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Think and Grow Rich

Name: Think and Grow Rich — Complete Summary Cards
Author: Napoleon Hill (1937)

Napoleon Hill's 1937 study of what separated Andrew Carnegie, Edison, and Ford from everyone else, in 40 cards: the thirteen principles that turn a definite desire into a plan, a plan into persistence, and persistence into wealth — plus the six fears that quietly stop most people first.

Based on Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (1937)

The Starting Point · Desire · Faith · Auto-Suggestion · Specialized Knowledge · Imagination · Organized Planning · Decision · Persistence · The Master Mind · Transmutation · The Subconscious Mind · The Brain · The Sixth Sense · The Six Fears

The premise everything rests on

Thoughts Are Things

Hill spent twenty years interviewing the richest men in America looking for a formula. What he found underneath all of it was a claim about thought itself.

“Thoughts are things, and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”

Edwin C. Barnes wanted to be Edison's partner, not his employee. Broke and unknown, he took a floor-sweeping job to stay near the man. Five years later he had it.

Barnes had nothing but a definite thought he refused to trade for anything smaller. That is the whole book in one man.

Think and Grow Rich

#02

Desire

The starting point of all achievement

Desire, Not a Wish

Almost everyone wants to be better off. Almost no one wants it the way Hill means the word — as an obsession that reorganizes every other choice around itself.

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

The distinction is practical, not poetic. A wish costs nothing, so it changes nothing. A desire has a price attached, and paying it is what produces the result.

Wishing changes nothing. Desire that becomes an obsession, planned for and backed by persistence, produces the result. Hill's test: what have you already given up?

Think and Grow Rich

#03

Desire

Most people quit just before

Three Feet From Gold

R. U. Darby's uncle struck gold, borrowed heavily for machinery, then hit barren rock. They sold the equipment to a junk man and went home.

The junk man hired an engineer, who calculated that the vein resumed three feet from where the Darbys stopped drilling. He was right, and made millions from their hole.

“Before success comes in any man's life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure.”

They were not lazy or foolish. They worked hard and quit on evidence — barren rock is evidence. Just one step early.

Darby later said the lesson made him a fortune in insurance: he stopped taking the first no as the final answer.

Think and Grow Rich

#04

Desire

Remove the way back

Burn Your Ships

Hill tells of a commander who landed his outnumbered army on enemy shores, then ordered the ships burned. Win, or die. They won.

The soldiers were not braver than the enemy. They simply had nowhere to put their doubt. Every ounce of energy that would have gone into weighing retreat went into the fight instead.

A safety net is not free. It quietly funds the part of you that is looking for a reason to leave, and it makes every hard moment a live negotiation rather than a settled question.

Hill is not recommending recklessness. He is pointing out that half-commitment produces half-effort, and half-effort loses to people who have made the question closed.

In this deck

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Think and Grow Rich

In this deck

Thoughts Are Things

Desire, Not a Wish

Three Feet From Gold

Burn Your Ships

The Six Steps to Riches

Faith Is Induced

The Self-Confidence Formula

Auto-Suggestion

Feeling Is the Language

Specialized Knowledge

Know Where to Find It

The Workshop of the Mind

Ideas Begin All Fortunes

Organized Planning

Temporary Defeat Isn't Failure

The Attributes of Leadership

Why Leaders Fail

The QQS Formula

Take Personal Inventory

Decision

Keep Your Own Counsel

Persistence

The Four Steps to Persistence

The Master Mind

Power Is Organized Knowledge

Transmutation

The Subconscious Mind

Crowd Out the Negative

The Brain as a Station

The Sixth Sense

The Invisible Counselors

The Six Ghosts of Fear

The Fear of Poverty

The Fear of Criticism

The Fear of Ill Health

The Fear of Loss of Love

The Fear of Old Age

The Fear of Death

The Devil's Workshop

Old Man IF