It was 1937 when the classic work by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich – was first published. Ever since, it has been right at the top of the list of Personal Development books that are considered as by many to be a must-read for any serious student of the subject.
There is no question about it, the book has influenced a great many people over the years and it is claimed it has created more millionaires than any book ever written. People like F.W. Woolworth, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, George Eastman, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson – pretty much all of the extremely successful people of their time – testified to the correctness of the principles explained in the book.
As someone once said, I think it was Bob Proctor but I can’t be absolutely sure nevertheless, it’s indeed true, “it ain’t a classic for nothing!” The work took Napoleon Hill over twenty years to complete.
Here's what the man himself has to say about where to start ...
So think about those things. Here are those lists again ...
The Riches You May Enjoy if You Take Possession of Your Own Mind and Direct it to Ends of Your Own Choice
1.Sound Health
2.Peace of Mind
3.A Labour of Love of Your Own Choice
4.Freedom from Fear & Worry
5.A Positive Mental Attitude
6.Material Riches of Your Own Choice and Quantity
The Penalties You Must Pay if you Neglect to Take Possession of Your Own Mind and Direct it
1.Ill Health
2.Fear and Worry
3.Indecision and Doubt
4.Frustration and Discouragement throughout Life
5.Poverty and Want
6.The whole flock evils consisting of Envy, Greed, Jealousy, Hate and Superstition
You can get a free copy of Think and Grow Rich here ...
If you think about it for a little while, would you say it's true that rich people must know something that other people, who are not rich, don't know? Most people, I figure, would agree with the proposition. So, in this little article, we are going to consider that question: what do rich people know that other people don't?
It has been said many times that if you were to redistribute all the wealth in the world equally so that everybody had an exactly equal share of it, within about five years, all the previous rich people would again be rich; and all the previously poor people would be poor again. And, personally, I think that statement is very true.
The reason the wealth would be redistributed again in the same disproportionate fashion is that rich people do actually know things that other people don't. This is the subject of the best-selling book by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Rich people behave differently because of what they know. For example, they don't buy things that are a liability unless it cannot be avoided - like, perhaps, buying a car which is, essentially, a liability. Instead they prefer to buy things that are investments - perhaps a vintage car.
Poor people have large televisions; rich people have large libraries. There's a great deal of difference between the two mind-sets. Another example might be a preference for antique furniture - an investment; rather than fashionable furniture - a liability.
If you are ready to find out a little bit more about the secrets of the rich, we have a little book on the subject; and you can get it here (free) ...
Now then, I do remember that I wanted to post something here, but what on Earth was it now? Ah yes ... I remember, it was about how to go about improving your memory.
You know something? There are psychologists who believe that we never actually forget anything. We may have difficulty retrieving information, in other words, problems with the recall mechanism, but we don’t actually forget as such. That is why techniques like hypnosis can be so effective in helping people to recall things they thought they had forgotten of course.
At present, my mother is having quite a bit of difficulty with her memory. It happens to many people when they get older. However, you can definitely improve your ability to remember things by engaging in a course of study and exercising that old grey matter. In fact, I - here and now - resolve to complete my masters when I have retired. I should have a bit more time for it then. And, as I said, it will keep the devil at bay; and, by the way, the devil’s name is Alzheimer’s.
It’s an interesting subject: memory. To commit something to long-term memory requires repetition of the important information over time because, in order to remember, your brain needs to physically grow connections. These new connections between brain cells (neurons) just don’t happen instantly, but you can train yourself to remember.
The ability to retain and recall important information is a key skill upon which, to a large extent, the degree of success you will attain is dependent. You therefore owe it to yourself to spend a little time working with your mind to improve that ability. And, of course we have a little free book that can help you. You can find it here ...
Whilst, in recent years, The Secret and the Law of Attraction, in particular, has come to pervade the success marketplace, Napoleon Hill is famous for his work on the Laws of Success. That’s laws - in the plural. Success is not dependent upon a single law like the Law of Attraction; there’s also, for example, the Law of Cause and Effect to consider.
However, in this article, I want to focus on what, exactly, is meant by the notion of ‘law’. After all – as far as I know – there is no law that says you are going to become successful is there? The best way to understand what is mean by the word ‘law’, when used in this context, is to consider the Law of Gravity. We all know what it is and how it works so I won’t explain that but if we think about it, is it really a law? Personally, I think the answer is ‘yes’: it is a law that cannot be broken and it, therefore, operates whether we like it or not.
So too is the Law of Attraction – the basic idea is that whatever is turning-up in your life right now has been created (or attracted) by you somehow. When you think about it, the above statement encompasses both the Law of Attraction and the Law of Cause and Effect because the effect is whatever is turning-up in your life; and the cause(s) is/are the methods you used (usually unknowingly) to attract it.
So, we can see that the basic laws of success – just like the law of gravity – operate whether we like them or not. The concept of obeying the law is exactly the same as for the law of gravity. We do not walk over the edge of a cliff, for example; that is how we obey the law of gravity. Similarly, we obey the Laws of Success by acting in a manner that is consistent with the way the law operates and the results we expect to ensue.
But before we can even begin to operate our live in accordance with the Laws of Success, we need to know what they actually are. And, we have a little book on that subject. It is, of course, completely free; and you can get your copy right here ... The Laws of Success
NLP is defined as the ‘study of the structure of subjective experience’. It turns out that we don’t all experience reality in quite the same way – it is subjective. NLP is concerned with that subjectivity: both with studying it and with studying how it is possible to work with it to produce dramatic change in the lives of people.
The acronymn (NLP) explodes into Neuro-Linguistic Programming; and it has nothing to do with programming because, as I mentioned in my last post on Training the Brain, we don’t actually program our brains – that’s simply a computer-based analogy for what NLP is concerned with. In earlier times, the brain has been thought of as something like a hydraulic-system – again the analogy is a product of its time.
So when we talk about programming the brain, it is important to realise that whilst we attempting to make changes, for the better, the brain is definitely not a computer and is not as simple a device as a computer. That said, I believe that NLP has a lot to offer in particular in the area of modelling excellence. Modelling is just another word for copying.
If we copy the behaviour of another person; copy their body-language; copy their attitudes; copy their speech patterns; would it be possible to reproduce their results? That’s what modelling is all about. A premise of NLP is that is it indeed possible.
We have an excellent little free book on te subject. It’s called NLP in Business and in Life; and you can get your free copy right here ...
