"THINK AND GROW RICH" by Napoleon Hill 

Buy This Book

=============================================

Additional thought of Graham White in highlights.

Persistence in a single desire can mow down all opposition and bring the opportunity you are seeking.  Opportunity has a habit of slipping in the back door, and often comes disguised as misfortune or temporary defeat.

Seek expert counsel before giving up.  Before success comes, you are sure to meet with temporary defeat, perhaps even failure.  When defeat overtakes you, the easiest thing to do is quit.  That's exactly what most people do.

The better portion of all sales are made after people say "No" at least once.

You ought to be interested in knowing how to acquire the state of mind that will attract wealth.  One sound idea is all you need to achieve success.

When selling your idea, it's a battle of wills, who's going to win, you or them?  It's NOT a matter of money, it's a matter of value.

Desire is a principle of success.

When you don't have any other alternative, you will tend to succeed.  Wishing will not bring wealth.  Desiring wealth with a state of mind that allows you to learn how to build and keep wealth and persistently seeking it will achieve it.

1.  Determine what it is you want.  It's not about the money, it's about what money will allow you to do.  Determine the qualities you want to be part of your life.  How do you want to contribute to the world, your family, your friends, yourself?  What do you need to do that?  How much wealth will you need to accomplish that?

2.  Determine what you have to give in return for money.  Money doesn't really exist.  It represents an exchange of value.  Someone will exchange the promise of $100 of value for $100 of service or product.  Even lottery winnings represent earned value, they just happen to be someone else's earned value.

3.  Establish milestones in your life.  Determine what types of contributions you want to be making to the people, organizations and yourself and what dates you would like it to happen by.

4.  Begin writing down a definite plan for achieving these goals.  Determine what you can begin doing today, this week and this month.  Put your plan into ACTION!

5.  Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, the date you intend to do it by, what you intend to give in return for the money and describe the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

6.  Review what you've written once a week.  Read it out loud.

Successful application of these six steps calls for imagination to enable you to see and understand that accumulation of money does not happen by chance, good fortune, or luck.  Everyone who has accumulated wealth first did a certain amount of dreaming, hoping, wishing, desiring, and planning before they acquired wealth.

You should know that you can never have wealth unless you are passionate about what you will be able to offer with wealth and believe you will possess it.

If the thing you wish to do is right, and you believe in it, go ahead and do it!  Put your dream across, and never mind what 'they' say if you meet with temporary defeat, for 'they,' perhaps, do not know that every failure brings with it the seed of equivalent success.

Marconi dreamed of a system for harnessing the intangible forces of ether.  Evidence that he did not dream in vain may be found in every radio and television set in the world.  It may interest you to know that Marconi's "friends" had him taken into custody, and examined in a psychopathic hospital, when he announced he had discovered a principle through which he could send messages through the air, without the aid of wires or other direct physical means of communication.

A burning desire to be and to do is the starting point from which the dreamer must take off.  Dreams are not born of indifference, laziness or lack of ambition.

Remember that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive".  The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at the moment of some crisis, through which they are introduced to their "other selves."

The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish.  Open-mindedness is essential for belief.  Closed minds do not inspire faith, courage or belief.

Tell your children that they will be great.  Tell them that their weaknesses will become their greatest assets.  Help them to see how this is possible.  Brainstorm with them.

You come to believe whatever you repeat over and over in your own mind, whether the statement is true or false.  We landed on the moon because we believed it was possible.  We ran a sub 4 minute mile because we believed it was possible.  Now we can do it at will.

Decide to move beyond the unfortunate challenges you experienced in your youth.  Take control of your life and determine what your abilities and weaknesses are.  Your biggest weakness may be lack of confidence.

SELF-CONFIDENCE FORMULA

1.  Know that you have the ability to achieve your purpose in life.  Be persistent and maintain continuous action towards your goals.

2.  Be aware that your thoughts produce your actions and so your focus must be on what you want, not what you feel you want to complain about.  Start thinking about the person you intend to become and how you can do it instead of what is preventing you from doing it.

3.  Write down what you intend to achieve, how you will overcome the defeats along the way and what you have overcome to get to where you currently are.

4.  Tie everything you're working towards to how it helps others.  Don't attempt to achieve anything at the expense of others, rather work at bringing others along in the wake of your success.  Believe in others and they will believe in you.

Somewhere in you lies the seed of your incredible potential which, if awakened, will carry you to heights you never imagined possible.

Gandhi created power out of his understanding of the principle of faith and through his ability to transplant that faith into the minds of two hundred million people.  He accomplished this through faith in his idea alone.

Wealth begin with a thought.  The amount is limited only by the person in whose mind the thought is put into motion.

Universities collectively possess practically every from of general knowledge known to man.  Most of the professors have little money.  They specialize in teaching knowledge, but they don't specialize in the organization and use of knowledge.

Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and intelligently directed through practical plans of action, to the definite end of accumulation of wealth.  Knowledge is only potential power.  It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action and directed to a definite end.

This is the missing link in all systems of education is in the fact that education systems don't teach their students to organize and use knowledge after they have acquired it.

One of the strange things about human beings is that they value only that which has a price.  The free schools and free libraries do not impress people because they are FREE!

Many people buy titles, not the contents of the book.  By merely changing the name of a book that is not moving in sales, the book can become a best seller.

Great leaders began in the capacity of followers.  They became great leaders because they were intelligent followers.

TEN MAJOR CAUSES OF FAILURE IN LEADERSHIP

1.  INABILITY TO ORGANIZE DETAILS.  No genuine leader is ever "too busy" to change his plans or attend to an emergency.  A successful leader is master of detail.  He must acquire the habit of delegating details to capable people.

2.  UNWILLINGNESS TO RENDER HUMBLE SERVICE.  Great leaders are willing when needed, to perform any sort of labor which they would ask another to perform.

3.  EXPECTATION TO BE PAID FOR WHAT THEY "KNOW" RATHER THAN WHAT THEY "DO". 

4.  FEAR OF COMPETITION FROM FOLLOWERS.  A leader who fears that one of his followers will take his position, may be assured that eventually they will.  An able leader trains understudies to whom he delegates any of the details of his position.  This is the only way a leader can multiply his ability and give attention to many things at once.  An efficient leader, through knowledge and personality, greatly increase the efficiency of others and get them to give better service than they would without his involvement.

5.  LACK OF IMAGINATION.  Imagination is what is required to solve problems and creating efficient plans.

6.  SELFISHNESS.  A leader who claims all the credit is resented by those who helped out.  A great leader defers the credit to those who contributed because he knows they will work harder for recognition than for money alone.

7.  OVERINDULGENCE.  Leaders who overindulge in the perks their positions provide are not respected by those they lead.

8.  DISLOYALTY.  A leader who does support those he leads will very quickly lose their support in turn.

9.  AUTHORITARIANISM.  An efficient leader leads by encouraging, not by fear.  The leader who tries to impress will eventually lose his credibility.

10.  EMPHASIS OF TITLE  A leader with an open door who relates to his followers as a peer will get much more from them than one who leads by way of command.

The majority of people who fail to accumulate money sufficient for their needs tend to be easily influenced by the opinions of others.  They permit the TV and gossiping friends to do their thinking for them.  If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no desire of your own.  You have a brain and mind of your own.  Use it, and reach your own decisions.

If you talk more than you listen, you not only deprive yourself of many opportunities to accumulate useful knowledge, but you also disclose your plans and purposes to people who will take great delight in defeating you, because they envy you.

Remember that every time you open your mouth in the presence of a person who has an abundance of knowledge, you display to them your exact stock of knowledge, or your lack of it.  Genuine wisdom is usually conspicuous through modesty and silence.

The only quality that seems to describe how Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were so successful is persistence.

Buy This Book