Think and grow rich – literally!

I recently read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, which was originally published in 1937.  It is fascinating that something written nearly a hundred years ago is still applicablrele today; it was that far ahead of its time.  The premise of the book is to detail the 13 steps to gaining riches.

This is an incredibly powerful book that looks at how our thoughts generate actions and, ultimately, our desires, a premise that is now widely accepted and well-documented through research.  Hill stated that “Success comes to those who become success conscious,” meaning that what we focus on, we create.  We receive billions of bits of information every minute and it isn’t possible for our minds to absorb all this information into our consciousness.  Instead, we selectively attend to those things that are in alignment with our thoughts and beliefs and disregard the rest.  The effect is that someone who believes all people are greedy will continuously see greedy people, while someone who believes all people are altruistic will continuously see selfless acts.

We prime our minds for what to pay attention to using what is called our “reticular activating system,” which is how we can focus without being overloaded.  It is wired into our brains for survival strategies.  The power of this system is that it allows us to recognize that we have complete control over our thoughts and subsequently what we focus on and subconsciously attend to.

Consider that your wealth – or lack thereof – is a result of your underlying beliefs and thoughts about money.  We all have a money blueprint that includes a set of beliefs about our relationship with money.  For instance, I grew up with my father saying that “money doesn’t grow on trees,” although in my mind, it did.  Whenever I wanted something, it appeared.  I act in accordance with this belief now.  Other people may be conditioned to believe that money is the root of all evil, and this will compete with any new desires they have to become wealthy.  In essence, they would be telling themselves they are evil if they are rich – a great deterrent to subconsciously not achieving riches

Do you want to shift this so that you literally can think and grow rich?  Here are a few steps to follow.  First, become aware of your beliefs and shift your focus to positive thoughts aout money, creating a specific goal for what you want to achieve.  Place all your energy, effort, and focus towards that goal.  What’s most important with this step is a strong belief or faith that you will achieve this: you must absolutely believe it is possible.  Second, experience your success as if it were true; visualize your wealth.  The mixture of emotions brings power to our thoughts, especially on a subconscious level.  Third, take action by listening to your hunches and inspirations (subconscious solutions to your quest). Create an organized plan and work with a mastermind group to seek the advantage of experience, education, ability, and imagination.  Lastly, overcome fear and habitsated to failure, which include procrastination, negativity, indecision, dishonesty, lack of focus, intemperance, and intolerance.  You must first be honest with yourself about the behaviors holding you back and then create a deliberate game plan to overcome them.  Napoleon Hill developed a self-analysis questionnaire to help you zero in on what might be holding you back.  Go to  to download the questionnaire.