Think and Grow Rich

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