Yeah! Money has always been there, it’s just that people don’t know how to get it (including me 
A few years back, I read a very popular book by Napolean Hill, titled Think And Grow Rich. I’m a strong believer in the idea that the universe is there to give what you ask for but never knew the concept behind that as in HOW & WHEN am I going to get what I desire. This book gave me an entirely new way to think about it.
In this, the author talks about the seven principles of getting rich and achieving success in whatever you do. I have listed down all the seven principles of financial freedom in this article and tried to summarise each one of those principles as stated in the book Think and Grow Rich.
Here are the principles,
- Desire
- Faith
- Autosuggestion
- Specialized Knowledge
- Imagination
- Organized Planning
- Sex Transmutation
There are sure a lot of things mentioned by the author but these are the necessary few.
This book tries to provide a scientific fact backed approach to achieve wealth.
This book has given me a scientific approach towards the concept of making wealth through the process of thinking.
All the above-mentioned principles are very practical and make sense, you will know it when you read them.
The author explained each and every single principle by relating it to a real person’s life as an example and that is what makes you click about the fundamentals of this world.
In this article, I’m going to give you a summary of these fundamentals without polluting them with my thoughts.
I strongly recommend you to buy this book and read it by yourself. This article is just a summary of the book so that you can be sure of what you about to buy. Whenever you feel that you need to read this book, simply click on the link and it will take you directly to Amazon’s landing page of Think and Grow Rich.
Table of Contents
Desire
Of all principles in the book Think and Grow Rich. Hill has put the principle of desire at the top and in fact it is the first principle that will open the gates for other principles in the line.
Hill has given a lot more weight and importance to Desire and has made a clear distinction between a Desire and Wish.
The Hill’s desire is not about wishes, as wishes may or may not come true. Also, the wish depends on the external actions for it to come true.
A desire is different.
Desire is wanting something truly, it is then a human being can take actions towards attaining it.
Where a wish is undefined and noncommittal, a desire(wanting) is very well-defined and committable. It evokes a person to take a course of action towards attaining it. Once you have developed a wanting for something and that wanting is in your subconscious mind and working for you 24×7 then you have the desire.
This is usually what every other self-enriching books say to do, but Hill has given a clear step as to how you can develop your desire.
To ensure that you have a desire, he says about having a clear and concise statement of the desire. Your desire must be clear and specific.
In fact, it should be very clear in all aspects otherwise it is just a wish.
For example – Just “wanting” to have a lot of money won’t help. You need to be very specific as to how much money (figure) and how exactly are you planning to get this money (actions).
Hill also argues that it is very important to specify how much you want and how exactly are you planning to get it. What services or goods are you planning to exchange in return for that money?
All of this comes together as an action plan that helps your mind to think in the right order and do things in the right way.
My Thoughts
I personally think that money cannot become someone’s desire. It is not a desire for me. What money can do for you is the actual landscape that we all wish for. You just have to find a way to turn your wish into a desire.
First of all, you need to identify whether it is that you actually want.
If you do not want something then it is just a wish. Some people wish for a super-fast sports car, but it is not something that resonates with their thinking pattern in reality. They don’t actually have goosebumps if they imagine themselves driving a sports car. You first need to identify that thing that actually motivates you to take a step. Sometime back, I wrote an article on the Law of Attraction where I discussed the power of Desire. Find the link below,
Great you have done half the job. You know what you want. Now, the main ingredients come into the picture. How exactly are you planning to own it?
Here you need to actually come out of your dream world and think about what exactly does it take to accomplish it. You will be shocked to know that it is often not the money you require to own something. The only thing here is that you need to actually think in the right direction. In the end, you will have a complete action plan set up in front of you. This is how a real desire works.
How exactly are you planning to own it?
Faith
Napoleon Hill was not religious but still speaks of the Faith and puts it right next to Desire.
According to Hill, faith is a type of self-confidence that borders on religiosity. It was a principle that he once learned from his mentor, the steel magnate millionaire Andrew Carnegie.
“What happens when a man knows what he wants, has a plan, puts it into action and meets with failure?” a young and inexperienced Hill once asked Carnegie. “Doesn’t that destroys his confidence?”
Carnegie replied: “I believe that every failure carries within it in the circumstances of the failure itself the seed of an equivalent advantage. If you examine the lives of truly great leaders, you will discover that their success is in exact proportion to their mastery of failures. Life has a way of developing strength and wisdom in individuals through temporary defeat.”
“Most people aren’t going to believe that every failure has an equivalent advantage when they are overcome with the adversity,” Hill said. “What does one do if the experience destroys one’s self-confidence?”
“The best way to guard against being overwhelmed by failure,” said Carnegie, “is to discipline the mind to meet failure before it arrives.”
To this end, disciplining the mind to meet failure before it arrives, Hill developed a self-confidence formula in five steps to be committed to memory and repeated aloud.
But, more importantly, Hill felt that Faith would come on its own to whoever mastered the other twelve of his principles. Whether that is true or not, the importance of psychology, in the shape of self-confidence, encouragement and positive language, for achievement is well-known today.
My Thoughts
Faith is something that holds a person together when he cannot see any other way. It is one of the most important ingredients in the quest for success. Every great man has once taken a move in his life which is not possible if he would not have the faith to accomplish it. I think it is very hard for me to describe in words what I think faith is. But I have a wonderful illustration of it. Take a look at the below slideshow from the beginning,
This is faith. Without faith, you would have surrendered to the crushing stones or in fact you have not made the big leap that is required. Sometimes, you just have to surrender yourself to the higher self and believe that everything is going to be alright. You do not always have the blueprint for life. If you are going to create your own destiny then you will have to experience the hidden. At that time, faith is the only thing that could help you get par.
In the end, you will be OKAY! 🙂
Most of the time we fear doing things even if we know that it is going to turn out right. Here’s my explanation on fear and what I make of it.
Autosuggestion
This idea is not new. I’m sure many of you already know about it in the form of positive affirmations and visualization. It is a technique that lay down the foundation for Desire and Faith.
As Hill once put it:
“If you do not see great riches in your imagination, you will never see them in your bank balance.”
~ Napoleon Hill
Hill’s techniques of Auto-suggestion are quite traditional. He suggests repeating the mission statement aloud morning and evening while visualizing the goal in mind. If you desire to have money, see yourself in possession of that money.
However, there is one thing that is different in Hill’s AutoSuggestion mantra.
He talks about the other side of the coin as well. The side that is often neglected in success literature.
If you are visualizing yourself with the possession of money then you must also visualize how you got that money. Basically, the root of rendering that money is equally important. It kind of completes both the side of the coin. You must visualize what you give in turn of that money.
In Hill’s world, it is not enough to just wish for riches, you must also fill yourself with the willingness to work for those riches, and make sure that the effort and reward are so closely linked that you never lose sight of what you should be doing.
My Thoughts
Believe it or not this techniques works. I have used this technique and it has helped me in every aspect of my life. Everyone has a different way of using these techniques. Some time back I devised my own technique to Autosuggestion. I also wrote a descriptive article on the same. I used Whatsapp for this purpose and you can do it too. Follow the article below,
Specialized Knowledge
This principle is the foundation of the modern day start ups, blogs or any business.
They all seem to get distil in this one principle.
The Principle of Specialized Knowledge is having a niche as known by many in today’s world.
As with most of Hill’s principles, Specialized knowledge goes further than its modern counterpart.
As with most of Hill’s principles, Specialized knowledge goes further than its modern counterpart. On one hand, Hill expresses the necessity for having a niche. No man, he says, grows rich on what he calls general knowledge. On the other hand, by Specialized knowledge Hill also means the actual knowledge necessary to fill a niche. That knowledge must be somehow acquired and organized.
Hill does not feel that the niche must be something that you already know. According to Hill, you must first know what specialized knowledge you need and then acquire that knowledge in an organized way. Sometimes the specialized knowledge is not what you think it is. You may have the required education in the field but there is always something more and you must learn to find it. Also, knowledge is not just acquired from books and education. Sometimes specialized knowledge can be acquired from people around you.
Hill admired Henry Ford for this fact. Ford was a man of no education and yet he has all the specialized knowledge he needs for the job. He got that knowledge from the network of people he had around him.
My Thoughts
I have been an admirer of Sandeep Maheshwari and in one of his session, he also spoke of the same thing.
It is not the knowledge that makes you stand out, it is the specialized knowledge of anything that you want to pursue.
He always said, if you want to do something then first learn how the masters do it. Do not try to check the water levels with both your feet. You cannot directly jump into anything unless you have good knowledge about that. You must first acquire sufficient knowledge of the field so that you can manipulate it in your ways. Specialized knowledge is the key to success in every aspect of your life. Next time, whenever you are about to do something, do get first-hand knowledge of it. Get the specialized knowledge and then dive. You will surely succeed. Just remember,
Imagination
It has been said that man can create anything he can possibly imagine.
The imagination is one of the most important parts and once you read the book “Think and Grow Rich”, you will find that it has been repeated by Hill again and again. Imagination is crucial, it is a part of autosuggestion without which it would be difficult for Faith and Desire to sustain. Where desire is the catalyst for achievement, Imagination is necessary to give it physical form.
Hill divided imagination into two distinct types-
- Synthetic
It is a type of imagination that uses old concepts, ideas or plans into new combinations. Nothing new is created in this way. One may argue that if something which has never been built, made or even seen is invented by the inventor, then is it not new? Well, Hill doesn’t agree with it. According to Hill, the creation job was already done at the time the thought or an idea was created. - Creative
The imagination is the source of creative thinking. The inventor needs a creative imagination before he can synthesize that into a reality.
Hill’s concept of creative imagination is closely linked with the concept of Infinite intelligence, an idea closely resembling the wider interpretation of Jung’s Collective unconscious, a sort of universal world mind that all humans can tap into.
Organized Planning
“You are engaged in an undertaking of major importance to you. To be sure of success, you must have plans which are faultless.”
The concept of Organized planning is so integral to Hill’s teachings that he embedded it in his very first lesson on Desire.
The necessity of having a plan in order to successfully see something through is probably quite evident to most readers, but true to his style Hill incorporates a few more concepts into this principle.
One is the concept of leadership. According to Hill it is up to each man to decide whether to be a leader or a follower. While the word follower has negative connotations to us now Hill emphasizes that there is no right or wrong choice in this matter – it is, however, clear that to Hill one is somewhat better than the other.
“It is no disgrace to be a follower,” Hill writes. “On the other hand, it is no credit to remain a follower. Most great leaders began in the capacity of followers. They became great leaders because they were intelligent followers.”
A leader must be many things and many of the qualities of leadership are directly lifted from Hill’s earlier work, The Law of Success.
A leader, according to Hill, has courage, self-control, a strong sense of justice, definiteness of decisions and plans, a pleasing personality with sympathy and understanding, mastery of detail, a habit of doing more than paid for, and a willingness to cooperate and to assume responsibility.
Hill also discusses a concept of the QQS rating. QQS stands for
- Quality,
- Quantity,
- and Spirit of service.
A leader is mindful of all three as Quality and Quantity of service alone are not sufficient to stay in business.
Sex Transmutation
In a quite Freudian way, Hill identified the libido with vitality and drive in general.
“There emotion of sex contains the secret of creative ability,” he writes. “Destroy the sex glands, whether in man or beast, and you have removed the major source of action. For proof of this, observe what happens to any animal after it has been castrated. A bull becomes as docile as a cow after it has been altered sexually.”
This is why, Hill argues, successful men are often highly sexed. It is also why men are rarely truly successful until they are at least in their forties when they are less preoccupied with chasing women and more capable of using their sexual energy for other creative endeavours. And that is what Sex transmutation is all about: harnessing sexual energy and redirecting it.
My Thoughts
The meaning of the word Transmutation is changing from one form to another. This is exactly what Hill mentioned in his book Think and Grow Rich. Napoleon Hill put it this way:
“When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, will-power, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times.”
If you could find a way to channelize this sexual energy into something meaningful, you will be able to put your courage, will-power, persistence and creative ability to make accomplish whatever you picked in the first place.
The thought of sex is a powerful stimulant for the mind. It keys up our enthusiasm, creative imagination, and creates an intense desire.
Do you know what else stimulates the mind to nearly the same degree?
A burning desire for something, such as fame, power, or money.
“When harnessed and redirected along other lines, this motivating force [sex] maintains all of its attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, etc. which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling, including, of course, the accumulation of riches.” – Napoleon Hill
To achieve this state, you must be enthusiastic about the things you pick up. Let your desire and passion grow for that thing to the extent that you would be willing to die for it. Just like a lover is willing to die for his girl. You must heighten your desires to such levels. If you can do it, you will surely have the power to turn mediocrity into genius.
To conclude this article which has already grown more than 3000 words, I would say that “you need a very precise way of thinking to achieve anything“. Our mind is bound with the physicality of this world and we do not have the power to manifest something from thin air just because our belief system prevents it.
Nothing is impossible in this world but to make something possible which seems to be an impossible thing, you need to channel all your energy in a way which can affect the very fabric of cosmos and you can do this through the ways mentioned in this book. I strongly recommend everyone to read this book at least once. This will open a source for something totally different for you.
You can grab a copy from the link below,
Think and Grow Rich
If you are book lover then follow this link,
Think and Grow Rich: The Original Classic
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