Success keys

Napoleon Hill is probably the most influential of all the great motivational speakers of the 20th Century. His work inspired such modern greats as Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield; Mark Victor Hansen, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Denis Waitley and I could go on. He has also inspired me (strangely enough!).

Think and Grow Rich was first published in 1937 and is one of the bestselling books of all time. Hill devoted his life to discovering the keys to success by studying and then recording the habits of the most successful people of his era (504 of the World's richest men). He then disseminated the information so people could "model" (ah NLP) these habits.

One of his most famous quotes is

"Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, you can achieve!

So the most fundamental question to ask to start on your road to success is:

"Where are you going?"

Lewis Carroll writes about Alice as she wanders down a pathway, that she reaches a fork in the road. She looks to the right and then to the left and wonders. She sees the Cheshire cat in a tree and asks:

"Which road shall I take?"

To which he replies,

"Where are you going?"

Alice responds. "I don’t know"

She receives the reply,

"If you don't know where you are going, then any road will do."

So Hill’s suggestion that we have a “major definite purpose” has been adopted by all of the most successful people from his research until this day! So what is yours?

My next few blogs will be my thoughts on how to apply Hill’s keys to success. These thoughts were inspired by one of the quotes in his book, a proverb:

“If you would plant for days, plant flowers,
If you would plant for years, plant trees,
If you would plant for eternity, plant ideas”.

A couple of these ideas worth cultivating are:

“The attitude of gratitude:”

This concept has been adopted by almost all modern gurus from Hill’s original works. He says,

“If you make your prayers an expression of gratitude and thanksgiving for all the blessings you already have, instead of requests for things you do not have, you will obtain results much faster.”

The second idea I wish to pass on is,
“The extra mile formula”:

Brian Tracy says,

“There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.”

Napoleon Hill wrote a very simple formula:

“Q1 + Q2 + MA = C”

Q1, he defines as the quality of service you supply to others.

Q2 is the quantity of service rendered, or the effort you put in.

MA is the mental attitude with which the service is rendered. (Much of his work is about how to approach life with a positive mental attitude).

C is the “Compensation” you will receive. Here Hill does not mean “money”. He defines compensation as:

Money, joy, harmony, spiritual enlightenment, faith, an open mind, a sense of tolerance or anything else worthwhile that you seek.

Remain true to the spirit of going the extra mile and cultivate the attitude of gratitude and maintain your positive outlook. These have certainly helped me, maybe they will help you.