(vibrant jingle)
- Napoleon Hill was a journalist and writer.
He was called in to visit Andrew Carnegie.
One of the richest people in history,
Andrew said to him, "I will open the doors
"to the 500 richest people in America,
"so you can interview them, take all of their information,
"and put it into a series of books, to help
"other young people be successful much faster.
"But I'm not going to pay you a penny.
"What will you do?"
46 seconds later, Napoleon said, "Okay, I'll do it."
The result was the 250 page book called
Think and Grow Rich.
It's organised into the 13 steps to riches.
Step One: Desire.
Not hope, hot a wish, a strong, burning desire.
This is, perhaps the most important step,
which is why Napoleon has put it at
the beginning of the book.
The six steps to transform desire
into financial gain are:
one, fix in your mind the exact amount of money you desire,
two, determine when you intend to start giving
for the money you desire,
three, establish an exact date when you intend
to possess the money you desire,
four, create a plan for carrying out your desire,
then put it into action,
five, write down the amount of money you desire,
the date you will get it, and your plan to get there.
Your statement could be: I desire one million dollars.
I will attain it on September 2, 2022.
My plan is to sell one million pickles on a stick
to wealthy tourists seeing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Six, read your written statement aloud twice a day.
See and feel yourself already in possession of the money.
Step Two: Faith.
Faith is a strong, emotionally charged belief.
Faith is a state of mind which may be induced
or created by affirmations or repeated instructions
to the subconscious mind, through the principle
or auto-suggestion.
You develop faith after you have mastered
the 13 principles in this book, but especially
auto-suggestion, which we'll learn from
Step Three: Auto-Suggestion.
Auto-suggestion is the agency of control
through which an individual may voluntarily
feed his subconscious mind on thoughts
of a creative nature, or, by neglect,
permit thoughts of a destructive nature
to find their way into this rich garden of the mind.
It supports the first two principles of desire and faith.
Before you move on to the next steps,
repeat the six steps from step one.
When reading aloud your written statement,
Napoleon stresses that you attach feeling and emotion to it,
because your subconscious mind only acts on thoughts
that are emotionally charged.
I will become a millionaire selling pickles on a stick
means nothing if I don't have any faith or desire to do so.
Step Four: Specialised Knowledge.
Let me ask you a question.
Would you rather do 10 jobs valued at $10 an hour,
or one job valued at $100 dollars an hour?
A brain surgeon gets paid much more
for his specialised knowledge, rather than a
jack-of-all-trades with general knowledge
who does plumbing, brick-laying, and gardening.
Henry Ford was called an ignorant pacifist,
and summoned to court.
They asked him questions like: how many soldiers
did the British send over to America
to put down the Rebellion of 1776?
Henry replied, "If I should really wanna answer
"the foolish question you have just asked,
"or any of the other questions you have been asking me,
"let me remind you that I have a row of
"electric push buttons on my desk,
"and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid
"men who can answer any question I desire
"to us concerning the business to which I am
"devoting most of my efforts.
"Now will you kindly tell me why I should
"clutter up my mind with general knowledge
"for the purpose of being able to answer questions,
"when I have men around me who can supply
"any knowledge I require?"
That's the power of a network.
Successful people leverage the specialised
knowledge of other people.
Andrew Carnegie admitted he didn't know much
about the technical side of his steel business,
but he didn't need to, because he had staff
with that kind of knowledge.
Step Five: Imagination.
It has been said that man can create anything
which he can imagine.
Imagination is necessary to turn desire
into real-world results.
A real, practical example I've seen of
using imagination to gain riches, was when
I was heavily involved in the eBook publishing community.
Amazon paid publishers money for each page a reader read,
so if I had a 100 page book, and 50 pages were read,
I would get say, one cent a page,
and 50 cents for 50 pages.
Someone used their imagination, and came up with
the idea of translating the book into multiple languages,
then including the translations in the English version.
Without getting into the technicalities
of how Amazon paid publishers, they were able to
use this strategy to 10 times their profits.
Regardless of ethics, it's a clear example of
how imagination can make you wealthy.
Step Six: Organised Planning.
If you are to get rich, you need a plan.
Here are four things to keep in mind:
create a mastermind group or team,
which is a coordination of knowledge and effort,
in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people,
for the attainment of a--
(burps)
For the attainment of a definite purpose.
(chuckles)
Sorry about that, guys.
Two, decide what you can offer your mastermind team members
in return for their cooperation.
No on wants leeches that pick the brains of others
without providing any value.
Three, meet with your team members twice a week,
and more often if possible.
And four, maintain harmony between yourself
and every team member.
These four things will help turn your plan into action.
If a plan doesn't work, replace it with a new plan.
Step Seven: Decision.
People who fail to make money, are easily influenced
by the opinions of others.
Family and friends will often hold you back,
whether they are well-intentioned or not.
Make your own decisions.
People who fail have a habit of reaching decisions
slowly, and change them too often.
Entrepreneurs may know this as shiny object syndrome,
where a new idea or trend captures your attention,
and you end up straying away from your original goal
or decision, in this case.
I failed at creating niche sites flipping domain names
and building a book publishing business,
because I never fully committed to a definite decision.
Napoleon analysed hundreds of millionaires,
and found that every single one of them had the habit of
reaching decisions quickly, and changed decisions slowly,
if and when they were changed.
This channel is becoming more and more successful, because
at the beginning of the year, I made a definite decision
I would stick it out to the end of the year,
and reach 10,000 subscribers.
Right now we're at 16,000 with two months to spare.
Step Eight: Persistence.
There's not much more to say here.
Rich people persist.
The more intense your desire,
the more you're likely to persist.
A mastermind group will also help you.
Colonel Sanders, founder of the fast-food chain KFC,
failed 1,009 times before he sold his recipe
for Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Step Nine: The Power of the Mastermind.
To refresh your memory, a mastermind is
a coordination of knowledge and effort
in the spirit of harmony, between two or more people,
for the attainment of a definite purpose.
The biggest benefit of masterminds is synergy.
One plus one equals three.
This is the same concept as Stephen Covey's
Win-win principle.
The minds within the group become something more than
the sum of their parts, so greater things
can be achieved.
Step 10: The Mystery of Sex Transmutation.
Destroy the sex glands, whether in man or beast,
and you have removed the major source of action.
A bull becomes docile as a cow, after it
has been altered sexually.
Sexual desire is one of the most powerful human desires.
Men with sexual drive develop imagination,
courage, willpower, persistence, and creative ability.
It's a powerful driving force that can be
channelled into other creative pursuits.
One of America's most successful businessmen,
admitted that his attractive secretary
was responsible for most of the plans he created.
Her presence lifted him to heights of creative imagination.
Step 11: The Subconscious Mind.
Positive and negative emotions can not
occupy the mind at the same time.
One or the other must dominate.
It is your responsibility to make sure that
positive emotions constitute the
dominating influence of your mind.
The seven most powerful positive emotions are:
desire, faith, love, sex, enthusiasm, romance, and hope.
Napoleon encourages us to form a habit
of applying these positive emotions.
Maybe you could show love today by hugging someone.
Step 12: The Brain.
I don't know what Napoleon was smoking
when he wrote this chapter.
If there's a point in the book where it will
stop reading, this is it.
But anyway, my understanding is that there's this
collective mind that we can all tap into
by radiating the correct frequency from our brains,
or something like that.
His explanation seemed to be in line with
ones of psychedelic experiences.
I don't know what else to say about this one.
If you've read the book, I'd be interested
to hear your thoughts on this.
There's one final step called The Sixth Sense,
but according to Napoleon, the sixth sense
defies description.
(babbles intentionally)
It cannot be described to a person who has not
mastered the other principles of this philosophy,
because such a person has now knowledge,
and no experience with which the sixth sense
may be compared.
I simply can't master any practical wisdom
from this chapter, either, so with that said,
let's review the 12 steps to riches we covered
in this video.
(piano music)