Think Your Way to Wealth by Hill
Ref: Napoleon Hill (1948). Think Your Way to Wealth.
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Summary
A 1909 Interview with Andrew Carnegie.
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Organized Individual Endeavor
Choose a definite purpose or objective.
Create of a plan for the attainment of the objective.
Continual action in carrying out the plan.
Ally with those who will co-operate in carrying out the plan.
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Character Traits
Concentration: The capacity to concentrate full attention on one subject at a time. The jack of all trades is seldom good at any. Concentrated effort gives one power that can be attained in no other way.
The habit of looking in some other direction, of fidgeting with some pocket gadget when others are talking, is among the worst forms of effrontery.
Cultivate the habit of listening much and talking little.
Few circumstances annoy a person more than to be introduced to someone a second time without that person showing any sign of recognition. Speak forcefully in ordinary conversation.
Definitiveness of Purpose: Success in any undertaking calls for definite, well organized, and continuous work. Always be moving, on one’s own initiative.
Education: Maintain an enduring thirst for knowledge. There are no limitations to mental capacity except those which an individual sets up in his own mind.
Emotional Discipline: Emotion rules the lives of most people, and largely rules the world.
Positive Emotions: Love, sex, hope, faith, enthusiasm, loyalty, desire.
Negative Emotions: Fear, jealousy, hatred, revenge, greed, anger, superstition.
Keep a positive mental attitude...at all times.
Enthusiasm is contagious, as is also lack of enthusiasm. Followers and subordinates take on the enthusiasm of their leader. Men respond best to those who deal with them justly, and especially where they are dealt with fairly by men in higher positions of authority.
Cultivate the capacity to stand criticism without resentment.
Failure: Failure leads to compromise, problem solving, airing of wrongs, etc, leading to something better. The more successful you are, the more you have mastered your failures.
I have yet to know of the first man who attained great success without having met and mastered great difficulties, in the form of temporary defeat.
Examine the records of the truly great leaders in all walks of life and you will discover that their success is in exact proportion to their mastery of failures.
Cultivate the habit of learning from your own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others.
Form the habit of searching for the good there is to be found in every form of defeat. This procedure becomes the finest sort of training of the willpower and serves, at the same time, to bring the subconscious mind into action in one's behalf.
Major Factor of Failure- drifting through life without a definite major purpose.
Promptness of Decision: Opportunity will not hunt the man.
Self-Discipline: Gain mastery over both the head and the heart. The man who cannot or will not control himself nevertheless cannot control others. There are no exceptions to this rule.
The well-disciplined person allows nothing to destroy his belief in himself, and permits nothing to stop him from rearranging his plans and moving ahead when he is defeated. You see, he changes his plans, if they need change, but not his purpose.
Soundness of Character: Practice intentional honesty.
Always be loyal to your personal associates.
Accept the full responsibility of the mistakes of one’s subordinates without trying to pass the buck. Nothing destroys one's capacity of leadership quicker than the habit of shifting responsibilities to others.
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Money
It seems queer but true. Men seldom profit by money except that which they earn. I would willingly give every dollar I have to the men who work for me if I could do so without doing them more injury than good. The good there is in money consists of the use to which it is put, and not in the mere possession of it. Generally speaking, the man who earns his own money, acquires, along with it, some of the necessary wisdom as to its constructive use.
The very best method of distributing wealth is that of distributing the principles of achievement by which wealth is procured.
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Motivations
Motivations: Love, Sex, $, Self-Preservation, Freedom of Body and Mind, Self- Expression, Life after Death, Anger, Fear.
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Relationships
The alliance of a man and a woman in marriage, creates the most perfect known form of Master Mind, providing the alliance is blended with love, sympathy of understanding, oneness of purpose, and complete harmony. Evidence of this may be found in the fact that one may find the influence of a woman as the major motivating force in the life of practically every distinguished man of achievement down through the ages. Fortunate indeed is the man who is married to a woman who devotes her life to strengthening his own mind power by blending it with her own, in a spirit of sympathetic understanding and harmony. That type of wife will never break any man, but she will most likely help him rise to greater heights of achievement than any he would have known without her help.
Wherever a man and a woman pool their emotions in a spirit of harmony, for the attainment of a definite end, they become almost invincible against all forms of discouragement and defeat.
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Misc Quotes
The right of free speech does not carry with it a license to libel respectable men merely because they have been successful.-Andrew Carnegie.
The time will come, and very soon, when this country will cease to be the nation of pioneers it has been in the past. People will become indifferent to opportunity; they will cease to act on their own initiative; they will become easy victims of even the slightest form of defeat.-Andrew Carnegie.
My idea of charity is a system that will encourage the growth of the seed of success and discourage the growth of the seed of failure. I believe in personal gifts of material things only where individuals are unable, through physical or mental disability, to help themselves.-Andrew Carnegie.
I have never heard of anyone finding enduring happiness except by some form of personal action of benefit to others.-Andrew Carnegie.
My major purpose in life is the development of men- not merely the accumulation of money. The money I possess came as a natural reward for the efforts I have put into developing men.-Andrew Carnegie.
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