Think and Grow Rich Book Summary - Think and Grow Rich Book explained in key points

Think and Grow Rich summary

Name: Think and Grow Rich
Rating: 4.5 (1285 reviews)
Author: Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill

The secrets of 40 millionaires' wealth, revealed

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4.5 (1285 ratings)

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What is Think and Grow Rich about?

In Think and Grow Rich (1937), Napoleon Hill investigates the methods of the 500 most successful people of his time, including the world’s richest men, top politicians, famous inventors, writers and captains of industry. First published amidst the Great Depression, Think and Grow Rich has sold over 100 million copies.

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About the Author

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) was an American journalist and writer. From 1933 to 1936 he was an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 11

We can only accomplish our aims in life if we are driven by a burning desire.

A great number of us wish for wealth and financial independence – but wishing alone isn’t going to help us achieve our goals. If we want to get rich and realize our dreams, we need to recognize a burning desire within us.

For instance, even after more than 10,000 failed experiments, Thomas Edison could not be shaken from his goal of inventing an electric light source. He was – plain and simple – driven by the desire to make his dream come true. And, after years of hard work, he did just that when he invented the light bulb.

Writer Fannie Hurst had a similar experience: she had to suffer over 36 rejections before a single one of her short stories was published in a newspaper. From then on, her career as a successful novelist and playwright took off. Her burning desire had proven stronger than the frustration she felt about being rejected – and she ultimately met with success.

So it’s essential for those of us who want to be successful to examine our own personal attitude towards setting our goals and dreams.

How do we feel about our goals and dreams? Are they only castles in the sky? Or is our burning desire strong enough to make them come true one day?

Goal setting and detailed planning are the basis of every achievement.

Every success story begins with people who know what they want to achieve.

So before you begin chasing after any old dream, you should start by defining your own personal goal as precisely as you can. For example, if you want to get rich, you should decide precisely how much money you want to make.

Successful people have an unwavering faith in themselves.

Having an unwavering faith in yourself is a way of making sure that you can – and will – achieve your goals.

You can only achieve success if it’s based on self-confidence and an unwavering faith in yourself: no wealth has ever been acquired, no faraway continents ever discovered, nothing ever invented without this faith as its basis.

By using auto-suggestion, our subconscious can influence our behavior.

Unwavering faith in yourself is not necessarily something you’re born with or that falls from the sky: anybody can develop it, bit by bit, through auto-suggestion.

Auto-suggestion describes a way of influencing yourself by thinking very specific and purposeful thoughts or ideas.

Knowledge is power – but it doesn’t have to be what you learned in school.

Knowledge can make it a lot easier to achieve your aims in life. All you have to do is take a few basic points into consideration.

First of all, you need to take the “traditional” meaning of knowledge and education – and throw it out the window.

The workshop of the imagination – where we can turn our dreams into reality.

Each and every success story begins with an idea. And behind each and every idea is the imagination. It is, essentially, the creative workshop of our minds that transforms our dreams into ideas and our ideas into reality.

This imaginative ability has two different forms: the creative imagination and the synthetic imagination.

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses increases your chances of professional success.

One important building block for professional success is an awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses – in other words, being self-aware.

Since things like having vague goals, lacking ambition, procrastinating and lacking resolve are common reasons for failure, self-awareness can help to constructively take action against these weaknesses – or at least to balance them out with your strengths.

Positive emotions are the key to a successful life – and need to be strengthened.

Our subconscious receives and stores sensory stimuli, feelings and thoughts. It saves everything we’ve ever experienced – regardless of whether it was positive or negative.

But saving information alone isn’t all there is to it: our subconscious is also constantly exercising its influence on our actions. It can shape us positively, endowing us with strength and enterprise, but it can also shape us negatively, misleading us into despondency and pessimism.

Successful people are remarkable for their determination and steadfastness.

The analysis of over 25,000 life stories of people who failed to achieve professional success shows that a lack of determination is the main reason for their failure.

The analysis of the success stories of multimillionaires revealed, by contrast, that they all had two characteristics in common: they were used to making split-second decisions and, once they made them, they stood firmly behind their decisions.

Only the persistent will succeed.

Over the course of any project – regardless of its nature – we are all bound to encounter obstacles and difficulties. In such situations, most of us are too quick to give up our plans and let the project die. But there are a few people who, despite all the obstacles, stick to their original plans and give their dreams space to blossom into reality.

Persistence and endurance are key. That means, above all, that we work constantly on the realization of our goals and don’t lose sight of them. However, obstinacy and inveteracy should be avoided at all costs: if, say, there’s a dire need for a price correction, you also have to be willing to implement it.

Achieving great things requires being smart and surrounding yourself with smart people.

The bigger the goal, the more complex the planning; the more complex the planning, the more difficult the goal’s execution; the more difficult the execution, the more dependent the brains behind the project will be on the creative, intellectual and moral support of others.

This mutual backing works best in the form of a brain trust – a select group of intelligent people.

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Who should read Think and Grow Rich

Anyone who wants to learn the secrets of people who have made it big
Anyone who wants to be successful in life
Anyone who’s heard of this self-help classic and wants to see what it’s about

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Think and Grow Rich summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is Think and Grow Rich about?

About the Author

We can only accomplish our aims in life if we are driven by a burning desire.

Goal setting and detailed planning are the basis of every achievement.

Successful people have an unwavering faith in themselves.

By using auto-suggestion, our subconscious can influence our behavior.

Knowledge is power – but it doesn’t have to be what you learned in school.

The workshop of the imagination – where we can turn our dreams into reality.

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses increases your chances of professional success.

Positive emotions are the key to a successful life – and need to be strengthened.

Successful people are remarkable for their determination and steadfastness.

Only the persistent will succeed.

Achieving great things requires being smart and surrounding yourself with smart people.

Key ideas in Think and Grow Rich

We can only accomplish our aims in life if we are driven by a burning desire.

Goal setting and detailed planning are the basis of every achievement.

Successful people have an unwavering faith in themselves.

By using auto-suggestion, our subconscious can influence our behavior.

Knowledge is power – but it doesn’t have to be what you learned in school.

The workshop of the imagination – where we can turn our dreams into reality.

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses increases your chances of professional success.

Positive emotions are the key to a successful life – and need to be strengthened.

Successful people are remarkable for their determination and steadfastness.

Only the persistent will succeed.

Achieving great things requires being smart and surrounding yourself with smart people.

Who should read Think and Grow Rich

Categories with Think and Grow Rich

Books like Think and Grow Rich

What our members say

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