Hey there! I want to welcome you to the 13 Steps to Riches
Series! This video is going to be the start of a brand
new in-depth playlist series in which we’ll get to dive into one of the biggest successful
books of all time in the personal development space that has made the biggest impact to
me personally and to millions of people around the world. And that very book that I’m talking about
is called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Here’s some intriguing facts about it!
Originally the book was published in 1937 and surprisingly, by the latest record in 2015,
Think and Grow Rich has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. How this
book was created is quite fascinating. It was created by a man named Napoleon Hill
who interviewed and studied the habits of more than 500 of the richest men and women
in the early 19th Century, many of them who started life in poverty, with little education
or influence. It took Hill over 20 years to compile all
the wisdom from these interviews into a book containing 13 main principles of how anyone
can change his or her way of thinking and become rich. Among these men were many famous historical
figures such as Henry Ford $200 billion dollars. (adjusted for inflation), Theodore Roosevelt
$125 million, John D Rockefeller $318.3 billion, Thomas
Edison $170 Million, Wilbur Wright $10 million. And many more... Almost every
successful entrepreneur in today's modern age has been impacted
from this book. And since this book contains so much powerful
principles, I’ve noticed there’s a common issue for many first time readers finding
themselves not completely understanding couple of the important chapters from the book.
So that is why I’m creating this 13 steps to riches series dissecting each principle
aka each chapter into a fun simple format to help you visually learn the important
key lessons that Napoleon hill conveys. So... without further delay, let’s begin.
*Typing*
Before we dive into the 1st Step to Riches which will be in the next video, Hill demonstrates
the power of your thoughts and how it has the power to shape your life and in this chapter,
it sets itself up as the foundation of the book. One of the greatest strengths of this book
that I always appreciated was how Hill used real life stories with the lessons. Let’s take a look
how the power of thought comes into play...
There’s a story about a man named Darby,
who became one of the most successful insurance salesman in the country. He
used to share a powerful life experience he had with the Gold Rush back when
it was booming. He went there with his uncle and after weeks
of labor, they’ve suddenly struck gold in the midst of their mining.
In the beginning, things looked great! It was so successful that they brought a drill,
but then something unexpected happened. There seemed to be no more gold left as they
mined further into the ground. They continued to drill on, desperately trying
to pick up any gold, but unfortunately, there was no sign of it. At the end,
they finally decided there’s no use of trying to mine anymore and so they
quit. They sold the machinery to a junk man for a few hundred dollars and took the train back
home. But here’s where the story gets interesting. The junkman who bought the machinery called
in a mining engineer to look at the mine and do a little investigation.
An astonishing discovery was made by the hired engineer that the project had failed because
the owners were not familiar with fault lines. And even more surprising was their calculations
showed that the gold would be found just three feet from where the Darby's had stop drilling
and that is exactly where they found all the hidden abundance of gold. The
junkman took millions of dollars of gold in from the mine all because he knew well
enough to seek expert counsel before giving up. Now... Let’s observe what happened from
this story… Napoleon Hill points out that... Darby and his uncle thought there was no gold
left, so he thought there’s no use to continue on and gave up. On the other hand...
The junkman thought about not giving up on the abandoned project, went the extra miles,
and at the end, reaped success. Hill demonstrates success comes to those who
are success conscious. One of the most common causes of failure is
the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.
In fact, one of the main weakness of mankind is the average person's familiarity to the word
impossible. To add to this lesson, the 21st Century Revised
Version of Think & Grow Rich provides a modern example about Steven Spielberg, one of the
all-time greatest Motion Pictures directors. There’s a funny story in the movie industry
how Steven actually broke to University Studios and before he was famous or anything, Steven took
a Universal Studios tour, which enables visitors to take a good look inside at the movie business.
Steven somehow snuck off from the tour group and hid until the tour ended. When he left
at the end of the day, he said few words to the gate guard.
Afterward, day after day he went back into the studio for 3 months. He walked past the
guards, they waved at him and he waved back.
What’s funny is he always wore a suit and carried a briefcase, letting the guards assume he
was one of the students with a summer job in the studio. He got to the
point of becoming friends with the directors, writers, and editors.
He even got to become friends with the head of the production of the Universal Studios
television arm, and one day got to show the director his college film project which impressed
him so much that he placed Steven Spielberg under the contract with the studio.
Over the next few years, Steven Spielberg directed several movies including the popular
Indiana Jones series, Jaws, and later directed Jurassic Park which became a hit at the time
as the most successful movies in history. And we saw with Steven Spielberg, becoming
a movie director dominated his thoughts so much that we went beyond what others would
do, sneaking into guarded buildings to get the chance to become friends with the directors.
Remember this lesson. In order to achieve something great, your
thoughts has a great effect on your actions and habits which ultimately has an effect
on your outcome. That is why it’s important to change our
minds from failure consciousness to success consciousness. So before we continue to the
next chapters... Question for you. Assuming wealth is what you want to accomplish,
are you determined enough and willing to try harder to achieve it, no matter what and how
many times you’ll face adversities? Think about that...
Up Next!
Stay tuned for the next video that will start with the First step to riches…. Which is Desire,
The starting point of all achievements.