Napolean Hill: Think and Grow Rich

What a catching title. I went to my local Borders store yesterday and began my research into money making formulas. Think and Grow Rich, by Napolean Hill looked like a good start. Apparently this book has been a world best seller and has helped many obscenely rich people get to where they are now. This was indeed a good read and I will share it on this blog:

Napolean was a rags to riches story. He was born into a poor family and started writing for newspapers at the age of 13. Seems like a pretty smart chap because he also later graduated from Law and became an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt. His big break, though, came when he was asked to write a series of success stories of famous men. One of them was Andrew Carnegie who was impressed by Napolean enough to sponsor him on an even bigger assignment - To interview 500 millionaires and find a successful formula that the average person could use. Now that’s what I’m talking about! This is where I was definitely on the edge of my seat. Here’s a book that many people have quoted on as pivotal for their success. This guy got to interview the likes of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Rockefeller, and here’s the secret formula all noted down in a book!

So what is the secret formula? In the words of Napoleon Hill, the secret is in every chapter but is only available to those who are ready for it.

• Desire: The starting point of all achievement
• Faith: Visualise and believing in the attainment of desire
• Autosuggestion: the medium for influencing the subconscious mind

Now when I got to Autosuggestion, it was not clearly obvious to me as to what it meant. Napolean recommends you to constantly tell yourself that you will succeed, concentrate on your desire so that it becomes a burning obsession. He gives an example quote from a famous Emil Coue formula - “Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better”

• Specialised knowledge: Personal Experiences or Observation
• Organised Planning: the crystallisation of desire into action
• Persistance: the sustained effort necessary to induce faith

Most of this is fairly self explanatory so far. You need to have desire, faith, passion, and all that jazz but it should be in your specialised knowledge area, you need to plan, and persist with your goals. The next few chapters of this book get a bit bizzare though

• Power of the master mind
• Mystery of Sex Transmutation
• The subconscious mind
• The Brain
• The Sixth Sense

I must admit, I didn’t make much of these ending chaptors. Mystery of Sex Transmutation??? Basically, Napolean reckons that sex is such a powerful force and desire for the average human being that if ‘transmuted’ to focus on another goal, it can help you achieve greater success. Fair enough.

The main message throughout the book is that you really need to want it, desire it, and if you think you are then you will be. “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Personally, one of the key concepts I got from this book was autosuggestion. Fixate on a goal and repeat it to yourself as if you’ve already got it. This got me thinking, what is it that I really want? I needed to come up with a numerical goal to achieve. After not too much thought, I’ve decided that I want to have a paper net worth of $1 million in one year. So here goes. Mark my words. By 23rd July next year, I will be a millionaire! Day by day, I am getting richer and richer :) hehe

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