Book Notes: Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill is a classic personal development and success philosophy book published in 1937. The book discusses 14 principles that lead to success and wealth. Many of them overlap, some seem dated yet many are quite valuable.

I found some of the more dated suggestions either irrelevant to todays world, while others are still relatable with a few tweaks if you apply a more modern twist to them.

Overall, a somewhat valuable read, but a little dated in some of its suggestions.

Leverage and Listen to your Network

• Either possessing or having access to specialized knowledge is critical to success. You should never stop acquiring specialized knowledge, either through building your team or through learning more and more. This will make you more valuable in the marketplace.
• You do not need to possess specialized knowledge yourself, but you at least need access to it through hiring or networking.
• You should also become adept and when you should build on your specialized knowledge, vs when you should hire.
• Furthermore, you’ll never be able to accumulate all the knowledge necessary to amass wealth by yourself. You need a team of people that can help execute ideas. These can be teammates, people who you lead, or even your network.
• Have a network of two or more people who are contributing to like-minded goals. They can serve as a real-life counsel, people you can learn from, or who can help you network further.
• Similarly stated in Rich Dad Poor Dad, you should choose your network and friendships carefully, as you want people within your group that can challenge you, and you can learn from.
• Apprenticeship allows one to learn more from the experts and start at a higher level through guidance and mentorship. This is why so many espouse the importance of finding mentors. You learn a lot more through their guidance and experience.
  

Talk Less and Listen More

• Many books suggest talking less and listening more, ranging from Sales books, Never Split to Difference, 48 Laws of Power, and The Charisma Myth.
• By talking less and listening more, you are giving other people space to share their ideas and positions. You are in a place to absorb their wisdom and make them feel important and heard.
• Getting to Yes also talks about the use of silence in negotiation, as does Coaching for Performance, where using silence allows the person you are coaching to think through the problem and not overly rely on you as their manager to solve their problems for them.
• It’s also an important sales technique, which Predictable Revenue also talks about. Listening more to your prospect or customer helps you better understand their needs and business problem. This translates to determining if there is a fit between your solution and delivering value.
  

Be Creative

• Creative imagination is when you create something new. Synthetic imagination is when you connect existing ideas in new ways.
• These two types of imagination work together, as when you connect new ideas, you will ultimately find ways to create something new.
• In many ways, this is true to the Zettelkasten system.
• Fear of criticism will prevent you from fully exploring creative ideas or publish your creative works. If you stop worrying about what others will say or think, you’ll execute on your next idea faster and get closer to wealth.
• Poverty, criticism, poor health, loss of love, old age, and death are all things that inhibit creativity. They are insecurities you hold that can make it harder to tap into new creative ideas or execute them. These fears will hold you back.
• Negative thinking also inhibits creativity. If you or someone around you constantly says, “this will never work” it is difficult to fully explore or execute a creative idea.
  

Thoughts Become Things

• The more you think about something, the more it influences your everyday actions. This will, over time, attract the thing you are thinking about more and more. Your thoughts consciously or subconsciously impact your actions, and your actions magnetize those things you are thinking about to you.
• Thinking about wealth and success repeatedly will eventually lead us to adopt a success mindset and adopt successful behaviors that will eventually breed success itself.
• Repetition of a mantra with specific goals, deadlines, and identities will help solidify your plan into action towards success. This book calls this Autosuggestion. The more you think on a subject, both consciously and subconsciously, the more you will bring forward your plan of action into your everyday behaviors. These everyday actions coupled with a success mindset are what will bring about wealth.
• This relates to Atomic Habits in that the habit of Autosuggestion solidifies your identity, which is an important part of the psychology of habit-forming and the Three Layers of Habit Change.
  

Be Persistent

• Knowledge only becomes power once it is put into action. Before then, it is dormant and not being put to good use.
• This is why ideas are more important than specialized knowledge because the ideas are the things that apply specialized knowledge into something that generates wealth.
• You need both a good idea and the ability to execute. Having a good network or team will help fill any gaps you have in your ability to do either of these things.
• Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to procrastination and the delay in accumulating wealth. Be decisive, take decisive action, and execute. The faster time from idea to execution will expedite your road to wealth.
• To succeed, you need a burning desire. A casual want to succeed isn’t enough. You need an obsession, a willingness to burn bridges behind you to force yourself to succeed at the goal you are shooting for to get there. If that desire isn’t there, you will not succeed.
• Also described in The Dip, persistence is important in powering through the difficult points of an objective. The Dip is there to weed out those who quit from those who persist and become world-class.
• Opposition is what hardens you and gives you practice and makes you better than others. Lack of persistence is what will weed out those who are weaker than you.
• A common reason people are defeated is that they accept defeat—especially too early. They give up at the nearest sign of temporary defeat, and thus never stand a chance of winning.
• Those who succeed will not be willing to accept defeat as a reality. Instead, they will view these temporary defeats as steppingstones towards success.
• Defeat or failure will happen with any plan. That doesn’t mean you should quit, it just means it’s shown you this particular way of executing your plan won’t work, and it needs to be changed.
  

Deliver Value

• Like Solution and Value Selling, good salespeople, entrepreneurs, and marketers know to sell the solution the customer is looking for and the value they are getting from it. Not selling the product itself.
• Salespeople have to help the customer or prospect imagine how much better their life will be with their product. An honest salesperson should be doing this with integrity (e.g., the product should deliver on the promised value).
• What you believe you deserve is irrelevant to what people are willing to pay you for. If you deliver value to someone, they will be willing to pay substantially for it.
• Similar concepts were covered in Money: Master the Game, which discusses that you make yourself more marketable by making yourself more valuable.