Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules

Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules

“If we are not getting better, we are actually getting outdated, because our competition is improving every day” - 

                                                                                                            Intelligent Investor

Napoleon Hill was one among the first few self-improvement gurus, and his books are still ranked among the biggest best-sellers in the category despite being published way back in the 1920s and 30s.

One reason his advice continues to attract readers is that he did not believe you had to be born with a natural talent to succeed in life. In Hill’s estimations, with a little determination and hard work, anyone can develop the skills needed to reach his goals and be successful in his field.

Now, without wasting any further time let us start our journey of getting better: 

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How to Gain anyone’s confidence? Let us learn from Shakespeare

Poet and playwright William Shakespeare is the best teacher if you want to improve your skill of convincing other.

In his play Julius Caesar, we can see how the path of changing someone’s mind starts by taking their side. Marc Antony attempts to change the minds of those attending Caesar’s funeral to see his friend (Caesar) as a great man.

Quite a challenge, since the first person to address the crowd is Brutus – the man who killed Caesar – who gives an impassioned speech that convinces everyone of how evil Caesar was.

Once Brutus has finished, it is Marc Antony’s turn to speak. He knew he cannot accomplish his task by immediately forcing his position upon the crowd and contradicting what Brutus said, so he starts off by praising Brutus and agreeing that Caesar should be forgotten.

This allows Marc Antony to quickly get the crowd on his side. He then starts to feed his audience new ideas, such as how much Caesar did for the population of Rome – he even wrote in his will that he wanted his riches to go to the Roman people! Slowly but surely, Marc Antony’s praise for Brutus changes from genuine, to ironic and finally damning.

Eventually, Marc Antony is able to completely change the mood of the crowd, so much so that they condemn Brutus for killing Caesar and run him out of Rome.

Such a technique can be easily transferred to the professional world.

The author once watched this method used to great effect by a lawyer who was a student of Shakespearean texts. When he began to address the jury, he did not do so by attacking his opponent. Instead, he listed all the positive remarks the opposing side made and agreed that they made good points. By doing so, he gained the jury’s attention and confidence, at which point he began to list all the flaws in the opponent’s case. Needless to say, he succeeded at trial without much difficulty.

Positive suggestions can improve performance at work and even make people healthier.

If you want to improve the work performance of your employees, you need to use positive suggestions, not negative ones.

The author knew a manager who never criticized his workers. Instead, he would walk through the offices and compliment each worker, one at a time, for their great work. While doing so, he would always make the subtle suggestion that they could do even better if they tried.

On one occasion, the manager had to deal with an employee whose efficiency had taken a nosedive in recent weeks. But here too, it was a positive suggestion that worked.

The manager knew that criticizing him for the dip in efficiency would only demoralize the employee. So he put his hand on the employee’s shoulder and told him that he was impressed at how the pace of his work had improved and that it was setting an excellent example for the other employees. Remarkably, by the end of that very same day, the employee’s efficiency rose by 25 percent.

If you are a salesperson, you will find it extremely easy to experience the benefit of positive suggestion. For example, make it part of your sales pitch: when introducing the customer to a product, mention that even though it is a new product, she will surely recognize how useful it is due to its numerous features.

This way, the customer won’t think that you are trying to convince her of anything.

Finally, the power of positive suggestion can also lead to improvements in your health.

Hill knew a doctor who could convince ailing patients that their health was improving. Sure enough, many patients suffering from illnesses such as pneumonia were convinced by his positive suggestions and begin to recover.

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Use the power of prayer and the law of revenge for better business deals.

When you think about “praying” for something, your first thought might be to pray for the strength to be more virtuous, or for someone else to get well.

But prayer can also be used for more practical things, such as an improvement in your business performance.

To use prayer, you do not have to believe in any particular faith or that one god is better than another. As far as Hill is concerned, when you pray, it just means you are sending a thought out into the universe, and this thought can act like a wave of electricity – influencing the well-being of your business or whatever it is your prayer might be about.

Another tool that can benefit your business is the law of revenge, which states that people will act toward you as you act toward them. It might sound simple – it is also one of the most effective ways to find success. With this principle, you can get anyone to do just about anything you want, so long as you do something for him first.

If you want someone to give you something, for example, give him something first. Let us say a boy and his friend are having lunch in the playground, and one boy tries to take a snack away from the other without asking. Chances are, the only thing that the greedy boy is going to get is a punch in the arm.

But what happens if the boy starts by offering one of his own snacks to his friend?
The friend will most likely offer the boy a snack without even being asked.

This schoolyard transaction applies to adult business as well. If you want your more successful colleagues to recommend you to one of their business partners, the first thing you can do is make a point of speaking highly of that colleague to some of your contacts.

Self-confidence is an important part of the success and can be improved through affirmation.

Many people go through life with two main goals: material wealth and happiness. The good news is, you can attain both of these with just one characteristic: self-confidence.

How important is self-confidence?

Well, to start with, you will never be happy without it, because if you hope to gain the things you want in life, you first need to believe that you deserve those things, and that takes self-confidence.

You can work day and night, seven days a week, but without self-confidence, you will never make the big bucks.

So, how do you develop self-confidence?

It is all about realizing that your life and happiness are in your hands and no one else’s. You need to start taking full responsibility for your life and appreciating that the buck stops with you.

Once you stop believing that other people are responsible for your fortune – or misfortune – you can start to see that you are the key to your own success. When this happens, you will find that you have access to an endless source of the energy that will allow you to reach your most challenging goals.

To help facilitate this shift in understanding, use affirmations.

An affirmation is simply a positive thought that you can repeat and focus on until it becomes a reality.

Some powerful affirmations include:

“I know that I can accomplish anything I set out to do. I know that if I truly believe this, and act accordingly, success will be mine.”

“I know that whatever I think eventually takes a material form in the physical world, which is why I can think my way to success. Every day I will think of the person I want to be until the image is so detailed that it can become reality.”

“From now on, I will start by planning exactly what I want to do, and then I will focus entirely on this plan until it has become a reality.”

If you practice these affirmations every day, you are sure to see both your confidence and your life improve.

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Self-suggestion can also assist in the development of helpful habits.

You won’t get far if you give up on a project at the first sign of trouble. If you want to turn an idea into a successful business, it is going to take persistence.

If you think you lack the willpower to continue with a task when it starts to get unpleasant here is a piece of good news: there is a simple process for developing habits which will keep you persistent in achieving success.

If your current habit is to sleep until noon and shuffle through the day in a sleepy haze, it will take significant willpower to suddenly start getting up at six in the morning.

But you can turn your 6 a.m. wake-up call into a habit by repeating it often enough, thereby making it an in-built part of your everyday life. Before long, you won’t even have to try to wake up early – it will just happen naturally without any willpower required.

If you rely solely on your alarm clock to get you out of bed at 6 a.m., there is a good chance you will turn the alarm off, roll over and go back to sleep.

Here is how you can do it, Several times a day, take a few minutes to imagine yourself waking up feeling energized, well-rested and with the ability to spring right out of bed. When visualizing this process, picture every detail. Maybe you start by yawning, then stretching your arms before getting up and out of bed.

With the help of self-suggestion, this process will make its way from your thoughts to your body, and waking up early will soon be a daily, effortless habit.

We should fill our environment with positive influences, and remove the negative influences from our life

Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly being influenced by your environment and surroundings, since what you are exposed to every day impacts your thoughts, and your thoughts play a huge factor in determining what occurs in your life.

When you consider this, it only makes sense that you choose carefully the right environment that will help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

If you hope to be a successful business executive, then it makes sense to live near other successful business executives, or at least spend time at clubs or places where they socialize. The best environment for you to be in is one surrounded by people who share your goals in life or career, and to avoid being around people with negative or defeatist attitudes.

When you know what you want to achieve, picture each and every detail about what your perfectly supportive environment will look like. Once you have that image in mind, it is time to go out and find it.

A powerful technique to sharpen your memory: 

Here is an all too familiar scenario: You are at a party and you notice someone familiar approaching you with a smile and a friendly greeting. She knows your name, but you are drawing a blank and cannot seem to recall hers, or where it was you met her.

Oh, the awkwardness!

While this kind of unfortunate embarrassment can make networking a challenge, the good news here is that a faulty memory can be strengthened.

There are three steps to recharging your memory bank

First is to start paying attention. If you are always daydreaming while meeting new people, you should not be surprised when you forget someone’s name at a later date. Likewise, if you are not paying attention to where you parked your car and which roads you go down, you are bound to have trouble finding your way back later on.

Start paying better attention by taking the time to look at someone carefully when you first meet her and thoughtfully form a full impression of that person.

The second step is to make mental associations. When someone tells you her name, there is a good chance you are familiar with something that either shares her name or is very close to it. It could be another person, a place, a favourite product or anything that is highly relevant to you and your life.

Say you meet someone who shares your sister’s name – associate her with your sister. If you are introduced to someone named “Clare,” associate her with one of your favourite desserts – a chocolate eclair.

Third and the final step is the power of repetition. Never underestimate the effectiveness of repeating someone’s name multiple times immediately following an introduction. It is also wise to recall the name from time to time over the next few days. If you do, you are sure to find yourself with stronger memory and fewer awkward encounters.

Now you know the golden rules of success, it is time to start putting them to work for you and your goals.

Please Note: I have omitted many key points and examples from the book, if you have liked the summary I am sure you will love the book. Please go ahead and purchase the book and encourage the publishers.


Have you read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R, please hit the LINK (👈 link)

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Summary of Summary:

Please note: Here, I have tried different words and phrases to summaries what Author has said-

·        In a debate or negotiation, start on a positive note highlight the good points of the other person, then move towards your agenda.

·        Every situation has something positive about it, you have to find that and work on it Eg: Even a dead clock is right twice in a day.

·        If you want something from someone, first try and give. Eg If you wish Good morning even to a stranger, you have a very high probability of getting the wish back.

·        Whatever it is that you want in life (wealth, Joy, Job, Love) ask for it from the universe, continue working for it and believe you have received it. It might not work immediately, but definitely, over time, it will.

·        We become exactly like the people we spend our time with: If we spend time with people who discuss ideas, business, innovation we start thinking like them. If we spend time with people who keep gossiping about people, we will end up being a worthless gossiper. The choice is for us to make!

·        Remembering names of people is very critical if you want to improve your networking skills. Follow these 3 steps, First Pay attention when you meet new people. Second, associate them with your near ones. Third repeat their name, few times if required do it next few days.

·        Success is not out of your reach once you put your mind to it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking to effect real changes in your life.

Last, but not least, smart clothes will give your colleagues a more favourable first impression of you, which in turn will make you more trustworthy in their eyes.

Dear Friends,

This blog is my personal attempt to help you.  If you found this article to be helpful, kindly share it with your near and dear ones.

I would be very glad to hear your feedback, in fact, it will motivate me to continue my journey of, Blog and Teach.

Thanks for reading, I hope you apply some or all the lessons learned and become a better person consistently.

All the best!! 👍👍👍

Cheers 🍹

Intelligent Investor 

Hey,

Have you read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R, please hit the LINK (👈 link)