Book Review: Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich was originally published in 1937 by Napolean Hill. If you’re familiar with The Secret, then you’ll have some idea of what Think and Grow Rich is all about. It’s the original ‘secret’ revealed. I admit that when I read the author state that he was about to reveal “the secret” to getting rich but only to those who were ready to receive it, my cynicism metre went through the roof. Obviously, I’m not ready to receive.

But in every book there is “wrapped a pure nugget of truth”, and Think and Grow Rich is no exception. There are some really strange concepts in this book that I was quite sceptical about, but amongst them were many ideas that ringed true and worth taking the time to consider.

It is a timely book to read, the book was written just coming out of the great depression, and the author saw it as a time of opportunity and change. It made me think that today is a time of great opportunity as our current adversities give us the impetus we need to create great change for the better.

The first important distinction to make about the book is that it’s a motivational book, not a personal finance book. The author isn’t just talking about financial riches, but also spiritual, mental and material riches. Unlike our regular understanding of ‘success’ that is measured by material possessions, the author measures success through happiness. If you have obtained your goals and you’re happy then you have ‘succeeded’ regardless of the material possessions you have accumulated.

So how do we grow rich? The book goes through 13 steps that one needs to be successful.

1. Desire

Success begins with a definite and burning desire to turn one’s dreams into reality. Simply wishing things to happen isn’t good enough. You have to be willing to burn all bridges and backup plans and work towards your burning desire. This all makes a lot of sense to me, success isn’t bred from a half hearted attempt at achieving our goals. You have to be specific about what you want, and you have to really want it.

2. Faith

I’m not going to comment on the idea of communicating with the Infinite Intelligence through vibration of thought, the author goes into that in some depth, but what I did get out of this chapter is that to succeed you have to believe that you’re going to succeed. We are what we think, and it’s much better believing that we will succeed than believing that we wont.

3. Auto-Suggestion

This chapter basically describes the power of positive suggestion through affirmation and visualisation. Many modern studies have confirmed the power of visualisation as a tool for success, especially for sports people. Books on the topic are a dime a dozen.

4. Specialised Knowledge

The author makes a really interesting point about the cliché “knowledge is power.” He argues that knowledge is only potential power, you have to organise and use knowledge for it to become power.

Developing specialised knowledge is an obvious point, but important nevertheless. If you want to become a successful accountant for example, you need to learn accounting, if you want to become a computer programmer, you need to learn programming language etc. Part of the idea of developing specialised is that it is a continual, life long process. The successful person is the person who is always learning.

5. Imagination

The link between desire and action is imagination. We may have a burning desire to succeed in a specific area, but it is our imagination that comes up with ideas in order to fulfil this desire.

6. Organised Planning

Once you have desire to reach a dream, and have generated ideas to achieve that dream, then the next step is to put in place definite and practical plans with which you will achieve that dream.

7. Decision

Once those plans are in place, you need to make definite decision to act on them. The opposite of decision is procrastination. Obviously, all the desire and the plans in the world aren’t going to do any good if we don’t act on them.

8. Persistence

Giving up at the first hurdle is not the way to succeed. We all know the now cliché example of Edison failing 10,000 times to invent the light bulb before he got it right, well it was made famous by this book. Forming good habits and having the will power to persist even in the face of adversity is the eighth step towards riches.

9. Power of the Master Mind

The Master Mind is like your personal group of consultants. Simply put, two (or more) heads are better than one. The most successful people in their field surround themselves with advisors with specialised knowledge with whom they can consult.

10. Sex Transmutation

I didn’t really get this chapter at all. There seemed to be two points that stood out, one is that we strive harder to succeed in order impress members of the opposite sex and behind every great man is a woman. The authors ideas are also somewhat platonic: using our sexual energy and channelling it into something ‘constructive’ rather than ‘base’. If you have read this chapter, maybe you could explain this one to me.

11. The Subconscious Mind

I’ve read a lot about problem solving and creative thinking, and one of the keys to generating ideas and being creative is to stop thinking and let your subconscious do the work. That’s why most people have their best ideas in the shower, when they’re not “thinking.”

The author suggests that part of being successful is feeding the subconscious mind positive emotions and ideas rather than negative ones that can be self-fulfilling. Become the little red engine that could, so to speak. 

12. The Brain

The point that I got out of this chapter is that our brains are a lot more powerful that we realise, and we should try to harness this power. The whole transmitting tower to the infinite universal intelligence I’ll leave alone.

13. The Six Sense

Finally, in order to succeed we need to trust on our intuition as much as our rational side. For the most part, we’ve kind of lost contact with our intuitive side and replaced it with rational science. I’m a big believer of listening to that intuitive voice.

The author also describes the conferences he had on a regular basis with his imaginary master mind. He had collected a variety of advisors alive and dead and visualised how they would advise him on different matters. It was a way for him to get in touch with his inner voice. I actually found this concept interesting enough that I want to give it a go.

So is the book worth reading? Obviously, I’m a little cynical about some of the more fluffy concepts in the book, but reading it with an open mind allows you to take away some useful ideas and tools to put into practice. The book definitely reflects the culture and ideas of the time, in some ways it’s very forward thinking, in others not so, it made me smirk at the authors attitude of “women can be successful too, I know a very successful typist and secretary.” However, as far as motivational literature goes, Think and Grow Rich is a classic worth reading.