Top 3 Lessons I Learned after Reading “Think and Grow Rich” Ten Times

#1: “The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

Today I finished the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill for the 10'th time. A book that has given me tons of knowledge, helping me not only set goals but also teach me how to achieve them. It taught me how to create a burning desire to achieve my goals through auto-suggestion, how to come up with new ideas, and how to overcome my fears.

The book is great. It is based on Napoleon Hill’s research on what makes a successful person successful. He studied over 500 self-made millionaires such as Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison for 25 years.

The book consists of 13 principles. According to Hill, you need to master all of the 13 principles to achieving your dream. I do not believe that, so I have used the ones I feel are the most useful to my current situation, and it turned out to work pretty well. I would suggest you do the same.

The book mainly focuses on how to make money. The techniques and principles presented in the book are all connected to making the most amount of money. Although this is the case, I chose to use the principles to achieve any of my life goals regardless if money was involved. And I believe you can do it too!

1. Desire — The definiteness of purpose

This is by far my biggest takeaway from this book. Desire is the starting point of all achievement. “When a man desires a thing so deeply he is willing to stake his entire future on a single turn of the wheel to win, he is sure to win.”

If your desire is big enough, and you are persistent enough to keep going no matter what happens or how hard it is going to be, your success will come. “Weak desire brings weak results” and a strong, burning desire brings success.

“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” — Napoleon Hill

Creating and maintaining a burning desire is the key to success. There are two ways to do this: Auto-suggestion or cutting all sources of retreat. I believe auto-suggestion is the most powerful and best way to create a burning desire.

Auto-suggestion

Auto-suggestion is a tool that involves reading a sentence out loud for yourself to convince your subconscious mind that you can achieve your goal. Napoleon Hill believed in Henry Ford’s statement: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right.”

To start using auto-suggestion follow these steps (this can also be found in the book, however, I have done some tweaks to make it more about achieving goals rather than only about getting money):

1. Find out what you desire. This could be an amount of money (as the author suggests), amount of customer, or amount of people on your email list. The key point is to find out when you have achieved your goal.
2. What do you intend to give in return for the money or customers you desire? There is no such reality as something for nothing. You must sacrifice something to have the time and energy to achieve your goal.
3. When do you want to achieve your goal? Write down a definite date for when the goal should be achieved.
4. How are you going to achieve this? Break the goal into 1–3 minor actions that can be done every day/week to achieve your goal. Now begin doing the actions straight away, whether you are ready or not.
5. Write all this in a clear, concise statement. How much money/customers do you want, what do you intend to give in return, when do you want to achieve it and how you are going to achieve it. Here is an example of my statement related to my business: “I want 1000 customers in Leafy before 01/06–2021 by working 1 hour every day instead of playing video games”
6. Here comes the most important step. You should now read the statement out loud for yourself every morning and afternoon. Believe, see, and feel this statement every time. You will within a short time be convinced that you can achieve your goal no matter what. And remember, as Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t — you are right”

2. Six ghosts of fear

Why haven’t you started working on achieving your dream yet? Napoleon Hill points to 6 reasons why (he calls them the six ghosts of fear):

1. The fear of poverty
2. The fear of criticism
3. The fear of ill health
4. The fear of loss of love of someone
5. The fear of old age
6. The fear of death

According to Hill’s research most people have at least 5 of these 6 fears. One thing to know is that every single one of these fear only consists inside your head. None of them are a reality. Here are some simple ways to relieve yourself from these fears:

1. Whip the fear of poverty by deciding to get along with whatever wealth you can accumulate without worry
2. Put your foot upon the neck of the fear of criticism by reaching a decision not to worry about what other people think of you.
3. Acquit yourself of the fear of ill health by the decision to forget symptoms. Worrying about symptoms will also make you more likely to get sick.
4. Master the fear of loss of love by deciding to enjoy the love whilst it lasts and not worry about when it will be gone. Worry won’t change it.
5. Eliminate the fear of old age by deciding to accept it, not as a handicap, but as a great blessing which carries with it wisdom
6. Relieve yourself, forever of the fear of death, by deciding to accept death as an inescapable event.

Practice closing your eyes 5 minutes every day to release tension and worry around these fears. You can select one fear at a time. Both of these lists can also be found in the book.

3. Temporary defeat vs permanent failure

“One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. No one ever is defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.” — Napoleon Hill

There is a big difference between temporary defeat and permanent failure. One is temporary and the other is permanent. You should only quit when you are faced with permanent failure, not temporary defeat. But how do you find out whether your current defeat is temporary or permanent? According to The Napoleon Hill Foundation, the difference is pretty easy:

Every defeat is temporary unless you give up and allow it to become permanent (1)

So there is no such this as a permanent failure. Every failure can be overcome with the right mindset and desire to achieve your goal. This goes back to creating enough desire to convince yourself that not achieving your goal is impossible, making you invisible to permanent failures.

This helped me so much. Just realizing that every defeat is temporary made me able to continue to work hard even when it was extremely tough. If you stay working as hard as you normally do, and stay persistent, you will soon see that every defeat is temporary. And not only is it temporary but is also brings “with it the seed of an equivalent advantage”.

To read or not to read?

This depends on whether you like this post. If you made it this far, you would probably like the book. I believe these 3 topics are the most important ones, so if you want to get to know all of the 13 principles and find out which ones work for you, then I would strongly recommend you read it. It did change my life for the better.

There are many different types of the “Think and Grow Rich” Book — with different lengths, editors, and extra notes from Napoleon Hill himself. If you want the full version I would suggest buying the original one. This was the one I read, and although it is pretty long, it is informative and explains every single one of the 13 principles fully. You can buy it here: https://amzn.to/2ZWohxc (not affiliate)

If you want a shorter, cheaper version that still gives you most of the information, I would suggest buying the one from GP editors. The book is only available as an ebook on Kindle or as an audiobook on audible. I have also read this one, and although most of the examples have been cut out, it still explains most of the 13 principles thoroughly. You can buy it here: https://amzn.to/2D9jwqV (also not affiliate)

I hope this post helped you not only realize but also overcome your fears of start working on achieving your dream. I hope it helped you believe that achieving your dream is possible and that temporary defeats won’t stop you.

To read more about book notes, self-improvement, mental health, and productivity follow me. If you got any questions about the book comment below. The quotes used in this post are from the book.