Think and Grow Rich
I’m not one for long tracts of business psychology. I’ve
seen a couple of surveys that state that people who spend long periods of time
reading Business Self Help and other psychology books very rarely ever succeed
in business.
BUT I finally read “
Think
and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill recently. Mainly because a couple of my
mentors strongly suggested it. The book
wasn’t the most riveting read if I’m honest but I was pleasantly impressed with the
sound perception that poured out of it.
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It essentially comprises the thoughts of 500 men of great
wealth who all built their fortunes from nothing. Hill assimilated these
thoughts to discover the common denominators involved. These became known as
the 13 steps to achieving wealth.
Today I will share those critical messages with you.
Step 1 - Desire
This is the heart beat! Desire underpins every action and
plan. This is not about mere wishing but having almost an ache to achieve or attain.
It is well defined and commits to a plan. So the key is to take your wants and
turn them into desires. When you don’t you have the self-help syndrome I described
above. Desire is the fuel to achieve and prosper.
It is then translated into an action plan. The action plan
is then ‘lived’ to reinforce the desire.
The 6 key steps to promote and harness Desire:
1.
Fix a definite amount of money you want
2.
Determine what you give in return
3.
Establish a definite date for this
4.
Create a definite plan – begin at once whether
ready or not
5.
Create a clear statement as to flow of monies to
achieve a financial forecast
6.
Read aloud twice a day – see the outcome as
being NOW i.e. present tense.
Step 2 - Faith
This was the #2 step – the creation of a level of
self-confidence which could be religious but not necessarily the case. The success of great people is down to their
mastery of their failures, which requires a huge degree of faith. Strength and
wisdom is developed in individuals through temporary defeat.
That mastery of defeat is achieved by disciplining the mind
to meet this head on by meeting it mentally before the occasion arrives.
Hill developed a self-confidence formula in five steps to be
committed to memory:
1.
Demand of yourself persistent continuous work to
achieve attainment
2.
Concentrate thoughts for 30 minutes daily to who
you intend to become
3.
Devote 10 mins daily to demand self confidence
4.
Write your chief aim down and never stop trying
to achieve this
5.
Succeed by leadership and elimination of all
draining emotions – envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism.
Step 3 - Auto – Suggestion
This is a more difficult concept to grasp. We tend to be
more readily accepting of the terms of (positive) affirmations or
visualisations. It’s the same thing! You see riches in your thoughts and those
affirmations drive you on to your goals.
“If you do not see great riches in your imagination, you
will never see them in your bank balance.” (Hill). If you desire to have money,
see yourself in possession of that money.
It becomes therefore a technique in order to allow desire
and faith to be made more concrete in their role. Hill suggests repeating the strategy
or mission statement aloud morning and evening, while visualizing the goal in
mind. Use the steps above in a formulaic manner to programme your sub-conscious
mind.
Hill doesn’t stop there though. Fully recognising that
nothing is achieved without hard work, so he emphasised that you include the
work involved as part of that vision.
Auto-suggestion is effectively the continuous repeating and affirmation
in blocks of time on a daily basis to re-programme your mind to achieve the
desired outcome.
To access the power of auto suggestion, go into some quiet
spot, perhaps in bed at night. Close your eyes and repeat aloud so you may hear
your own words a careful reaffirmation of whatever your goal happens to be.
Step 4 - Specialised Knowledge
Undoubtedly an easier principle for a modern would-be
entrepreneur to grasp. That requirement is more acute now than at any time
previously and certainly more so than when Hill wrote the book in the 1930s.
The concept of establishing a niche and exploiting that niche by being seen as
an expert in that area is probably one we are all comfortable with now.
To fulfil this step, it becomes essential then that the
entrepreneur must attain and develop that specialised knowledge required. This
step must not be missed. ‘Winging it’ has no place in the Hill Commandments!
Establish the knowledge you need and then analyse and
consider how that knowledge can be attained. If you’re seeking to establish an
online business you will be acutely aware of how much technical knowledge is
required, even before the3 product itself is considered.
The message is simple – continue to evolve and develop the
skills to develop and grow your business. This will be intense at first but
will require constant evolution and maintaining and developing new skill sets.
Step 5 - Imagination
Arguably this under-pins auto suggestion. Whereas Desire is the catalyst for
achievement, Imagination is necessary to give it physical form.
Hill divided
imagination into two distinct types:
1.
Synthetic imagination uses old concepts, ideas
or plans and formulates into new combinations. Hill believed that nothing new
is created that way although it could be argued that almost all innovation is
derived from previous ideas (e.g. Apple’s basic iPod concept was taken from a
Rank Xerox concept; Darwin drew heavily from theories at the time for his
seminal work Origin of the Species)
2.
Creative imagination - universal world mind that all humans can tap
into. Essentially the combination of hunches and inspiration.
The lessons here are
less prescriptive but can be deduced as being:
1.
Find ways in which your creative mind can
flourish – perhaps by taking yourself away from the issue.
2.
Keep a notebook to jot down all ideas however
bizarre at the time
3.
Constantly challenge the status quo – is there a
better way of doing it
4.
Seek out fertile minds from the same niche –
look at the collective wisdom and look at the mavericks. Learn from both.
Step 6 - Organised Planning
This starts as above with Desire but becomes more integral
to later success. It comprises the concept of leadership. That means becoming a
leader! Note however that even Hill concedes that great leaders were once great
followers. The trick is deciding when to take that more senior step. That means
embracing the qualities of assuming responsibility, administering justice,
courage, self-control, decisiveness, sympathy and understanding, mastery of
detail, exceeding expectations as a habit and a willingness to cooperate and to
assume responsibility.
Step 7 - Decision
Aligned closely with leadership. The qualities require reaching
decisions promptly and standing behind those decisions. It is knowing what you
want and ensuring you get it.
A more typical attribute found in most people is Indecision.
Hill states this is a habit which usually begins in youth. “The habit takes on
permanency as the youth goes through graded school, high school, and even
through college, without definiteness of purpose.”
Do not allow yourself to be easily dissuaded by uninformed
opinion. Opinions are described as ‘the cheapest commodities on earth.’
Step 8 - Persistence
Ah! Now here is the one which for me stands above all
others. Strongly aligned with Faith, it is the act of refusal to give up. You
learnt to walk, talk and even ride a bike in this manner – so what is
different.
Hill refers to Edison and that quite famous account of being
asked why when he had failed over a 1000 times to create the electric light
bulb he didn’t simply give up. Edison’s response was that he succeeded in
finding over 1000 ways in which it didn’t work!
If you’re running a business you will have continual setbacks
and it so important to persist to find ways in which the strategy will
eventually come good.
Hill prescribed a plan of action to reinforce persistence
including alliances with like-minded people and shutting out negative and
discouraging influences. That advice still holds good today. – advice that is
still popular today.
Step 9 - Mastermind
The concept incorporates the “coordination of knowledge and
effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment
of a definite purpose.”
It is done with a desirted outcome of lifting the momentum
to beyond the scope of the individuals concerned – almost creating an
additional person. Essentially the 1 + 1 = 3 concept.
Hill - “no two minds ever come together without, thereby,
creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third
mind.”
It is the leverage that other minds provide – the concept of
mentoring and brainstorming are all integral to this.
Step 10 - Sex Transmutation
A somewhat more controversial subject but essentially stating
that the sex drive is associated with vitality and creativity.
“Destroy the sex glands, whether in man or beast, and you have
removed the major source of action. For proof of this, observe what happens to
any animal after it has been castrated. A bull becomes as docile as a cow after
it has been altered sexually.”
Hill argues that successful
men are often highly sexed. It is also why men are rarely truly successful
until they are at least in their forties, when they are less preoccupied with women
and more capable of using their sexual energy for other creative endeavours.
Sex transmutation is concerned with harnessing that sexual energy
and driving it to more useful endeavours and projects, rather than denying that
energy in the first place.
Step 11 - The Subconscious
The goal of Auto-suggestion – to not allow positive and
negative emotions to exist together as they will be an unhappy mix. The
entrepreneur must therefore programme his mind to only allow positive emotions to
exist.
Hill describes the seven desirable emotions as: desire,
faith, love, sex, enthusiasm, romance, and hope.
The seven undesirable emotions are listed as: fear,
jealousy, hatred, revenge, greed, superstition, and anger.
It is common sense that the latter seven are
self-destructive but all of us allow those emotions to creep up. We need to be
aware at all times that they are so destructive and will stop us from achieving
the desired outcome by becoming all-consuming.
Step 12 – The Power
of the Brain
Hill draws upon infinite intelligence to see that a brain is
a collective pool of data which each individual brain can tap into. It acts
like a radio as both a transmitter and receiver of signals –which rely on
emotions to act as a pathfinder.
If I’m honest this is the one which I found most difficult
and vague. It is a case however of seeking to harness this power through the
affirmations of the previous Steps.
This I think Hill’s shortest chapter. As a strategy he
discusses harnessing the power of the brain through the mastermind concept by
using 3 people to discuss a round-the table problem and effectively ‘brainstorming’
it.
Step 13 - The Sixth Sense
Described by Hill as “the medium of contact between the
finite mind of man and Infinite Intelligence” and” the point at which the mind
of man contacts the Universal Mind.”
It is a principle which cannot be practised or disproved. It
is the portion of the subconscious mind that becomes the Creative Imagination.
The harnessing of this is inter-dependent on harnessing the
other 12. Sixth sense where it works warns the user of impending danger. How do
you put this in a business context? Hill
describes the imaginary Council that he consults by using sleep to solve the
main issues of the day. Although remaining imaginary it allows the creative
mind to take unusual directions.
Quite how practical that really is I will leave you to
decide!
by Andy Snowdon
Online Oracle
ajs.onlineoracle@gmail.com
