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Why does everyone love Think and Grow Rich

HenryDicks

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I can't read past the fourth chapter on this book. Its so much fluff. That whole law of secret was based on this. Why are people raving about it so much? Looking in the mirror, saying affirmations does not make you rich.

True that. The book is the embodiment of the phrase "necessary but not sufficient".

Yes, all successful people had some sort of vision. So have millions of poor people who never try, and millions of people who have tried to become successful but failed. Success requires more than "just" a strong desire.

There's no magic power that'll ensure your success. For all I know, I can work 20 years on my vision and get hit by a car before I complete it. Uncertainty is a part of business. Deal with it or quit.

Ironically, some of the popular motivational stuff, e.g., "The Strangest Secret" was originally written to keep salespeople selling overpriced/bad products (Amway, Holiday Magic) from quitting, not because of some miraculous scientific discovery. Decide for yourselves whether that's something you want to spend time with or not.
 
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Kak

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Trying your a$$ off to get your dream job like it talks about in the book is dumb, you are only going to be as successful as the person who bought you will let you be.

If god forbid I need to get a job it will be some kind of mindless stupid job that pays the bills. I want to still be exited about my ventures. I wont be if im working an 80 hour week at a stock brokerage firm or some other daunting thing.

Car salesman comes to mind...
 

deSeingalt

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I have a few books by Napoleon Hill and nothing come even close to his work. All these new books is just a rehash of same information that Hill wrote long time ago.
I just started rereading them again and I am very surprised how similar his work is to even millionaire fastlane .
Its a shame that people associate Hill's work with crap like "the secret", they have nothing in common if you actually study Hills lectures and his LoS book.
Think and Grow Rich is not his best work either. It was castrated by the editors when it was published.
 

arpeggiomeister

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The parallel between "interest" (want) and "commitment" (desire) -- everyone is interested; the commitment part is where the winners are made.



That is because mathematics cannot be debated. This thread is debated because "affirmations" "thinking positive" and "desire" are all ambiguous ideas that cannot be proved. Mathematics are absolute and 2+2 always = 4.

In Fastlane terms, show me someone who has impacted the lives of millions, and I will show you a millionaire, or a soon-to-be millionaire.

A great example is Rebecca Black. Her stupid little jingle touched the lives of millions in a small way (some will argue negatively) and yes, she might not have made millions on the jingle, but now she is a worldwide, leveraged personable brand. I'm sure she has an agent. I'm sure her appearance fees are not $50/hour but maybe $5,000. How did this happen? Thinking positively? Having a vision? Desire? Nope -- it was done by numbers -- she put herself in a position of exposure to MILLIONS.

Mathematics are difficult to argue, and it is the true law of the universe.



The formula is often over-complicated much like weight loss -- eat right and exercise. Bam. End of story. I think the formula for wealth is as simple and not much different.

For me, you hit the nail right on the head. Money is a numbers game. The more people you can help, the more money you make. Anything beyond that is waxing philosophical. It may be fun and entertaining but it is not helpful for those who are seeking to accomplish what you have done.
 
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SHHDlove

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I can't speak for everyone else in this forum, but here's why I'm enjoying it:

1) It was free on itunes for me to download
2) It seems to have that Dale Carnegie feel (I think How to Win Friends and Influence People was written around the same time)
3) Nothing about what he's saying seems particularly harassing to the intellect
4) I'm enjoying reading the book

Then again, I'm one of those lost souls who really likes Tony Robbins, so take that how you wish.
 

arpeggiomeister

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I must say that I am really enjoying this conversation. I personally agree with the original poster that this book did absolutely nothing for me, but I also understand that certain things speak differently to different people.

I had read things explaining how passive income would set you free but I never truly got it until I saw the cash flow diagram in Rich Dad Poor Dad. Robert G Allen's books tried to explain this concept but it just seemed like an arbitrary idea that was unattainable for "normal people" like me. They were both speaking about the same thing, but it was the presentation that made the difference. Rich Dad Poor Dad had a huge impact on me and I have gone on to show friends this book and they thought it was just a bunch of fluff.

I think you need to take any advice with a grain of salt. If it resonates with you use it. If not, move on, but understand that even though it might not doing anything for you, for someone else the message might be profound and life-changing.

I know Think and Grow Rich wierded me out, especially with the whole sexual energy thing. If that works for people than more power to them.

ps I dig Tony Robbins. I believe he is on the cutting edge of human psychology and achievement. I don't hang on his every word, but he has a lot of great stuff.
 

buckmajor

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Thanks for the great comments yall. Unbelievable, it took me an hour to read this whole thread lol (yep, I really enjoyed it).

I always thought 'DESIRE/PASSION/BELIEF' and 'ACTION' work together e.g. FAITH without DEEDS is useless. The numbers game make so much sense though. I think MJ mentioned this on his youtube videos 'ACTION TAKING' for the right reason. Someone mentioned a good example about a 'burning desire' to sculpture your body. I can concur because I know what it's like to train and achieve the goal but also making it a lifestyle even to this very day.

Wow, I'm still learning how to execute CENTS lol....well I don't intend to lose my desire to go Fastlane ;). Hope everyone is still doing well with their entrepreneurial endeavor :)
 
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FDJustin

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What I gathered from Hill is two simple things.
1: Success comes to those who continually move towards it. If you don't train yourself to be unshakable, you will fail.

I find life has a strange sense of humor, always going out of it's way to give you obstacles when they're most inconvenient. Maybe there really is a force of nature that seeks to always test and tamper those who look to achieve something.

2: He's training you to be focused. That's literally all this 'Definite chief aim' and self-affirmation stuff is for. If you give yourself a -purpose-, if you hold this purpose so close to your heart that all of your choices are made with it's consultation, then you will 'just do shit' to achieve it.The rest of it seems to be simple details that will help you deal with yourself, deal with others, and maybe even be prepared for success once you have it. After all, if you can't handle criticism, you're going to be in hell once you make it.


P.S. For those who say they pay no mind since he died poor... Do you know the circumstances behind it? There are reasons to be poor, and not all of them are a result of failure.
 
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thespotnet

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FDJustin,

Just to simple things about your posting. I am not sure if these were questions or not but here is my reply.

1. If it was easy everyone would do it.

2. Napoleon Hill didn't actually die poor, it just looked that way. He actually gave all of his money to is foundation just before he died.

thanks

Matt
 

GlobalWealth

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Ironically, you would all be better served reading the book than reading this thread about this book. (with fingers point back to myself as well).
 
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Famous1s

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It works.... That's why.. I always knew what I wanted to do with my life at one time I was living paycheck to paycheck lost in life

I read think and grow rich applied the principles. With persistence and since I now have 60 ,000 am about to open my own business a few days away and every aspect of my life has improved.... I still listen to the audiobook one chapter every morning during my morning routine and when I work out in my iPod. ..it works anyone who reads it should do themselves the favor... I promise if you apply the principles it will work..... I owe everything to that book and persistence!!!! I literally thought and am still growing rich!!
 

Bo_

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I too couldn't get past the 2nd chapter. It was boring as f**k.

But since everyone (including the mentors I look up to the most) is raving about it, I forced myself to take a look at a couple of summaries and eventually got the audiobook and reluctantly consumed it while half asleep...

THEN I realized this was the "missing piece" for me for LONG time.

The book ISN'T about "manifesting" and not doing anything. It's about creating a burning desire for success and an unshakable belief that you will make it. The methods he suggest are visualization, auto-suggestion (affirmations), emotionalizing your desire <- KEY. The Secret stole some concepts from this book and conveniently thrown away the most important parts. It's a shame that The Secret has gone mainstream making dumb people dumber.

Coming back to my point, you NEED to have both a burning desire and an unshakable belief for success in ANYTHING. It's the essential ingredients to success.

With a burning desire combined with absolute belief in yourself and your goal, THEN you'll have the energy (motivation, productivity, what have you) and the focus to develop ideas to achieving your goal. THEN from that you'll create a plan, take action, and persist even when the road gets tough.

Just being "action-focused" will consume your soul, just as how you HATE working the 9-5. I'm not saying action isn't important, I'm saying you won't last very long FORCING yourself to do something rather than being INSPIRED to take action. A great analogy would be not having fuel in your car and stomping the accelerator until it breaks.

I highly recommend at least going through chapters 1, 2, 3, 10, 11. It's free on public domain anyway. YES, it gets very woo-woo about these energy forces and tapping into the Infinite Intelligence. I half-believe in this energy stuff, but I'm not relying on that to get success. I'll gladly take the advice that can inspire me and take massive action instead.
 

The-J

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It's the precursor to "The Secret", which is a good book for different purposes.

It's BE > DO > HAVE. Most people haven't even gotten to the BE part yet. That's what Think and Grow Rich and The Secret are for. Problem is, most people stop there when they realize that what lies ahead in the DO stage is hard work.

I admit that I couldn't read TAGR the way through. It's too long and too boring. I read Rich Dad Poor Dad at 14 and that book recommended TAGR, but it was just so long and had too much fluff. I got the gist of it but... man. The concepts are NOT outdated, despite the book having been written before the economic boom of the 1950s.
 
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JAJT

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I had a rough time with TaGR.

I can see how it had value at the time and it certainly has some golden nuggets in it but IMHO there are better, more to-the-point books out there today on every concept presented in the book. It just didn't stick to my ribs the same way Millionaire Fastlane or How to Get Rich did, for example.
 

Bellini

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The other Napoleon thread led me to this one...

I agree with a lot of the posters on this thread. I found "Think and Grow Rich" rather boring. While he had some good points, some of it was out in left field. I felt like @Kak - when I heard about resumes, jobs, working for $1, and how to be a good employee, I bailed.

I appreciate his work, but I honestly don't get the hype. I thought MJ's book was much better.

I am curious though about some of this other writings like "You Can Work Your Own Miracles" (the one he was writing when he died) and "Outwitting the Devil".

Interestingly, Napoleon Hill is buried only about 45 miles from me!


NapoleonHillGrave.jpg
 

Lex DeVille

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I thought it was boring when I listened on audio. That said... Where attention goes, energy flows, and this was the first entrepreneurial book of any kind I ever read. The value I gleaned wasn't about positive thinking and desire and all that stuff. The value I got was that it handed me a block of clay and told me to make what I want.

Listening to that book opened me to a world of possibilities. A world where I didn't have to live like everyone else. It didn't hand me money or the keys to success. It just gave me clay and told me to imagine. It brought my attention to the life I could have and left the rest up to me to figure out. That's where I've put all of my energy ever since.

Now I don't live like everyone else. Now I take steps every day that move me closer to the life I want. One day at a time I mold and craft and chip away moving closer and closer and closer. Now I work from home, I'm financially secure, I don't have a boss, and I do have lots of freedom. I'm not all the way there, but I'm a lot closer than I would be if I hadn't stumbled on that book and set out on a different path.

We didn't all start in the same place, and it makes sense that some find it less valuable than others.

I think it's boring, but for me the value is infinite.
 
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tafy

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I thought it was amazing, but I listened to the audio version which is on youtube. Maybe reading it gives a different experience.
 

Mattie

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Napoleon hill was one of the first books I listened too. I believe it was the door that opened the idea there was something more out there. And also building character and I suppose at the time listening to him on many videos he had a different perspective I needed to know at the time. By the time I got to M.J. It was more of a validation of I was in the right direction. Although I've read so many books previously it was fresh and resonated with my thoughts exactly.
 
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With me, it was the first business book I read. And then I followed my interpretations of it blindly and ended up building a brick and mortar that generated a net monthly income that anyone here would be proud to say they built and earned. AND it was around 90% passive and scalable.

What the book did not help me with was provided here at the fastlane forum a couple years later after I lost the business in a long and extremely expensive legal battle. As, at the time, I didn't have experienced entrepreneurs to answer this higher level of questions, and ultimately, I failed because I made a series of unguided decisions that were aimed to keep my customers going strong with their dreams.

Today the business still exists, but without me because I got boned by someone who had a strong upbringing from an entrepreneurial father. (A rich dad :) )

For me, the book was solid for getting me in it. But I didn't waste time questioning it. I just did it.
 
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townhaus

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I found it painful to read and could not finish it. I do not understand how it gets so much praise.
 

Delmania

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Taken from http://www.businessinsider.com/6-steps-to-think-and-grow-rich-2013-9:

"Wishing will not bring riches," Hill writes. "But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches."

In one passage, he sums up six steps to turning a desire for wealth into "its financial equivalent":

First. Fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say “I want plenty of money." Be definite as to the amount. (There is a psychological reason for definite- ness which will be described in a subsequent chapter).

Second. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for the money you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.")

Third. Establish a definite date when you intend to possess the money you desire.

Fourth. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire, and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.

Fifth. Write out a clear, concise statement of the amount of money you intend to acquire, name the time limit for its acquisition, state what you intend to give in return for the money, and describe clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it.

Sixth. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. AS YOU READ, SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.​

Hill knew it took work to make money. Note the "ready or not" statement in there.

His entire premise is helping people overcome the psychological barriers that keep them from wealth.

That is the purpose of the book.
 

Maxjohan

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Sixth. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. AS YOU READ, SEE AND FEEL AND BELIEVE YOURSELF ALREADY IN POSSESSION OF THE MONEY.
How many billionaire has gone this route? I would bet. Zero. I'm not saying those other things are particularly bad advice. But this!! Boy, he could be mistaken for a cult leader!
 
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TonyStark

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I think the thing of most value we can take from 'Think and Grow Rich' is how this guy was able to sell so much 'fluff' to literally millions of people. If you can figure that one out, maybe you'll be the next big seller.

From my point of view, the people that preach thinking positive will make you rich, are the same ones that spend part of their paycheck on pyramid schemes a.k.a. MLM's, and to me that's not very positive at all. :cigar:
 

Delmania

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How many billionaire has gone this route? I would bet. Zero. I'm not saying those other things are particularly bad advice. But this!! Boy, he could be mistaken for a cult leader!

You're asking how many billionaires practice daily affirmations? Isn't that a part of The Miracle Morning? I think more than you realize.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Chazmania

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I always heard so many people recommend it as the king of all books so I forced myself to get through it.

Good overall concept I guess: thoughts are the seeds of man's creations

Think and focus on what you want/take action from where you stand with whatever you have available/persist like a mofo until successful.

Of course there's more to the book but that's the gist of it for me.

The book is kind of a grind to get through and some stuff is a little out there.
 
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Maxjohan

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You're asking how many billionaires practice daily affirmations? Isn't that a part of The Miracle Morning? I think more than you realize.
So you're saying that most billionaires have read the Miracle Morning?
 

bizkitgto

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For me this book was the 'spark', I found it to be highly motivating and it set me on this journey to financial freedom. Also, the chapter on Sexual Transmutation couldn't be more 'bang' on! The first and best self help book ever written. My 0.02
 

OscarDeuce

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Well, it worked for me. In 1978 I was a petty criminal and apparently not a very good one, living in my car and wondering how I would eat each day, when I stumbled on Hill's book. A year or so prior, I was a lineman for a major utility company, a good paying blue collar job. I was no longer in that position for a stupid reason (yep, a woman-no offense to our female members). So, I used the techniques in Hill's book to try and get my old job back. See, I was not very ambitious in those days, or at least I didn't think I was, but all that was about to change. At first, it didn't seem to work all that well. I got a job straight away, but it was pulling cable for some third rate contractor and didn't pay nearly as well as my old job. However, all that would change, fast. The company I ended up working for had a number of contracts with high tech companies. Working in those facilities, I became obsessed with the work the engineers were doing. Before long, I had fixed in my head a burning desire to become an electrical engineer - quite a leap for a high school dropout.

I applied Hill's techniques religiously (no pun intended). Through a series of unlikely events, in May of 1982, I was offered an engineering position in a fairly new, but by no means start up, telecom company. While at that company, I developed a desire to actually run a technology company. I dusted off Think and Grow Rich again and in 1996 I left a senior management position at the telecom company to become CEO of a software company. Those of you who have read some of my other posts know what happened when I decided I wanted to produce, direct, and appear in my own television show (for those that haven't, my show airs in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and is coming to UKTV this November).

Now, I did a lot of hard work during this time. However, I give Think and Grow Rich the lion's share of the credit because it gave me the confidence to do the work, take the risks, and put the commitment necessary into all of these endeavors. If I had not stumbled on Hill's book one steamy July day in 1978, I don't know where I'd be today, but I probably wouldn't be posting on this forum.

Cheers,
O-2
PS - Think and Grow Rich Hack - skip the chapter on sex. I did. Never did understand it. It still works.
 
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OscarDeuce

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By the way, the version of Think and Grow Rich commonly available is the abridged (read "censored") version. My wife found a copy of the original manuscript which she gave me as a present. It contains a lot of spiritual / metaphysical stuff that was apparently too much for the publishers back in the 1930s. The abridged version "works," that's what I started with. But, it was interesting to read the original, if only to better understand the author's beliefs better.

Also understand, it doesn't matter whether the spiritual / metaphysical really exists or not. For me, I don't care whether success comes because I've put some "thought vibration" in effect in some unseen dimension, or simply because I've put myself into the right mental state to become successful. All I care about is that it comes!

Cheers,
O-2
 

D11FYY

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I also gave this book a bash I did complete it but I found it to be a drag (although it did have some golden nuggets within its chapters)

Just I agree more with what MJ initially said about numbers being "the law".
I somehow doubt that MJ ever spoke to George Washing or Thomas Edisson about Limos.

But im glad some people on this forum/thread has read it and its principles worked for them.
 

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