Introduction
In this article, we will try to uncover the secret of these successful people and how the 13 principles of success helped them achieve their goals in life and career.
A lot of people including myself are wondering what are the secrets of successful people when it comes to business or career. How they did it? what are the secrets?
A lot of people don’t know that there is a book called Think and Grow Rich which was written by Napoleon Hill that inspired most of the successful businessmen in the whole world from then and until now.
That being said, join us as we discuss further the secrets and learn more about these principles to help us improve and achieve our goals in life.
The backstory of a book called “think and grow rich”
As mentioned a while ago there is a book that inspired almost all the successful businessmen in the whole world. And that is the Think and Grow Rich which is written by Napoleon Hill.
You are probably asking in your mind “How did this book change the lives of these successful businessmen?”. To answer that, let’s discuss first some details about the author of this book.
Napoleon Hill’s backstory
In 1908, Napoleon Hill is a young reporter for a magazine who was given a task to interview and write about wealthy people. Which led him to meet Andrew Carnegie, who is one of the richest men during that time.
Andrew Carnegie led the industrial development of steel during the 19th century which resulted in him being one of the richest men in history due to his achievements and contributions.
According to Bob Proctor in one of his inspiring videos on YouTube. Andrew Carnegie invited Napoleon Hill to join him on his way back home to further continue the said interview.
And the 3 hours interview turned into 3 days. And in that 3 days, Andrew Carnegie shared Napoleon Hill his philosophy and ideas. It turned out that Andrew Carnegie came from a poor family and started to work when he is still young.
Andrew Carnegie backstory
Now, how did a man who came from a poor family was able to become the wealthiest man in history? According to History.com, Andrew Carnegie started working even as a kid in railroad and coal manufacturing.
A kid who is doing everything he can to help his family and that led him to decide that when the time comes that he can invest. He will invest in Steel and Coal. Because he saw an opportunity during his time that Steel will be the main source ingredient to build and develop railroads and cities.
Trivia:
Did you know? Andrew Carnegie is not just known for his wealth, He is also the inspiration of businessmen when it comes to philanthropy. He even donated $350 Million (Estimated to billions in this era).
Why Think and Grow Rich claimed to hold the secret to success?
Think and Grow Rich contains the ideas and behavior of the wealthiest men in the whole world including the well-known Andrew Carnegie.
In this book, Napoleon Hill claimed that Andrew Carnegie inspired him to write and share the 13 Principles of Success which was used by Andrew Carnegie and it was the key to how he was able to achieve and become the wealthiest man in the whole world in the 19th Century.
According to Bob Proctor, Andrew Carnegie asked Napoleon Hill a question after that 3 days interview, which Andrew Carnegie is asking only for a Yes or No answer within 60 seconds.
“Napoleon, would you spend or invest the rest of your life in an idea for which you would probably receive no material compensation for at least 20 years?” – Andrew Carnegie
Napoleon Hill answered yes in just 25 seconds. Why is this relevant? According to Bob Proctor, in life, we face these kinds of questions where we need to decide immediately and change our minds slowly. This is one of the behaviors of those who became successful.
They have accountability and solitude with their decisions and did everything to make it work. These successful people were able to adjust their approach without changing their goals.
What is the Principle of Success
Everybody wants to be successful and achieve his or her goals but what is the big secret to realizing these? In 1908 Napoleon Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie, who challenged him to research this topic. Andrew Carnegie was at that time one of the most powerful men in the world business-wise.
Napoleon Hill did on this topic his whole life research by interviewing numerous successful people and focus on the elements of personal achievement and success. Which led Hill to write a book based on these 13 Principles of Success.
The 13 Principles of Success
1. Definiteness of Purpose
The first principle of success: Definiteness of Purpose, Finding your purpose is never an easy task to do, however, this is the first step that successful people did. People like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, and even the Wright Brothers. All of them found their purpose in life. But how can we find our “Purpose”?
I do not own the video, Credit to the owner: Simon Sinek
In this video, According to Simon Sinek, the bestselling author of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take. We tend to mix up our work/career with purpose. But the truth is it is much deeper than that.
In his example in the video he stated…
“The purpose is not the job, but the sense of service to the community.” – Simon Sinek
2. Mastermind Alliance Principle
The second principle of success: Mastermind Alliance Principle, According to Napoleon Hill, This principle focuses on the alliance with other people. Successful people do not operate on their own, they find a partner that can help them progress and vice versa as their partnership improves until they achieve their goals.
Hill further elaborates that some of his students think of an early example of this “Mastermind Principle” is the Nazarene and his 12 apostles. Which if you try to dig in deeper.
Jesus Christ and his apostles helped each other and they treat each other as partners as they move towards their goals which are to spread the word of God.
However, mastermind alliance is not just partnering with other people, but partnering with people who together will produce perfect harmony when it comes to task and mindset.
So if you are planning to make a partnership in a business, you need to find a partner that will sync in with your goals and has the same mindset as yours.
Looking for a partner to help you sell your products? Check this out.
3. Going the extra mile
Third principles of success: Going the extra mile, This principle is all about your motivational effort, perseverance, and determination. Going the extra mile, simply mean that success is also based on how much effort you are willing to give when achieving your goals.
To further understand this principle, we listed the 9 Benefits of following the habit of going the extra mile according to Napoleon Hill.
9 Benefits of following the habit of going the extra mile
- This habit will bring you to the favorable attention of those who can and will provide you with opportunities to promote yourself into a better circumstance.
- It will place back of you that great natural law of increasing returns through which the service you render will bring back greater than average compensations.
- Following this habit will make you indispensable in your chosen occupation or calling, therefore it will place you in a position to write your own ticket.
- This habit will help you to excel in your line of work because each time you render service you endeavor to do a better job than you did previously.
- If you work for salary or wages this habit will give you preference when work is slack and others are laid off.
- This habit will help you benefit by the law of contrast because the others around you will not be going the first mile let alone the second mile.
- Following this habit of doing your very best in all of your efforts and doing it in a pleasing mental attitude will improve your personality and make you like by others.
- It will also help to develop a keen alert imagination because you will be continuously seeking new and better ways of rendering useful services.
- Following this habit will inspire you to move on your own personal initiative instead of waiting to be told what to do, a habit which is the first step in leadership in all columns.
Self-Improvement
Self-Improvement is always a great factor if you want to be successful according to motivational speakers, Why? Because Just like the principle of going the extra mile. We need to step out of our comfort zone and push ourselves to the limit so that we can unlock our full potential.
And that doesn’t stop there, we need to keep on improving by learning new things and applying new strategies that we can formulate throughout our journey to success.
4. Applied Faith
The fourth principle of success: Applied faith, Faith is intangible but it is an important value that everyone should possess in their lives. According to Hill…
“Applied faith is a mental attitude wherein you clear your mind with all fears and doubts and direct it to the attainment of whatever you desire in life”
He continues by giving the 6 forms of riches we get in return for taking possession of our minds and using the applied faith principle. And these are…
6 forms of riches
- Sound Health
- Peace of mind
- A labor of love of your own choice
- Freedom from fear and worry
- A positive mental attitude
- Material riches of your own choice and quantity
However, some of us may not know exactly how faith works. According to the bible.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1
Faith is a positive mental state where you hope and believe in something, that even it is not seen by the naked eye your heart and mind still see and believe in its existence.
However, be reminded that even you have faith. Without applied effort in the things you do it will be a waste. According to the bible…
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” – James 2:26
This verse is a reminder to us that we must combine faith and our efforts. I remember these words from a wise person, that always reminds me to keep my faith intact even in the darkest days in my life. And I want to leave this with you as a reminder…
“God helps those who help themselves.”
5. Pleasing Personality
Fifth principles of success: Pleasing personality, Personality is a reflection of one’s behavior and cultural background. Another thing that affects our personality is how we are being taught by our parents or the things we learned from our education and experiences.
Having a pleasing personality shows and shares the positivity in your well-being, It is also a factor in how people will treat you.
We mentioned in our previous articles about the Myers-Briggs 16 Personalities. It is a great advantage for you if you understand your personality because it can help you know more about yourself and how can you adjust to the people around you.
6. Self-Discipline
Sixth principles of success: Self-discipline, According to Robert Kiyosaki author of a Bestselling book called Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
Discipline is a huge factor in every situation, regardless of whether if it’s about your career, education, and even at home.
However, discipline is a difficult thing to do sometimes especially if something is new to you because you need to reprogram your mind and body and change your usual ways.
Paradigm Shift
Similar to the paradigm shift. Which are the way of changing your behavior and usual ways of setting your mind and course of actions into something new. And discipline is a huge factor shifting your paradigm.
In the bestselling book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People written by Steven Covey. Discipline and Paradigm Shift are factors that successful people apply to their lives which make them successful.
Discipline and Paradigm Shift is a process, it can be done overnight. It takes time, therefore if you are determined to be successful. Start being disciplined and start shifting your paradigm as early as now.
Another thing, Hill mentioned 3 important things which we need to exercise to master self-discipline to help us unlock the master key of self-discipline…
- Think first before you speak, making sure that you will benefit from what you are about to say and will not hurt other people.
- Never seek vengeance against those who hurt you before, remember it was also mentioned in the bible “Do unto others as you would have do unto you.” – Matthew 7:12
- Practice discipline over your emotions, control your feelings such as love, hate, fear, and sex. Losing control of your emotions can either make you or break you.
7. Positive Mental Attitude
The seventh principle of success: Positive mental attitude, having a positive mental attitude is your key to overcome any obstacles that you might face.
However, how can we do that? maintaining a positive mental attitude is not an easy task especially if no one is encouraging or supporting you on what you do, right?
In our articles about Paradigm Shift, we mentioned Bob Proctor’s teachings about the paradigm shift.
He said that in shifting your paradigm from a negative to a positive mindset, you must program your subconscious mind to only focus on the positive things around you.
This means you have to eliminate the negative thoughts that are about concerns such as financial concerns and failures. Of course, you are thinking right now that “This is impossible”.
Well, that is the first step that those successful people did, they program their minds to think “I can do this, this is possible.” rather than “I can’t do this, this is impossible.”
That sets them apart from us ordinary people, they set their minds to think differently and maintaining that discipline of having a positive mental attitude. However, always remember if they can do it we can do it too, it’s just a matter of positive perspective in life.
8. Enthusiasm
The eighth principle of success, Enthusiasm is a state of positive attitude and action towards anything you desire. There is a saying…
“Knowledge is power”
However, according to Hill, this is just a half-truth. Because even if you possess the knowledge and do not put it into use you are wasting it.
“Knowledge becomes power only when it is put into action for the attainment of a definite objective.” – Napoleon Hill
According to Hill, you must be enthusiastic about your work and desire by putting together your Education, Experience, Knowledge.
He continues…
“Spoken words without enthusiasm are often ineffective and sometimes they can be boresome.”
9. Personal Initiative
The ninth principle of success, Personal Initiative is when you put your ideas and imagination into action. For example, you have an objective or goal. Then you should take the initiative to start moving forward in achieving your desire and goals in life.
If you want something to be done, do not rely on others to do it for you. Instead, you must discipline your mind and your body to react and be proactive.
Being lazy and not showing initiative in the things around you is a form of negative attitude and just being passive on the opportunities around you.
We need to learn not to waste these opportunities as the universe rotates, what you see right now, you might not see tomorrow.
“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” -William Arthur Ward
10. Learning for Adversity
The tenth principle of success, You probably knew about this quotation from Thomas Edison, when he was asked by a reporter about his failures in making a lightbulb.
“I did not fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” – Thomas Edison
But what does he mean by this response? He simply means that making a light bulb takes a few trials and errors, which he needed to go through some steps to try if it will work or not.
And in case it did not work, he will assess and try to study and figure out what is wrong and he will try again, implementing to strategy and new formula.
This is the principle of learning from adversity. In other words, learn from your mistakes. What Hill is trying to preach about this principle is that sometimes we might make some mistakes in running our business or in implementing strategies or whatsoever.
But what is important, you try to assess what went wrong and learn from it and use it as an experience to guide you to formulate a new idea which this time might work for you.
Making mistakes or failing is always part of success, a lot of successful people are always saying that because they know and experience it themselves until they reach their success.
11. Creative Imagination
The eleventh principle of success, Being creative and imaginative is a huge contributor to success steve jobs emphasizes that. Because that is when your mind is creating all possibilities and will form ideas that you can implement in achieving your goals in life.
In one of our articles about our movie recommendation of Joy (2015), we mentioned what we learned about innovation and creativeness in one of my workshops in my previous company which was organized by CIA Bootleg Manila (Creative Intelligence Associates).
And a lot of successful businesses succeed because of their creativity and imaginative traits that they have. According to Hill, there are 2 forms of imagination.
- Synthetic Imagination – Consists of organizing, compiling recognized ideas, concepts, and facts to create something new using all existing and from previous experiences.
- Creative Imagination – Operates coming from your sixth sense and its base from your subconsciousness which is the medium to create new ideas and facts.
What did Hill mention as the “Sixth Sense” is not the movie ok? Let’s be clear on that. What he meant was the “Gut Feeling” or intuition of us humans.
During the time of Napoleon Hill, there are no further studies on how to determine what exactly is the sixth sense. However, in this 21st century, it is now a bit clear how the gut feeling is hardwired to human’s sixth sense based on some wonderful studies by scientists and experts.
12. Accurate Thinking
The twelfth principle of success, accurate thinking. We can interpret accurate thinking in many ways. However, to make it simpler Hill defined by giving 2 fundamentals of accurate thinking.
- Inductive Reasoning – is used when the necessary facts on which to base your thinking are not available, mainly you act from a hypothesis or you assume what the facts to be.
- Deductive Reasoning – is used when the facts or what appeared to be facts on which to base your thinking, primarily you accept information only based on facts nonetheless.
According to Hill, the next step of accurate thinking is to separate the facts from fiction or any hearsay evidence and determine whether you are dealing with a hypothesis or real facts.
After you separate the facts into two classes, which are the important facts and unimportant facts. By doing so, you will realize that we encounter a lot of unimportant facts rather than the important facts which we should be focusing on.
According to Hill, when determining which is which. Important facts are the facts that will help you attain your goals, and the rest are considered to be unimportant facts.
13. Habit Force
The thirteenth principle of success, Habit Force or simply “Habits“. Habit is the center of your personality it is a core contributor in everything you do in your life and even in making decisions.
Having bad habits can hold you from personal development, as it will hinder your mind and actions since you are encaged by those bad habits.
In the book of Wendy Wood called Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.
Wendy Wood devoted her 30 years of work to study and understand the good habits and bad habits of a person. And how do these habits affect one’s well-being, behavior, and personal development?
Wendy Wood’s Expertise
According to Wendy Wood in one of her podcast guesting with The Psychology Podcast. She mentioned that…
“Habits are part of the subconscious so we can’t introspect the weak, we don’t have intuitions about them in the same way that we do in the other parts of our behavior.”
She continues…
“Like when we make decisions or to do something or have strong feelings about something, in particular, those are conscious experiences.”
Dr. Wood’s explanation
According to Dr. Wood, as per her example “The new year’s resolution“. Which we set our mind to change by doing things like saving money, be into physical fitness, do better in our jobs. But after a while, we tend to stop and go back to our usual ways.
She also added that this happens because most of the time we just rely on our conscious decisions and “will power” to do it. Because that’s how we think that we act and behave and get our behavior in line with our goals.
However, for those people who succeed is that they do this automatically. This is an example of good habits vs bad habits.
Going back to Hill’s principle of success, having and practicing good habits can attract positive things to your life. But we all know that every one of us has bad habits.
That is where the study of Dr. Wood comes in. Because if we manage to change our habits from bad into good habits. We can attract positive things and results just like Napoleon has said. Both of their studies correlate this specific principle of success.
Conclusions
These principles of success are made from the behavior and habits of the wealthiest man in the world during the 19th century. And it truly inspired a lot of successful businessmen and some people in their careers.
This book is powerful enough to change people’s lives because they manage to incorporate these principles in their life.
As per for us aspiring businessmen and for those who wanted to be successful in their career. Let’s use these principles as guidelines that can help us improve our well-being and change the bad habits into good habits to attract more positive results in our life.
Author: Carlo David
KG Collections is an online store on Facebook, Established on April 15, 2020. Primarily, We started selling Pre-loved goods which eventually expanded to sell brand new apparel through reselling.Now, KG Collections is a franchisee of Siomai King, Mangbok's, And other food products. We are also a franchisee and operator of the newest delivery platform called TokTok PH.Aside from franchise and reselling business. KG Collections also participates in multiple affiliate marketing programs, content creation, and online course teaching.KG Collections is managed directly by the owners Kathlene Garcia & Carlo David, the couple's goal is to build a business community for small business owners where they can attain new knowledge and be inspired with their businesses.The organization will also launch its online course programs to help the public learn new things, which the courses will be prepared by professionals who have excellent skillsets to share and teach the enrollees.-KG Collections
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