Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich
By Napoleon Hill

In 1908, Napoleon Hill met Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest men of his time. At their first meeting, Mr. Carnegie told Napoleon how he attained wealth, in a quiet unassuming way to see if Napoleon Hill would grasp the meaning and significance of what was being given to him. Hill comprehended immediately. This began a long friendship and collaboration between the two men.

Eventually, Andrew Carnegie asked Hill if he would be willing to compile the world’s first philosophy of achievement by writing a book about how the world’s wealthiest people achieved their riches. Andrew Carnegie wanted this information available to every person willing to take on the task of learning and becoming wealthy. Napoleon Hill’s consent began his 25-year odyssey as he interviewed over 500 famous self-made millionaires to write Think and Grow Rich. First published in 1937, Think and Grow Rich has sold over 60 million copies and is still in print. It is considered “the standard against which all other motivational books are measured.”

Think and Grow Rich consists of Thirteen Steps to Financial Success. Each step thoroughly explained using examples, testimonials and lessons. This is not a read and think about it book. It is a read, study, do the lessons, visualize and realize actual physical results book. As Napoleon states in Step 1:

“Desire is the turning point of all achievement. It is the first step toward riches. Intensify Desire daily and remain ready until Desire is fulfilled.”

In Step 6, Hill explains that

“Organized planning is the crystallization of Desire into Action.”

Step 10 instructs on the “Mystery of Sex Transmutation.” Here, Hill discusses how the energy and power behind a strong sexual drive can be the same impetus in its positive stage that causes men to reach great heights of success personally and financially. But, used negatively can destroy man’s drive to create and achieve.

Chapter 2 contains a self-confidence formula and 30-minute lesson following these guidelines:

“Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches.

“Temporary Defeat is not Permanent Failure.” And that a

“Lack of Persistence is one of the major causes of failure. Lack of Persistence is a weakness, which may be overcome by effort. It depends solely upon the intensity of one’s desire. With Persistence You Will Win.”

Later Hill determines that:

“Power is essential for success.”

Not political power or the power of authority. All lessons in Think and Grow Rich return one to the inner person and the power and ability within.

“Plans are useless and inert without power to translate them into action.”

So what is real power? “Power is organized and intelligently directed knowledge.” Or, stated in the reverse: “Knowledge organized into Definite Plans expressed through action = Power.”

What benefit might there be from reading Think and Grow Rich or any other self-help, motivational material? One answer might be as Napoleon Hill points out:

“Poverty needs no plan. It needs no one to aid it, because it is bold and ruthless. Riches are shy and timid. They have to be ‘attracted.’”

As a post script:
In 1991, Dennis Kimbro posthumously published,
Think and Grow Rich, a Black Choice.

A NEW WORLD: AN OLD REMEDY

A NEW WORLD: AN OLD REMEDY


In 1937 Napoleon Hill published his now famous book, ‘Think and Grow Rich.’ This book was published and sold in the midst of the Great Depression, which spanned ten years from 1929 to 1939. Think and Grow Rich took 25 years to complete as its author studied and interviewed over 500 of the world’s most successful people of its time. As a result, Think and Grow Rich, has been and continues to be a best seller of all times, selling 30 million copies. It is the first of its genre in “personal-success” literature during an era, which launched North America, Europe, and other industrialized nations into an economic slump of such magnitude that by 1933 11,000 of the U.S. 25,000 banks had failed, and massive unemployment continued to rise. In our present recession, it seems America and the world has revisited the past. Perhaps, it is also time to revisit this landmark book and gain insights, once again, to how all of us young and old, rich and poor, black, white, Asian, etc. can contribute to and gain from the current economic crisis personally and financially.
October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) the stock market collapsed. In a single day 16 million shares traded and 30 billion dollars simply vanished. Unemployment continued to drop for three years until 1932.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 and introduced major changes in the structure of the American economy by increasing government regulations, and instituting massive public works projects. By March of 1933 the nation is so desperate that Congress passes the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 to stabilize banking industry by backing it with the federal government.
During this same time while the world and especially America battled the Great Depression, Mother Nature voiced her opinion on the greed and politics of man. In 1931 severe drought hit Midwestern and southern plains; crops die, dust blows everywhere. By 1932 dust storms increase and America is gripped by what becomes known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl area spreads covering more than 75% of the country, affecting 27 states where men, women, children must cover their faces with rags and their windows with wet sheets in an effort to not breathe in the raging dust. Mother Nature continues this rampage until the end of the Depression in 1939 when during the fall rains finally come down bringing an end to the great drought. Along with it comes WW II, and an end to the Great Depression when unemployment improved as American factories flooded with overseas orders for armaments and munitions. When will we learn and therefore apply the golden rule: Man and his environment are one.
What did we learn from all of this? Is war the only solution to peace and harmony, to countries, economies, individuals working together for themselves and others? In his second inaugural address of 1937, F. D. Roosevelt states: “I see one-third of the nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished…. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Did we?
The exact date of our current recession is still debated. Most believe it began in 2007 with the presidency of George W. Bush, escalated into the wall-street meltdown of 2008, and being cleaned up by the 2009 presidency of Barack Obama.
In today’s bleak circumstances where we verge on the precipice of a Great Recession, our current president, Barack Obama makes the following statements on March 27, 2009, at his first online “Open for Questions” Town hall: “I’ve been working… to ensure that we’re not only making it through this crisis, but come out on the other side stronger and more prosperous as a nation over the long term.” Will we? How do those of us facing a “come-back,” begin all over again? How do we convert our dreams and ideas into money and see ourselves prospering as Obama and Hill states is possible? Perhaps Napoleon Hill has the answer in Think and Grow Rich where he predicts: “The business depression of the Great Depression marked the death of one age and the birth of another. This changed world requires practical dreamers who can and will put their dreams into action. The practical dreamers have always been, and always will be the pattern-makers of civilization.”
Is this who we are, the “pattern-makers of civilization?” The world as Obama asks needs each and every one of us to do our part in restoring America and our own lives to the greatness and prosperity we deserve. Are we all, including Obama, the first black man to run for the presidency and win, “practical dreamers” capable of rising to the challenges of Obama and Hill in a time when past and present have collided, and our future depends on us? “We must catch the spirit of the great pioneers of the past,” says Hill, and become pioneers of the present and future.
Let us again exam Numerology’s number definitions as I did in my article, ‘Obama and the Spirits of History,’ against the dates and events of this article:
The recession years of 2007 = 9, 2008 = 10, and 2009 = 11=2. Nine means Completion (Bush’s time almost up, wall street and big businesses, home mortgage crisis, banks collapsing, completing their cycle of misuse and abuse). Ten means Rebirth (out with the old in with the new everything). And, 2 means Balance, Union, Receptive, Yin (isn’t this what we believe Obama brings to the White House, to all individuals, to these issues).
October 29, 1929 – adds up to the #8, which means power and sacrifice. Is that not what occurred for men and women everywhere in the overwhelming power of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Homes were sacrificed as people were uprooted and migrated like flocks of wild birds to unknown lands. This era of sacrifice and power lasted ten years. The number 10 as previously stated means Rebirth. America and the world had an opportunity to start again. To get it right. The depression improved in 1939 due to WW II orders. The number 1939 adds up to 4, which means Creation. It is a time to create and to restore the world. Yet, this comes on the wages of a world war, of the creation of weapons of destruction. Was this a cleansing so we could begin anew? By 1941 America enters WW II and the depression is officially over. 1941 adds up to 6 which means Reaction (which Americans did by entering the war), Flux (where the entire world stood and the war created), and Responsibility (of each and every one of us for the past depression, the present war, the future of our world).
Napoleon Hill states: “Depression began to fade into nothingness…as the spell of fear in the minds of the people gradually fade away and become Faith.” His book encourages us to Think, use our minds to create and prosper, gives step-by-step guidance both within and without. He request we, “Take courage, for these experiences have tempered the spiritual metal of which you are made—they are assets of incomparable value.”
Think and Grow Rich is much more than a How-To book. It is the book, which launched all other self-help lectures, books, programs such as Tony Robbins, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Secret, etc. Within its pages are the necessary steps that each of us can take to get back and move forward, to reclaim and remake our lives. So, perhaps this new world we are once again forging can be helped by an old story, a lasting remedy that works and survives no matter what the times. Because as Obama continues to state in his online Town hall Meeting, “We, as a nation have already begun the critical work that will lead to our economic recovery. A recovery measured by whether jobs are being created and families have more money to pay their bills…. in the end it’s a recovery measured by whether it lasts, whether it endures; … whether we build our economy on a solid foundation.”

Obama and The Spirits of History

Obama and The Spirits of History

On November 4, 2008 at approximately 11:00pm Central time, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Obama and his beautiful wife, Michelle, bring grace and belief in the future of possibilities that has not been seen or felt in the White House since John and Jackie Kennedy, our 35th President and First Lady from 1961 to1963. In the hope-filled, decisive, yes-we-can victory of the Obama campaign, the spirits of every person and every event that came before him exploded in continuity, clarity and an evolution of history, within a specific time and space.

Was the coming of Obama written in the stars long before he arrived? Perhaps the Astrologers and Numerologists, the Astronomers and Scientists will each have their own opinions on the coinciding and clashing of events and people in 2008. The historians, politicians, journalists, laymen and women have all shared their thoughts and opinions. The scientific and mystical aspects may be ignored or underestimated as insignificant, irrelevant, or outright foolish alongside cold hard facts of a brilliant person running a brilliant and efficient campaign. A campaign that gathered young, old, rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic, Democratic, Republican, believers and non-believers across all lines.

Aren’t we also capable of embracing the mystical or spiritual; the wonder of it all as facts evidenced by the years and numbers, the people and events that helped pave the road and build the steps Obama followed even as he chiseled new more braver, bolder steps? The knowledge of Obama’s campaign moving forward as his opponent’s, John McCain’s, campaign suffered from poor planning and execution, the downward approval rating of George W. Bush and McCain’s ties to Bush that would not be unbroken, Wall Street and big business fall-out, and the phenomena of Sarah Pallin that proved to be a shot in the dark and not a guiding light through a storm as originally hoped, are all proven, evidenced facts. We have witnessed how the combination of people and events gave Obama the momentum to rise; and, how through intelligent and insightful planning he seized the moment and brought it to victory.

Because we know these to be facts of actuality, we call them forth as proof of victory. As reasons both how and why. And, yet, what if the forces of the Universe – the natural laws of spirit and form; the stars and galaxies, the heavens, God/Allah/Jehovah/Buddha – shaped and formed these events, placed these very specific people, to collide at very specific moments? What if when Obama was born to his 18-year-old white mother, his star aligned to shape his destiny and point his way? And, finally, what if every battle against slavery, cruelty, injustice, racism, and every African-American person who audaciously hoped and ran for president, congressman/woman, senator; who marched on behalf of Black people’s civil rights, who stood after being beaten, hosed, jailed for the right to vote – what if the spirit and actions of each of these brave known and unknown martyrs entered Obama’s spirit as ancestors, as wise men and women, guiding his star, laying his path to make the current events and this man come together in this time – Now – to carry his message of unity and hope to us all?

How can we choose one set of facts simply because they are evident, logical and follow a specific pattern, without regard or understanding of the other set of facts that may involve the spiritual, the mystical, the unknown, but also follow a logical and specific pattern if one cares to see:

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln our 16th President was first an Illinois State Legislator and member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He defeated the secession of the Confederate States aiding the abolition of slavery. Lincoln was the first Republican elected President. He brought members of both political parties into his cabinet and forced them to cooperate. On November 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lincoln delivered what has come to be known as one of the greatest speeches in American history. This speech contains famous and oft quoted phrases such as, “…all men are created equal,” and “…this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” In these words lies the spirit of what Black people claim as our right to be, to vote, to aspire and inspire.

Frederick Douglass born in 1818 to a slave woman and an unknown white man in Maryland, escaped to New York City and freedom on September 3, 1838. He became a leading advocate for abolition of slavery and for racial equality. As Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass describes the spirit of those awaiting the announcement of the signing in a way that could also describe Grant Park in Chicago, IL the night voters awaited the results of the 2008 Presidential campaign: “We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky…we were watching…by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day…we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries.”

In 1872, without his knowledge, Frederick Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President of the United States as Victoria Woodhull’s (first woman to run for President) running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African-American to receive a vote for President in a major party’s role call. Here we have our first star aligning in position, preparing for the future. Here we take our first step. Every great person in History, in Folk Lore and Fairytales, in Biblical and other religious references, had someone or some many who came before, who paved the way usually fighting against great odds in great battles: So, too, Barack Obama.
Our history as Blacks in politics and service begins long before Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1836, Alexander Lucius Twilight became the first African-American elected to public office and serving in state’s legislature as Vermont’s House of Representative. Twilight is also credited with being the first African-American to receive a college degree as he graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont with a B.A. in 1823.

One hundred years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, on August 28, 1963, before an unwavering sea of people, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his immortal “I Have A Dream” speech before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Within King’s speech lie these prophetic words:
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. … But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy. … Now is the time to lift our Nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. … Now is the time to make justice a reality for all …” And, of course, the famous words, “… I have a dream that one day … the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” In that moment, Lincoln and King forge the bonds of a dream moving forward on the bridge to somewhere, forming steps of closure and fulfillment.

A mere five years after Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech and 80 years after Frederick Douglass’ vote for President, enter the “Unbossed and Unbought,” Shirley Chisholm carving history into play for blacks and for women. Shirley, an educator and childcare manager, was the first African-American elected to Congress. She served as Congresswoman from New York’s 12th District for 7 terms from 1969 to 1983. Then, in 1972 she became the first major party African-American candidate for President of the United States. Shirley received 152 first ballot votes at the 1972 Democratic Convention. A quote from Shirley that may echo our current sentiments is, “The United States was said not to be ready to elect a Catholic to the Presidency when Al Smith ran in the 1920’s. But Smith’s nomination may have helped pave the way for the successful campaign John F. Kennedy waged in 1960. Who can tell? What I hope most is that now there will be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political office as any wealthy, good-looking white male.” So the cycle is unbroken, the steps expanding, growing, the path clearer. Whether these are considered alignments or parallels they nonetheless continued to carry the promise along. All seemingly innocuous yet forming binding ties.

Just as Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his speech on August 28, 1963, forty-five years later on August 28, 2008 Barack Obama gave forth his acceptance speech for President of the United States. Obama may have planned his speech to coincide with the anniversary of King’s speech, that fact in no way subtracts the evidence or erases the mystery of the unseen interconnectedness gathering force.
In, 1984 and 1988, 100 years after Frederick Douglass and 20 years after Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson’s name was entered as the Democratic candidate for President.

Seven significant dates from 1863 to 2008, spanning 145 years, involving six known individuals and thousands unknown, culminating in the 44th presidency being fulfilled by the first African-American. Can we honestly and fairly ignore the years, the dates, the people, the battles, the loses and wins as not being by some divine choice or guiding star or a fluid movement of continuity between conductors before a great orchestra?

Douglass -- 1888 -- each person who ran for President or Congress
Chisholm -- 1968 -- did so in a year ending in #8.
Jackson -- 1988 -- In Numerology as number definitions, the #8 means
Obama -- 2008 -- power and sacrifice.

We have four 8’s. The number four means Creation. Obama will be the 44th President. Double fours totaling eight: Creation, power, sacrifice.

Lincoln -- 1863 -- These years of Lincoln and King end in #3.
King -- 1963 -- three is the number for communication, interaction, and

neutrality.

Weren’t King and Lincoln both communicators who acted upon their beliefs? King’s message of non-violence can be viewed as neutral.

Twilight -- 1836 -- In Numerology’s number definitions
Obama -- 1996 -- six equates to reaction, flux, and responsibility.

Douglas -- 1872 -- Unknown vote for VP
Chisholm -- 1972 -- two is the number for balance, union, receptive, yin.

Are these facts or myths? Coincidence or ordained? Relevant or merely interesting?
From African-American’s first entry into the political arena, to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, through the years to Barack Obama being elected to the presidency in 2008, there are ten dates spanning 172 years. In number definitions ten means rebirth. The necessary events to bring about the impossible have come full circle. The number 172 equals 10 or one, which indicates individual, aggressor, and yang. Do we all not believe this year, this presidency, this campaign, this democratic victory, this falling of Wall Street and the rise of a man black bringing hope to all is not a rebirth?

The relationship between numbers, patterns, people’s lives and events and the physical objects of living things may be debated with or without proof. It can be like the sighting of a UFO or the belief in things unseen known simply as Faith.

It has taken us 172 years from 1836 to get here. The years 1836/1863 adds up to the number nine which means completion. When we began was the end already decided? Had one cycle of history been completed so another could begin? It was the ending of civil war between the states and the shaping of America, which prompted Lincoln to sign the Proclamation.
We all understand that Obama inherits a difficult and monumental task. You could say his plight comes with baggage attached. We know he needs and has asked for all our help. If we dare to look at the numbers for a small glimpse of what could be if we work hard and believe, we would see that the year 2009 equals the number two which means balance, union, receptive, and yin. Which to me means hope and posibility…

We are simple men and women believing in something larger than ourselves. If we add the number for each year we hope Obama will be in the White House, namely two terms, we might find:

2009 -- (2) -- balance, union (state of, perhaps), receptive, yin.
2010 -- (3) -- communication, interaction, neutrality.
2011 -- (4) -- creation
2012 -- (5) -- action, restlessness (time to reelect?)
2013 -- (6) -- reaction, flux, responsibility
2014 -- (7) -- thought, consciousness
2015 -- (8) -- power, sacrifice
2016 -- (9) -- completion. (the end of his 2nd term. Time for a new regime)
2017 -- (10) -- rebirth. (we begin, again)

Barack Obama’s ascendance to the presidency of the U.S. was watched and celebrated worldwide. The rise of America and Americans, the black experience and Democracy is currently global issues. The eyes of the world are upon us and our eyes are definitely on the prize.
Be it through the stars, numerology, science, mystically or factually with eloquence and intelligence, the proof of man’s current and historical interconnectedness and our oneness with the universe, is written and being lived each day by each and every one of us.