We can be informed about a lot of things. A lot of knowledge and skills can get accumulated and yet there will be no one, no system, no education that will teach us how can we improve our financial situation? How can we acquire wealth? How can we reach it?

They are all just teaching us about skills that we should acquire in order to be able to do certain tasks. So, we could work to make someone’s else dream possible.

There are thousands of books that promise to teach us how to spend less, save more, invest better, retire earlier, get rich faster and solve any of the financial problems that we might face.

But a book published in 1937, in the middle of the great depression, by Napoleon Hill has the right answers that so many are looking for.

Napoleon Hill has made that ultimate learning -that we all need- available. He teaches us about all the ultimate secrets to think and grow rich. He shows us how by committing and understanding some principles we can be able to acquire wealth and achieve all the goals that we set to ourselves.

Napoleon Hill showed to the world how our thoughts and beliefs can change the course of our life.

All of this has been gathered in one book: “Think and Grow Rich“. This book has led millions of people to achieve success and wealth.

In order to be a part of the people who will reach that too, let’s analyze it all!

1.A short presentation of who is Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 somewhere in the mountains of Virginia, USA.

As a student, Napoleon had to work as a journalist in order to be able to pay for his law studies at the University of Georgetown. It’s due to this activity as a journalist that Napoleon Hill was able to make a masterpiece that will change the life of many people who are going to read it later.

The articles he wrote as a journalist led him to get a job at the Bob Taylor’s Magazine. He was in charge of doing some reports concerning famous people.

Napoleon was 25 when he first met Andrew Carnegie, who suggested to him to do a study that will last for 20 years. Napoleon will interview the 504 people of the United States who were the most successful, in order to learn from them what are all the “must have” to achieve success and to make that knowledge available for everyone. That’s how Napoleon Hill interviewed Ford, Wrigley, Wanamaker, Eastman, Rockefeller, Edison, Woolworth, Darrow, Burbank, Morgan, Firestone and also 3 of the United states presidents.

By the year 1937, Napoleon Hill published his first version of Think and Grow Rich. A version that has been updated through times, but has always kept the same great value and is always leading people to improve their life, their financial situation, to pursue success and reach wealth.

2. The book now!

Let’s analyze this book to get as much knowledge and benefits for everyone.

In its introduction, we get told that the secret to get rich will be mentioned a hundred times, but only the ones who are really looking for it will find it.

I personally think that everyone by the time they lifted and opened the book they are really and seriously looking for it. Also, the author details the whole list of the people with who he made interviews and that they all affirmed to him about the secret. Some of them are:

Also, the author details the whole list of the people with who he made interviews and that they all affirmed to him about the secret. Some of them are:

Henry Ford, King Gillette, William Wrigely Jr, Ralph A.weeks, John Wanamaker… etc.

There are 15 chapters in the book. The first one will show us the power of our thoughts. The other 14 chapters represents the 14 necessary steps to do in order to Grow rich.

Let’s say no more and see each of the chapters!

I.A thought is a fact

A thought, according to the author, is powerful. Especially when it allies a defined goal (wealth for example), perseverance and desire.

In this first chapter, Napoleon Hill gives as an example the story of Edwin C.Barnes who wanted to work with the great Thomas A.Edison as an associate-whether he likes it or not. Even through Barnes didn’t know Edison personally back at that time and didn’t even had enough money with him to go by train to East Orange, New Jersey, where Edison is.

These two obstacles would discourage almost anyone, but Barnes was just about to overcome them with his obstinacy.

He also gave the example of an uncle of R.U.Darby and his story with the Gold rush.

Darby’s uncle went to the West looking for gold. He didn’t know that the thoughts of people hold more gold than what the lands ever had and will ever have.

He worked hard in there, and it did pay! He went back home, told his family, relatives and friends about what he found and so he got more capital. Invested in equipment, then went back to the gold land and took with him, Darby.

Unfortunately for the Darby family, after a while they were mining but no gold was coming out. They kept mining in a desperate way but still no gold. So they sold the equipment to someone else and went back home.

The new owners of the equipment will find later that there is still a lot of gold just 3 foot away from where Darby’s uncle stopped mining.

Later we will see that through that failure of Darby, he will learn the lesson and it will help him to manage in a very good way his insurance business.

There is also the persistence of Henry Ford. He imagined an engine with 8 cylinders which will make one whole block. He asked his engineers to make one, but they were every time coming back saying that it’s impossible and he just resend them “to make it anyway”. This situation remained like that for a while until one day… They made it!

The obstination of a crazy idea can always get through the hardest obstacles.

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I am not going to spoil to you all the chapter, but in it, you will see in details the story of success of Edwin Barnes who without any penny and networking succeeded to became an associate of Thomas A.Edison. You will see many examples of how much persistence is worthwhile and can lead to the achievement of unbelievable ideas. Also that too many people give up while they are too close to the success like it was the case for the Darby family.

Like Henry Ford, you should be the leader who will share his beliefs with his team and make them pursue them, that’s how “impossible” things get done and why great leaders are great.

II.Desire

In this chapter, Napoleon Hill details the first step to becoming wealthy and it’s the Desire. He shows through many real stories people who wanted to achieve their goals, who desire it, who were obsessed with it how they all reach it. Like Thomas A.Edision who dreamed about electric light and made it. The Wright brothers who dreamed about a flying machine and built it, and so on…

We see how a kid without ears learned to hear. A woman who didn’t have “any chance” to become a singer became a famous singer. An ill man who will never recover, according to the doctors, recovered.

There are 6 must-follow instructions in order to convert the ideas you have and desire into real obsession that will lead to starting acquiring wealth from your ideas:

Set the exact amount of money that you want. It’s not enough to say “I want a lot of money”. You have to be specific about it. We will see later why.
Know exactly what you are going to give in order to get that money. We get nothing for nothing.
Set the exact date when you want to be owning that money.
Set the plan that will help you to concretize your idea and start it immediately. Even if you consider yourself as “not ready yet”.
Write clearly in a paper the amount of wealth that you want to acquire, the time period you have set, what you are going to give in exchange and the plan you set to concretize it.
Read your goals out loud twice a day. Before to go to sleep, and when you woke up. During that lecture, you should see, feel yourself, and believe that you are already in possession of that wealth.

These instructions can sound worthless and nonsense. But the point of them is just to make the desire stronger and turn it in an obsession. When people have an obsession they don’t stop until they do it. That’s what the author want us all to reach: “obsession to reach our goals“.

III.Faith

In order to succeed it is a must to have “Faith“.

You can acquire it and strengthen it through the instruction that you give to your subconscious.

There are 5 rules in order to be self-confident (Faithful towards yourself):

I know that I am able to reach the goal that I set, so, I require from myself a continuous action to achieve it.
I know that my dominant thought will go through many phases before to became real.
I know that, through the principle of Self-suggestion (the next principle), any desire that I will remain obstinate about will start to manifest trough some exterior signs so I will keep pursuing it until I reach it.
I wrote a clear description of the goal that I want to reach and I will never stop trying until I do it.
I know that a fortune -or any situation- badly acquired it’s like a castle of sand. It can’t last. That’s why I will never engage myself in a transaction that will only benefit me, or harm someone. I will succeed by acquiring the strength and skills I will need, and being always the first one to serve. I will give to the others the envy to help me. I will love humanity and avoid any negative thoughts concerning people next to me because I know it will only bring me deception. They will believe me because I will show them that I deserve it. I will sign that declaration and repeat it out loud each day. My thoughts will get influenced as my acts too. Then I will reach self-confidence and my personal success goals.

In this chapter, we see also how people like Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln through thoughts were able to attract and unify millions of people.

And most importantly, that advice: “In order to earn, you have to give”

IV.Self-suggestion

You do need only your five senses to make your thoughts reach your subconscious. And when you will be able to do that, your subconscious will make you work and motivated to reach what you want. You will never stop until you reach wealth.

The only way to do that is by doing the right self-suggestions. You have to stick to the plan detailed in the second chapter, in order to transform your ideas into obsessions that will never stop bothering you until you reach them.

Never forget, when you will know how to proceed in order to achieve what you want, start immediately. The time will never be right. Keep waiting for the perfect time is one of the best and most known ways to fail.

V.Specialization

Education itself is not a strength. You have to canalize it towards a specified goal to take benefits from it.

Learn how to learn from others experiences. Learn about the success stories of people who started from nothing to reach success. Henry Ford, despite he was not too instructed knew how to become wealthy.

Success stories that may interest you:

Never hesitate to dip knowledge from the greatest source of it:

Your own experience.
Other people experiences.
Colleges and Universities.
Libraries.
Personal dedicated courses with a mentor.
BONUS: INTERNET. (When this book was published one of the greatest way to acquire knowledge didn’t exist.)

If you can’t sell a product, sell a service. If you can’t sell a service sell your ideas. People who are more than 60 years old have succeeded by doing it. Why not you? You will find a story in that chapter that confirm that point

VI.Imagination

First there are two kinds of imagination:

The synthetic imagination: Make you able to come up with new ideas, concepts and scenarios from old events that really happened in real life.
The creative imagination: It’s the one responsible for all our “Inspirations”, our new ideas and it’s through it that we communicate with the subconscious of others.

they both get developed with practice the same way any muscle in our body become developed the more it’s practiced and used.

Many success stories of people and corporation that are very wealthy nowadays (like Coca-cola) has all started with an idea and succeeded due to the imagination of how to use it. There a lot and a lot of stories in that topic.

VII.Planning

In this chapter, there is an introduction to how to do mastermind groups the right way and a little glimpse about how powerful they are.

You will also find:

11 secrets of good leaders.
10 reasons why some leaders fail
6 domains where new real good leaders are needed.
5 ways to have a nice job and find what’s the perfect job for yourself.
How to write the perfect CV?
31 ways to fail
Personal Introspection with 27 personal question to ask yourself

I can’t show you the details of all of these because that will be a big spoil and disrespect of the intellectual rights of that book.

But most importantly, you will learn the importance of making a plan and how much you need to succeed in it in order to succeed. No excuses allowed!

VIII.Decision

The hesitation and the lack of decisions is one of the key factors of failure. Everyone has an opinion about anything and everything, but it’s only your own opinions that really matters for you and your life.

In this chapter, the author shows us how much decision are important through some real life examples. Like a decision took in Philadelphia in 1776. Yes, it’s the decision of the independence of the United States of America.

A huge desire of freedom leads to freedom, a huge desire of wealth will lead to wealth.

IX.Perseverance

Perseverance is the key in order to reach the financial success.

Here are the 8 things to do and have in order to become perseverant:

The specificity of the intention: You have to know exactly what you want in order to reach it
The desire: You need to desire what you want and be obsessed with it. So, you will never stop until you reach it.
Faith in yourself: Believe in yourself that you can do well a plan and keep persevering doing it.
The precision of the plans: It encourages to persevere.
Suitable knowledge and skills: Having the right knowledge/skills will help feel more secure and push you to persevere using them.
Cooperation: To cooperate with each other it’s not a sign of weakness but a sign of social skills. It tends to develop perseverance.
The power of the will: The concentration in order to elaborate the plans and do them in order to achieve the specific goal lead to perseverance.
The habit: Perseverance is the direct result of habit. The more you do something and feel comfortable with it as a “habit” the more you will persevere doing it.

Here are the most known enemies of perseverance:

The incapacity to define what we want
Hesitation
Lack of interest for a needed knowledge/skill
The indecision and the habit of letting the others take decisions for us
The habit of relying on excuses instead of creating precise plans to resolve a problem.
Self-satisfaction. (You will not want to change your situation if you are satisfied with it, even if to change= to improve)
Indifference
The habit of criticizing others and take unfavorable situations as unavoidable.
A weak desire.
The will and envy to give up when the first difficulty will show up.
The absence of detailed plans to be more prepared.
The habit to neglect opportunities.
Wishing instead of wanting.
The habit of making compromises with poverty instead of wanting to became wealthy.
The search for shortcuts to wealth. Trying to take without giving anything.
The fear of being criticized.

As a real life example of perseverance, in this chapter there is an analysis of the life of the Islam Prophet Muhammed (Mohammed-Mahomet).

X.The Power Of The “MasterMind”

Masterminds are groups where people meet in order to acquire from each other knowledge and experience and push themselves to reach higher success.

It’s mostly through masterminds that Andrew Carnegie reached all the success he has reached.

You can join or create one. In both cases, you have to remember that in a mastermind everyone has to benefits from everyone else. So you absolutely need to have an added value to give when you join/create these groups.

The more people are in a mastermind the better it’s going to be and the more there will be accessible knowledge and experience to learn from for everyone.

Even Henry Ford, who started without any money or skill, has become after 25 years one of the richest men of America. During his journey, he meets great people like Thomas A.Edision, Burbank, Burroughs, and Firestone. The mastermind with all these brightest minds has made Henry Ford able to achieve all the success he got.

In order to become wealthy, you are going to need to plan. It’s tough and you may feel lost and confused. Masterminds will definitely help you.

XI.The Mystery Of The “Sex Transmutation”

The word “transmutation” mean to transfer from something to another. The sex transmutation is to transfer the energy created by the sex envy.

Instead of using it only for sex you should use it to come up with bright ideas that will help you to achieve your goals.

Through a study of more than 200 years, it has been established:

The people who succeeded the best are the ones who know how to manage their sexual desires and benefit from the energy they can get through it.
The men who succeeded and were the wealthiest has all acted under the influence of a woman.

There is a list of stimulants that affect us in our life. The list of stimulants going from the most affecting to the least one::

The sexual desire
Love
The desire of celebrity, wealth, and power.
Music
Friends
Masterminds
Pain
Self-suggestion
Fear
Drugs and alcohol

This list is a general one, it may vary from a person to another. But in general, we notice that the sexual desire is the biggest stimulant for everyone. It should be used the right way.

According to Napoleon Hill, it’s through the sexual energy that Thomas A.Edison succeeded after more than 10,000 tries.

The sexual energy will create and develops your enthusiasm, creative imagination, your desire to succeed, your perseverance and all the other qualities that will make you wealthy and happy.

The only problem with that chapter is in how to transmute this energy? How to transfer it to be able to use it. Hill explained all the benefits and how great it is but in the how to do it there was still a question mark about it.

I personally think that he didn’t mention a specified way to do it because everyone handle his sexual envies in his own way. There is no best way to do it. Try to find your own. Sex should not be the finality of your life, but success and wealth instead.

XII. The Subconscious

The subconscious class and order all the thoughts that get to it through one of the 5 senses. You can feed your subconscious with random thoughts, thoughts of failure or of success and wealth. The decision remains to you. And it’s important and capital because it’s either going to benefits you or to destroy you. It’s depending on what you communicate to your subconscious.

There are 7 bad emotions that you should try to avoid:

Fear
Jealousy
Hate
Revenge
Greed
Superstition
Anger

And now, the positive emotions which should fully occupy your mind:

Desire
Faith
Love
Sexuality
Enthusiasm
Tenderness
Hope

The more you will feed your subconscious with good and positive thoughts the more it’s going to help come up with bright ideas to succeed and achieve your goals.

XIII. The Human Brain

Our brain is our main resource and power to realize great things. In that chapter, we discover in details how much our brain has more faculties and abilities than most of us might think.

Due to some scientifical discoveries, it’s clear that the power of our brain can get improved through time. You only need to believe and work hard.

There are more than 10 trillion of neurons in your brain and they are so powerful. They model you thoughts, ideas, imagination, your will and all of that in a fast way. You have already in it all that is necessary for you in your pursuit of wealth.

XIV.The Sixth Sense

In this chapter, Napoleon Hill reveals to us a technique that helped him –and can help anyone else too– to keep coming with good inspiration and solution for any big or small trouble that we might face.

We get introduced to the “imaginary meetings with successful people” and how they can be very useful to anyone.

But don’t rely on them too much. There are so many tools at your disposal and you might look -or turn- crazy that way.

XV.The Ghosts Of Fear

Fear is very common. It takes many forms, some are justified while some others grow in some people and hold them forever from doing what they want to do. In order to free yourself from it, you should avoid doubts and indecision.

In this chapter, we discover so many fears that either hold us from success or that we embrace and use to justify our failure.

There are 6 kinds of fear:

Fear of poverty
Fear of criticism
Fear of illness
Fear of losing what you love
Fear of oldness
Fear of Death

Each one of these fears is detailed in this chapter, with the main reasons and symptoms of it and how to face them.

The excuses that you will use reveals a lot about who are and why you are failing. And in this last chapter, you will learn how much you should correct them and face the truth.

There is also a list of questions to answer in order to be sincere towards yourself concerning your desires. By truly knowing them and remembering them you will remain motivate to keep working hard until you succeed.

Lastly, avoid the bad habits of accepting failure, or any related habits to it. Always keep fighting and avoid to justify your failure in a way that would make them acceptable. That’s the worst! It’s going to make you lazy and you may never succeed then!

Last Words:

As it’s said in the last chapter by the author. This is a book about wealth, don’t try to pursuit “just a little bit of money” through it. It comes with many principles that you should apply and learn from it, in order to become wealthy not to became rich enough to drown in debts.

Also, this is only a general review of that book. You will find a way more information and knowledge in it. We can’t resume more than 200 pages in just 4000 words. It’s logically impossible and it will also be a disrespect of the intellectual rights of it. So if you want to know more about the ultimate secrets to think and grow rich and discover them in depth there is only one way: READ THE BOOK! 😉 You will certainly not regret it.

I have got my copy of the book two years ago, and before that I made this post I took my book and read it for the second time. It really helped me to get motivate to work and also to get inspired from all the successful stories that are in it. I wasn’t expecting from a book that I have already read to see all this benefits.

I hope that you liked this review and that you have an idea about what you will need to become wealthy and what are the ultimate secrets to think and grow rich.

Napoleon Hill talked about them a century ago, and yet all these principles are still effective and valid.

If you have any question or part that you want to debate don’t hesitate at all to say it in the comments below. I will answer and debate for sure, that’s a great way to enlarge knowledge about the subject. By then, I see you in the next post. Stay Tuned!