Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill

If you haven’t yet read Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, I highly, highly recommend you find a copy. This is a classic book about the power of positive thinking when it comes to financial success.

The book opens with the sentence “Truly, “thoughts are things,” and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.” When you understand the idea that almost everything around us is a manifestation of an original idea, you see the power of this books’ premise, that there is a “secret” that is the foundation of all success.

Over twenty years, Hill studied the examples of a number of successful individuals, and he has distilled his research into this “how-to” book, first published in 1937. He points to the example of Andrew Carnegie and the “Carnegie Secret,” which is never explicitly mentioned but is similar to the film “The Secret” where thoughts become things… ideas become reality.

The book has sold over 30 million copies since its first publishing, and there are probably multiple copies in your library or bookstore for you to peruse. It’s a quick read and a book that you will read at different stages along your path to glean a different understanding.

Here are the 13 principles that Hill outlines for you to follow in your quest for success:

Desire
Faith
Auto-suggestion
Specialized Knowledge
Imagination
Organized Planning
Decision
Persistence
The Master Mind
The Mystery of Sex Transmutation
The Subconscious Mind
The Brain
The Sixth Sense

We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual
conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they’re all only man-made,
like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do
what you can do as best you know how?

-John Hurt, Actor