Week 8 - Book Review: Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success

 

Book Report:

            "Napoleon Hill’s keys to success, the seventeen principles of personal achievement" focuses on power of the mind and how to utilize it as much as possible. Our mind is the crucial key and the most important resource for our path to success. Seventeen principles can be divided into two main categories, preparation and action, with some principles falling in both categories. All of them, however, are connected and reinforced with each other. Improving one principle will improve others.

            For preparation, there are: developing definiteness of purpose, using applied faith, building a positive mental attitude, controlling enthusiasm, thinking accurately, enforcing self-discipline, assembling an attractive personality. First and foremost, people need to have written-down goals and plans, that is developing definiteness of purpose. Next, people must change their mind, removing all negative attitudes and building positive ones. Only with a positive mental attitude then a person can start working toward his or her personal goals. But they cannot do it without a strong faith. In other words, they need to believe in themselves, in their plans and that they can achieve their goals. While working toward their definiteness of purpose, people must prepare to have attractive personalities so offers and opportunities can come to them. But not everything is useful, so be ready to think carefully with a clear mind before making any decision. The process toward personal goals won’t be easy and cannot be completed overnight. Therefore, people must be prepared to imply self-discipline, so that they can keep working consistently and constructively toward their goals. At the same time, they must keep in mind their enthusiasm. It is a good thing to be enthusiastic, like pouring gasoline into a fire, uncontrolled enthusiasm can bring negative benefits. Therefore, a person must prepare a controlled enthusiasm so that he or she may focus on working on their plan and toward their goals.

            After preparing, people need to get to work to achieve their goals while their mind is utilized and ready to be reinforced furthermore. The principles for action are establishing a mastermind alliance, teamworking, creating personal initiative, going the extra mile, controlling your attention, cultivating creative vision, learning from defeat, maintaining health, budgeting time and money, using cosmic habitforce. First, nobody can achieve anything without others’ support. Therefore, they need to establish a mastermind alliance and learn how to work in a team effectively. Mastermind alliance can be their spouse, family, friend, those who are ready to go with them to the end of their plans and achieve their goals. They can establish their alliance by combining definiteness of purpose and attractive personality. Next, if people prepare their mind with positive attitude, enthusiasm, self-discipline, they are ready to take initiative and go the extra mile. Successful people do not just dream and wait. They get to work immediately so that they can find even more opportunities. In addition, they always go the extra mile, providing more and harvesting more than others. While working on their plans, people need to control their attention and cultivate creative vision. Both help reinforce their mind while guiding their action on the right path, fanning their burning obsession furthermore. In return, those two principles are supported by personal initiative and going the extra mile, allowing them to seek out any ideas that work well with their plans and achievements. While doing so, people must budget their time and money carefully to utilize their resources on their definiteness of purpose. In addition, they must maintain their physical and mental health to keep themselves on track. With them, people are ready to stay strong, learn from their defeat and come back better than before. By putting those principles to work with controlled enthusiasm, positive attitude and self-discipline, people are establishing a habit. Cosmic habitforce, in return, helps strengthen people’s mind and faith as well as the other principles. The cycle is now complete but keeps going again, with all principles stronger and better than before.

Critique:

            With so many so-called influencers come many self-help books today, it is hard to know which is the right choice. But a self-help book written by a famous writer from the 20th century and recommended by my professor, who has a doctorate degree, is certainly the right choice. While reading through one third of the book, I realized how amazing it is and how much knowledge I earned. I used to have a question why people still fail even though they set up their goals, plans and work hard to achieve them. And the answer is in the book, they did not do it with positive mental attitude or controlled enthusiasm. Some did not enforce self-discipline to establish a habit of going the extra mile. Even worse, some people believe they can achieve their goals alone, without help from anyone else, which is a common mistake nowadays. As I was reading through all the principles, the author showed how to achieve the principles and their connection. This is a crucial key to any self-help materials as many people only talk about the ideas but do not know or share anything about how to develop and achieve those ideas they lay out. Moreover, the book includes many great examples, many successful people in there to show how they applied the principles and achieved their goals. However, it does not matter how amazing this book is if a person does not get to work, develop and apply those principles. That is exactly how I think people should focus on nowadays: changing to positive mental attitude instead of complaining; working harder rather than daydreaming and waiting; maintaining self-discipline and habit instead of hoping to accomplish personal goals overnight. With that knowledge from the book, I believe in myself even more, and that one day I can achieve my personal goals as well.