Top 3 Lessons From Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind from Napoleon Hill

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These are my notes from reading Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind from Napoleon HIll
which is definitely under appreciated compared to the popularity of his very successful “think and grow rich” classic. This book was written towards the end of his life which is great as you can see a lot of his reflections on his own life and the thinking of what makes someone happy (especially himself and many of the rich people he consulted at this point in his life), which is hard to entirely correlate with money past a certain point. Some research shows that past a certain income, something like $80,000 I believe, happiness barely goes up as income goes up, the law of diminishing returns kicks in very fast.

This is something I noticed within myself in 2013-2014 which were amazing years in online income but at some point I was thinking “so what?” considering I am not very interested in luxurious cars or homes (especially since I like to be a permanent traveler and I have not found a country to live in “permanently”). Do I really just want to hoard money for a “what if” scenario? Its not very fulfilling.

So I’ve been reading a lot recently while figuring my next online venture and I decided to read this book which I felt might help me not only put perspective on what type of business I want to do next, but also this time I want to move from a business in affiliate marketing to my own products/brand that I can build and grow while directly helping people.

grow_rich_with_peace_of_mindHere are my top 3 lessons from the book:

1. Keep a positive mental attitude

This book offered a lot in the “mentality” needed specifically to put myself in the right way. Napoleon Hill puts a lot of emphasis on having a positive mental attitude in life and I can see that this has helped me a lot in my own life. I went from a cubicle job to making money online to making even more money online while traveling the world and being able to work anywhere.

As he says ““Get yourself into the right frame of mind,” I said, “and you will either find what you need or find a way to do without and still achieve your goal. When your mind can truly picture a desired goal, and feel success consciousness driving it toward that goal, you can win that goal. Let us put aside all other matters and investigate your state of mind.”

And the core message of his book: “Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve.”

2. Challenges/Adversity is often a great thing that can seem like a brick wall but eventually become the change you needed and life becomes better than before

“Adversiry? It’s a tonic, not a stumbling block”

and

“What was bad must always stay in the past and never be allowed to hinder the future.”

Another powerful point is how adversity can often become the source of great wealth or be the change you needed to go forward. For example, I used to use Google to drive a lot of traffic to my websites/businesses. When that crashed, suddenly my income stopped and I had to find something new. Fast forward an entire year, and Facebook replaced Google and I made 3-5X more money than I used to! If it was not for Google forcing me to change, I would have probably kept my income at a similar level. Nowadays, Facebook crashed and I need to find something new, but now I know this might help me find an even better opportunity (fingers crossed!). This is something I also see in another book that I am reading from Malcolm Gladwell, David vs Goliath which I am reading in audiobook format and its great. Tons of lessons of people who were the underdog, had the odds stacked against them (from birth or later in life) but were able to succeed most likely due to the “disadvantage or challenge” imposed by this.

3.  Having clear goals

This is key, the more and more I learn in life the more I see the importance of having clear goals. Many highly successful people had clear goals before being successful, as I mentioned in my review of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Autobiography who also had these clear goals.  I’ve been doing this for years but very broadly and honestly, while I did not reach all of my goals on a year to ear basis, I succeeded at all my goals from a few years ago. So I am definitely moving forward and need to set bigger goals (hopefully I reach them next year!). Something very insightful I learned from a book called Hannibal and me (great read, mixes history and some good self development tips) to set goals by starting from what you want  and reverse engineer your goals from there.

Examples could be, if you want time for your family or to party, your real goal is to be able to work when you want. If money is your motivation, work 8+ hours a day every day, if you want you want to live abroad, determine how much money you need and make that amount (either in savings or passively each month).

As Napoleon hill says, “With definiteness of purpose you add great positive power to your own mental attitude, and you can use definite motives to sustain the actions which propel you toward your goal.”

Control your mental attitude - Napoleon Hill“Control your mental attitude with definiteness of purpose. Emerson said: “The world makes way for a man who knows where he is going.”

 

Here are a few other napoleon hill quotes from this book that I enjoyed:

“What was bad must always stay in the past and never be allowed to hinder the future.”

“Great men have no time to waste with a desire to injure others. If they did, they would not be great men.”
“The surest way of finding peace of mind. The surest way of finding peace of mind is that which helps the greatest number of others to find it.”
“FAITH is the greatest of all healers.”
“Do I realize I am not working for money, but for that which money can buy?”
“Show someone how he can get more for his money .”
“A man’s happiness and peace of mind depend on his sharing all kinds of wealth.”
“When you share your blessings with another, you become his creditor and eventually the debt is paid.”

“You may have little or nothing to do with your leaving it. But you have almost everything to do with your life while you possess that life.”

“He had me write out the following motto: “Don’t take yourself too damned seriously, unless you wish to be damned by others.”
“The fear of poverty brings poverty; the fear of criticism cripples initiative.”

 

Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind
In this exciting book, the renowned author of THINK AND GROW RICH, Napoleon Hill, reveals his latest discoveries about getting what you want
Written by: Napoleon Hill
Available in Ebook Paperback Hardcover

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5 Comments

  1. I can’t believe I didn’t know about this book! I’ve read “Think and Grow Rich” but how could I have missed this absolute gem! I’ve bought it and started reading and it is amazing! It seems better than the previous mentioned one.

    I agree that clear goals are essential because if you don’t know where you want to get to how can you ever expect to get there?

    Thank you so much for this!

    1. Ya I think a lot of people read think and grow rich which is one of his first books but ignore the rest… I really enjoyed this one more than think and grow rich, which for some reason I got bored midway and stopped reading.

  2. Staying positive is very important, crucially actually! If you have a predominant negative mindset problems are always going to be tougher to solve. And why wouldn’t you want to feel happy instead of feeling crappy?!

    I’ve never been a negative person but I do have periods when my thoughts go in the wrong direction and I have to slap myself back to positivity. I guess we all have to go through our own ups and downs and it’s essential that we stay calm and keep going.

    1. Yup, the great thing with experience is I know after a down you always get an up, its not obvious at first but it happens, always. The up is usually better than before the down.

  3. I have already read this book, but this was a nice reminder of some of the great insight that it provides. I am going to start the book again, and start creating some new visualization goals!

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