Think and Grow Rich - Summary and review

Think and Grow Rich presents 13 steps to riches (financial, emotional, and spiritual). It was written in 1937 by Napoleon Hill.

Hill, interviewed over 500 self-made millionaires of his time like Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford, to name a few. He then put together the common behaviors, traits, and habits of these ultra-successful, and rich people into this book.

Simply, wishing your desires will materialize will NOT bring you riches.

To achieve any goal, you must have a burning desire and belief you will make it. And backed by definiteness of purpose. Purpose is knowing what you want.

Hill details 6 steps for turning your desires into reality.

Through affirmations or repeated suggestions to the subconscious, you can develop the emotion of faith.

Faith is necessary to transform your desires into their physical or monetary equivalent.

Auto-suggestion refers to the use of (A) self-directed communication and (B) self-administered stimuli, to channel thoughts from the conscious mind to the subconscious one.

The conscious mind often acts as a barrier to sensory impressions.

Thus, auto-suggestion must be used to create thought patterns needed to translate your desires into their physical equivalent.

General knowledge, or what's typically taught in schools, will NOT help you accumulate riches, nor will specialized knowledge on its own.

Rather, you must learn how to organize and use knowledge after you acquire it.

If you lack the specialized knowledge necessary to build your business or attain your goals. You can supplement your own knowledge with that of other individuals by forming a “Master Mind” group.

The imagination is the unique thing with the human mind - that shapes, forms, and gives action to desire.

Hill distinguishes between two modes, by which the imagination functions:

1. the synthetic imagination, which does not create but rather arranges old concepts, ideas, or plans into new combinations; and

2. the creative imagination, which, when stimulated by strong desire, picks up thought vibrations from other humans and from the ether, connects with Infinite Intelligence, and develops new ideas.

In order to translate desire into its physical or monetary equivalent, you must form a definite, practical plan and put it into action.

Hill explains how to build plans and ensure they are functioning to your advantage.

Procrastination and indecisiveness are major causes of failure.

Successful men and women, on the other hand, share in common the ability to reach definite decisions quickly and change their minds slowly.

Hill teaches you how not to be swayed by the opinions of others, but instead to keep your own counsel (and that of your Master Mind group) so that you make firm, productive decisions that ensure your success.

Most people will throw in the towel at the first sign of opposition.

However, willpower + desire, is necessary to ensure that one’s objectives are reached.

Hill provides 4 steps for cultivating the habit of persistence, ie. your insurance against failure.

Individuals can attain and apply power through the formation of a Master Mind group.

A Master Mind Group is a number of individuals with different strengths and perspectives - who share a purpose. The individuals can then coordinate their knowledge and efforts to achieve this purpose.

Master Mind groups bring both (A) economic advantages (riches) as well as (B) psychic benefits (a cosmic harmony that generates a “third mind” or spiritual unit of energy operating at a higher frequency).

Sex transmutation means channeling carnal desires and their corresponding energies, into other outlets than those that are purely physical - namely, creative ones.

A correlative to this principle is the importance of selecting a compatible partner.

The subconscious mind is the intermediary between the finite mind of man, and Infinite Intelligence, that enables humans to tap into the forces of the Universal Mind.

Hill emphasizes that it alone is the medium for translating mental impulses into their spiritual and physical equivalents.

Hill writes, “Through the medium of the ether, in a fashion similar to that employed by the radio broadcasting principle, every human brain is capable of picking up vibrations of thought which are being released by other brains.”

Hill explains the process by which the mind is stimulated by external vibrations, and supplies a method for using emotions to increase the mind’s receptivity to these sensory stimuli.

The Sixth Sense refers to the faculty of the subconscious, also termed the Creative Imagination by which humans, through no effort of their own, receive communications from Infinite Intelligence.

Hill calls this principle the “apex” of his Law of Success philosophy. As it can be comprehended and applied only after mastering the first 12 principles.

In order to implement these thirteen success principles, you have to prepare your mind to receive the philosophy.

The first step to prime your psyche is to study, analyze, and understand the three enemies you’ll have to defeat: indecision, doubt, and fear.

1. the fear of poverty

2. the fear of criticism

3. the fear of ill health

4. the fear of loss of love

5. the fear of old age

6. the fear of death.

These fears are often hidden in the subconscious. And Hill also explains the cure to each of them.