If you conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it. Words of wisdom from over 100 years ago by Napoleon Hill, author and founder of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, that remain applicable today.
Mr. Hill was a young reporter from Virginia who, in the fall of 1908, interviewed Andrew Carnegie and was later to say about the interview that “the hand of destiny reached out.” At that time Mr. Carnegie was the world’s richest man. Mr. Hill asked Mr. Carnegie what he attributed his phenomenal success to. The 73 year old success story opened up quickly and shared his wisdom. Mr. Carnegie commented “It’s a shame that each new generation must find the way to success by trial and error when the principles really are clear-cut.”
For the next twenty years Mr. Hill would interview numerous other successful leaders from Thomas Edison to Henry Ford, from Alexander Graham Bell to Theodore Roosevelt and John Rockefeller. In 1928 Napoleon Hill would begin publishing the wisdom he learned and in the years to follow authored over 30 books. Mr. Hill’s book “Seventeen Principles of Personal Achievement” sets out the success principles that he learned from the great leaders he interacted with. I will share with you his seventeen lessons along with my comments:
1. Definiteness of Purpose. Don’t be like a ship without a rudder, powerless and directionless. All individual achievement begins with the adoption of a definite major purpose and a specific plan for its attainment. All of us need to have a plan bigger than we are that provides a direction and purpose. Do you have one? Write it down and read it each morning aloud. You will get exactly and only what you ask and work for.
2. Mastermind Alliance. No man can become a permanent success without taking others along with him. An alliance is two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a common definite objective. Success does not come without the cooperation of others. You can create this alliance with anyone who will move in a definite plan, at a definite time, towards a definite common objective.
3. Applied Faith. Faith is an active state of mind. Applied faith means “action.” Faith without action is dead. Faith is the art of believing by doing. It is faith in your God, yourself, your fellow beings-and the unlimited opportunities available to you. Prayer is your greatest power. Faith removes limitations. Close the door to fear behind you and see how quickly the door to faith will open in front of you.
4. Going the Extra Mile. Put your mind to work. Access your ability and energy. Going the extra mile is the action of rendering more and better service than expected with a positive mental attitude. It is inevitable that every seed of useful service you sow will multiply itself and come back to you in overwhelming abundance. Start going the extra mile and opportunity will follow you.
5. Pleasing Personality. The attitudes you transmit to others will tell more about yourself than the words you say or how you look. Your personality is your greatest asset or your greatest liability, for it embraces everything you control: mind, body, and soul. A person’s personality makes the person and what you believe yourself to be, you are. A smiling face often defeats the cruelest of antagonists.
6. Personal Initiative. Personal initiative is the dynamo that spurs the faculty of your imagination into action. Andrew Carnegie said “There are two types of men. One is the fellow who never does anything except that which he is told to do, the other is the fellow who never does more than he is told to do. The man who gets ahead does the thing that should be done without being told to do so.” Personal initiative is the inner power that starts all action.
7. Positive Mental Attitude. A positive mental attitude is the greatest of life’s riches. It is the catalyst necessary for achieving worthwhile success. Change your mental attitude and the world around you will change accordingly.
8. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm inspires action and is the most contagious of all emotions. Enthusiasm is faith in action. It is the intense emotion known as burning desire. It comes from within, although it radiates outwardly in the expression of one’s voice and countenance.
9. Self-Discipline. If you direct your thoughts and control your emotions, you will ordain your destiny. Self-discipline begins with the mastery of thought. If you do not control your thoughts you cannot control your needs. Self discipline is the first rule of all successful leadership.
10. Accurate Thinking. Truth will be truth, regardless of a closed mind, ignorance, or the refusal to believe. Accurate thinking is based on inductive reasoning (based upon the assumption of unknown facts and hypotheses) and deductive reasoning (based upon known facts or what are believed to be facts). Learn to separate facts from fiction or hearsay evidence and from important and unimportant. Be careful of others’ opinions. Accurate thinkers permit no one to do their thinking for them.
11. Controlled Thinking. Keep your mind on the things you want and off the things you don’t want. Controlled attention leads to mastery in any type of human endeavor. It is the highest form of self-discipline.
12. Teamwork. Teamwork costs so little in time and effort, and it pays huge dividends. Teamwork is harmonious cooperation that is willing, voluntary, and free. Teamwork produces power. Teamwork is sharing a part of what you have - a part that is good - with others.
13. Adversity & Defeat. Every adversity you meet carries with it a seed of equivalent or greater benefit. Defeat may be a stepping stone-or a stumbling block according to your mental attitude and how you relate it to yourself. It is never the same as failure unless and until it has been accepted as such. Learn to use the winds of adversity to sail your ship of life.
14. Creative Vision. Only an open mind can grow. Our greatest gift is our thinking mind. Imagination is your mind’s exercise, challenge, and adventure. It is the key to all of a person’s achievements. Be quiet and motionless, and listen for that small, still voice that speaks from within you.
15. Health. A sound physical health is dependent upon a positive mental attitude. You are a mind with a body. Your brain controls your body. Sound physical health demands a positive mental attitude and a health consciousness. Whatever affects the body will affect the mind; whatever affects the mind will affect the body. Don’t cure the headache. It’s better to cure the thing that caused it.
16. Budgeting Time & Money. The successful person budgets time, income and expenditures, living within his means. Time and money are precious resources, and few people striving for success ever believe they possess either one in excess. Learn to budget your time to the important tasks and your money to those things related to your definite purpose.
17. Habits. You are where you are and what you are because of your established habits, thoughts, and deeds. All of us are ruled by habits. They are fastened upon us by repeated thoughts and experiences. Some habits are good and some are bad. It takes a habit to replace a habit. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny. You are ruled by your habits–good or bad!
My challenge to you is reread the above seventeen principles of success and to score yourself from 1 to 10 on each of them. Determine what principles you do well and which ones you need to improve on. Apply the principles to your life and get ready for greater degree of success.
Just a thought...
