you look etc, It’s how you THINK that counts.
More gold has been mined from the brains of men than has ever been taken from the earth.
The oak sleeps in the acorn. The bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. DREAMS ARE THE SEEDLINGS OF REALITY.
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge - both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.
Summary & Notes
The book talks about a lesson, which some readers will already know, and that other's will learn by the end. That lesson is Desire.
Desire DESIRE
‘Thoughts are things.’ – Powerful things when mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translation into riches.
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.
Our brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts which we hold in our minds, and, by means with which no man is familiar, these ‘magnets’ attract to us the forces, the people, the circumstance of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts.
Before we can accumulate riches in great abundance, we must magnetize our minds with intense DESIRE for riches, that we must become ‘money conscious’ until the DESIRE for money drives us to create plans for acquiring it.
Auto-suggestion
The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind
auto-suggestion = self-suggestion.
Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
Faith is a state of mind which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of autosuggestion.
Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith.
Any impulse of thought which is repeatedly passed on to the subconscious mind is, finally, accepted and acted upon by the subconscious mind, which proceeds to translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, by the most practical procedure available.
There is nothing to hinder you from ‘deceiving’ your subconscious mind when giving it instructions through autosuggestion.
All sense impressions (stimuli) which are perceived through the five senses, are stopped by the CONSCIOUS thinking mind, and may be either passed on to the subconscious mind, or rejected, at will.
The conscious faculty serves, therefore, as an outer-guard to the approach of the subconscious.
Nature has so built man that he has ABSOLUTE CONTROL over the material which reaches his subconscious mind, through his five senses, although this is not mean to be construed as a statement that man always EXERCISES this control.
The subconscious mind resembles a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance, if the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein.
AUTOSUGGESTION is the agency of control through which an individual may voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of a creative nature, or, by neglect, permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into this rich garden of the mind.
Three Feet from Gold
The author mentions that people often stop "three feet from gold" - One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another. It can be best summarised with a picture;
This, in my opinion, is closely related to imposter syndrome - a psychological occurrence where people doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. This is common and is a necessary part of the learning curve. Fake it til' you make it.
"Opportunity has a sly habit of slipping in the back door, and often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat." - Look for opportunity in bad situations - Find the silver lining in the cloud.
6 point plan for wealth;
First – Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say “I want plenty of money.” Be definite as to the amount. (There is a psychological reason for definiteness which will be described in a subsequent chapter)
Second – Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)
Third – Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.
Fourth – Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.
Fifth – Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan thought which you intend to accumulate it.
Sixth – Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. AS YOU READ – SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.
Essentially, create a plan and remind yourself of that plan regularly.
Lex Fridman uses this concept as well and talks about it in the video at the bottom of
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