How to Own Your Own Mind

by Napoleon Hill

There is only one satisfactory way to get men to do their best, and that is by setting up before them a motive which is sufficiently attractive to inspire them to act on their own initiative.

The gifts of personal liberty and the right to free enterprise, which were provided by the founders of this nation, have come so easily that the people have begun to mistake their privileges for their license to expect something for nothing.

this trend will right itself in time, but not until the country is overtaken by some great national emergency that will teach the people the fallacy of expecting something for nothing. This may come in the form of a widespread depression, or it may come in the form of a war in which the people will be forced to join forces and fight once more for the privilege of liberty that was given to them when this nation was born. But come what may, there is one thing certain: People cannot go on forever cutting down the amount of service they render and demanding more pay, without catastrophe overtaking them.

The principles of successful achievement are as definite as are the rules of mathematics.

While the road to riches is well marked, it is rather long, and at places, the going is a bit hard. These hard spots claim millions of victims who begin the journey, mainly because when the going becomes hard, most people give up and turn back or drop out of the race entirely.

Indolence, indifference, self-imposed limitations, fear, and discouragement will never attract riches!

I sincerely believe that the best way for a man to accumulate riches is by making himself indispensable, through some form of useful service.

The most important thing is ability to negotiate with other with a minimum of friction, so as to gain a maximum of friendly cooperation.

All success and all failure are the result of human relationships.

the greatest of all forms of wealth is practical wisdom through which men learn, once and for all time, that there is no such reality as something for nothing!

The people of this country are discouraging the development of this quality; they are placing penalties on personal initiative; they are forming themselves into groups and blocs which seek something for nothing; they are encouraging men to substitute crooked politics for profound statesmanship; they are permitting unscrupulous men to infiltrate themselves into public office and loot the public treasuries by their failure to exercise their right of franchise; they are substituting personal greed for public service; they are substituting Karl Marx for Thomas Jefferson and other great men of Creative Vision who gave them their privilege of free enterprise and personal initiative; they are supplanting the church with the politically controlled salon!

Success can be no greater than the plan is sound; therefore, enlist help in building plans.

After thought on a given subject becomes a habit, it is taken over by the subconscious mind and automatically acted upon, through the most available media.

The faculty of reason compares all thought with one’s past experience (as recalled from the memory) and forms all judgements and opinions. The faculty of the imagination shapes one’s thoughts into ideas, plans, and ways and means of attaining desired ends. The conscience gives moral guidance to all thoughts. If consulted at all times, before one engages in expressing any thought in terms of action, these three faculties of the mind will become strong and dependable. If they are not consulted, and one forms the habit of acting on thought without their modifying influence, they will atrophy and become useless.

A disorganised mind can never be free.

How inconsistent it is that the only thing over which a human being has complete control is the one thing which most people make the least attempt to control. The inconsistency becomes all the more astounding when one recognises the fact that the power of organised thought offers the solution to all of one’s problems, and nothing else does.

there are two major steps necessary in accurate thinking. First, one must separate facts from mere fiction, opinions, and hearsay evidence. Second, one must separate facts into two classes: important and unimportant. An important fact is any fact that can be used to advantage in the attainment of one’s aims and purposes.

The head is always more dependable than the emotions (the ‘heart’). The person who forgets this generally lives to regret his neglect.

Here is the greatest of all the evils of a one-man government. It produces a nation of one-man thinkers, destroys the privilege of independent thought and personal initiative, and makes the people submissive and willing to accept whatever living conditions are imposed upon them.

Attention should be given to controlling the habits of thought since all thought habits reflect themselves, in one way or another, through physical action. All physical action, therefore, begins in the form of a thought. To control physical action, one has only to control thoughts. The presence of any thought in the mind has a tendency to set up an appropriate physical action in some portion of the body.

any habit one wishes to develop should be voluntarily begun and repeated indefinitely, until it becomes automatic in its functioning. There is no other way of developing desirable habits. Habits of any other nature are not controlled, but, on the other hand, they control the individual, leading him to misery, poverty and failure more often than to success.

The mind responds to whatever stimuli one feeds it. When a man is driven by a strong desire to achieve success in any given direction, his mind responds to that desire and forms definite thought habits connected with the attainment of that desire.

No one can be either happy or successful without a planned program for the use of his time. Planned programs are based on organised thinking.

A man will always be more effective when engaged in the sort of work he likes best. That is why, one’s major purpose in life should be of his own choice. People who drift through life, performing work they do not like, merely because they must have an income as a means of living, seldom get more than a living from their labour. You see, this sort of labour does not inspire one to perform service in an obsessional desire to work. It is one of the tragedies of civilisation that we have not found a way to give every man the sort of work he likes best to do. That sort of work is never a drudgery.

Knowledge has no value what soever unless and until it is expressed in terms of organised action.

men who accomplish anything worthy of mention always begin before everything they need is in hand.

Lack of a Definite Major Purpose is the most deadly form of self-limitation.

It has been plainly written in the records of men that all who demand something definite find ways and means of getting it if they persist in their demands.

What you are, what you become, what you acquire, all are the results of your action. Thinking, education, knowledge, native ability, opportunity are nothing but empty words unless they are translated into action.

there is a turning point in every successful person’s life which marks the place at which he came under the influence of another mind that inspired him with higher aims and nobler purposes.

the wise man never wastes his time with anyone from whom he cannot acquire benefits or to whom he cannot contribute something worthwhile in one form or another.

Every influence that reaches a man through his association with others constitutes mental food for his mind.

The alliance of two or more minds, working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a definite purpose, has the effect of stimulating the mind of each person in the alliance, and results in providing the members of the alliance, or some individual in the group, with a source of knowledge that sometimes cannot be traced to the accumulated knowledge of any of the individuals.

I have devoted all my time. Temptations to divert my attention and some of my money into other channels have been many and varied, but I stuck to my original Definite Major Purpose because I recognised, early in life, that no man can succeed if he splits his energies and diverts his attention in many different directions.”

I have never heard of any person achieving great success without having gone through difficulties, and unpleasant experiences, and the one quality which best stands out during these periods of ‘testing time’ is Controlled Attention.

Controlled Attention means the act of coordinating all the faculties of the mind and directing their combined power to a given end! Such is an act which requires self-discipline of the highest order. It also requires the development of controlled habits. As a matter of fact, one cannot control attention without the supporting influence of well-developed habits of thought.

Permanent success in any sort of human relationship must be founded on mutual confidence and the spirit of harmony.

Controlled Attention is self-mastery of the highest order, for it is an accepted fact that the man who can control his own mind can control everything that gets in his way.

The determined mind projects an influence that is felt by everyone within its range. You can recognise that sort of mind the moment one who possesses it walks into a room that is crowded by people, even though you may not actually see the man. His presence makes itself felt!

Splitting one’s attention has the effect of dividing one’s powers. The best plan for anyone to follow is to devote all his energies to some specific field. This concentration enables one to specialise in that field.

A man should have a multiple-track mind for the accumulation of knowledge, but a single-track mind for the expression of that knowledge, which is about the same as saying that one should have a reserve of both general and specific knowledge, but he should concentrate its use upon the attainment of a Definite Major Purpose.

Such a person who is entitled to promotion will get it sooner or later, luck or no luck, because every man gravitates to the place in life where he belongs, by preparation and acquired habit, as naturally as water flows downhill. Nothing can change this, no matter by what name one calls the circumstance.

the only sort of luck any man can depend upon is that which he provides for himself, through painstaking preparation for whatever he desires in life.

You should observe, also, that Controlled Attention is a degree of self-hypnosis, through which a man can prepare his mind for any reality he has to meet in life. Intense concentration of thought gives one the benefit of the power of that strange state of mind known as hypnotism.

Definiteness of purpose, backed by a plan for its attainment, tends to conserve one’s energies for the sole purpose of attaining that purpose. Worry is the brainchild of the man who is not definite!

Those who feel that improvements should be made in any portion of our economic or social system should begin the improvements they recommend by applying them in their own lives. If anyone thinks he can improve the American way of life, let him first demonstrate the soundness of his plan by making it work in his own life. Then the rest of us will be glad to adopt his system, if it proves to be better than our present system.

Take away from a man his desire to become independent and you rob him of much of his initiative, enthusiasm, imagination, and self-discipline. When a man gives up his privilege of independence, he also gives up a proportionate amount of his enthusiasm and ambition.