Category Archives: Book Reviews

The 4-Hour Work Week, Summary

The 4-Hour Workweek is the manifestation of a fresh and better worldview, a deeply transformative shift that is the antithesis of some of the most entrenched and pervasive assumptions of modern society about the way life is and will be.

Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

Tim Ferriss has sold more than 1.3 million copies of his book and spent seven years on the New York Times bestseller list. His blog and podcast have both ranked #1 in the world in their categories. Tim has also been an investor or advisor for Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Evernote, Shopify, Duolingo, and Alibaba.

First and foremost

To leverage the techniques in this book, you don’t have to quit your job or be a risk-taker, young, or single. Instead of passively accepting things for the way they are, be a dealmaker. This book is about having a lifestyle of complete freedom without having a million dollars. Real wealth comes from time and mobility, as well as money, and those who have learned to build these dual additional currencies have become the “New Rich,” he says. The framework for most of this book is structured under the acronym “DEAL”: Forget time management; learn to ignore the unimportant. The author shares the up-and-down journey and “lucky” breaks of his life in the book, which he calls a “brave” chronology of his own life, which I respect tremendously for its boldness.

Step I: D is for Definition

Chapter 1: Cautions and Comparisons: How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Tim sees being financially rich and being able to live like a millionaire as two profoundly different things. What we want isn’t money; it’s the power to do what we want with our lives, he writes. Money is multiplied in practical (or “lifestyle”) value if you can control what you do, when you do it, where you do It, and with whom you doit. “Do that which excites you is. New Rich” is the subtitle of a new book by author Tim Stanley. The book is called “The New Rich: How to Live the Life You Want”

Chapter 2: Rules that Change the Rules: Everything Popular Is Wrong

Tim started making all his calls only from 8:00 – 8:30 and 6:00 – 6:30, which netted him twice the number of meetings than the people who made calls all day long from 9 – 5.
In this chapter, Tim presents ten ways that you need to redefine and solve life in order to leverage this principle.
Retirement is worst-case scenario insurance.The whole concept of retirement is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you’re doing during the most physically capable years of your life, which is a terrible and completely unacceptable reality.
To be honest, building up enough capital to sustain a retirement above the poverty level is a mathematical impossibility for most people, given the realities of today’s market.
Only incredibly ambitious and hard-working individuals could ever reach such a goal, and if you’re that type, are you really going to want to sit around and do nothing?
You’ll probably want to get another job – so why did you wait all those years?
Interest and energy are cyclical.The key to thriving is alternating periods of work and rest, and that principle holds true at the career level.
By distributing “mini-retirements” throughout life, you not only have a more enjoyable life, but you are also more productive when you work.
Less is not laziness.Our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice over personal effectiveness, but the New Rich measure their contribution in results, not time.
Laziness isn’t working less; laziness is letting circumstances define your life for you, or “passing through life like a spectator from an office window.”
The timing is never right.Forget the pro/con list; whatever it is that you want to do someday, just do it now.
Ask for forgiveness, not permission.People will deny things on an emotional basis that they’ll actually accept after you’ve already done it.
As long as any potential damage is minimal or reversible, don’t give anyone the chance to say no; just do it, and you can ask for forgiveness later if necessary.
Things in excess become their opposite.This is true of time as well as possessions.
The point of this book is not to create excess idle time, but to allow you to use your time to do what you want to do rather than what you are obligated to do.
Money alone is not the solution.Adding more money isn’t the answer as often as we think it is.
We delude ourselves into thinking that we need more and busy ourselves trying to make more, thereby avoiding the real problem.
Relative income is more important than absolute income.Relative income is a measure of both time and money; for example, the person working 10 hours a week and making $10,000 is richer than the person working 80 hours a week and making $100,000.
Distress is bad, eustress is good.Eustress is a stress that helps you grow.
Embrace good stress instead of avoiding stress altogether.

Chapter 3: Dodging Bullets: Fear-Setting and Escaping Paralysis

By naming your worst nightmare, literally and specifically, cut through the ambiguous anxiety about doing what you want to do: what’s the worst that could happen? Then think about simple steps that you can take to recover if it happens. On a scale of 1-10, define the worst-case scenario, then do the same for the potential advantage. You might find that due to a possible temporary effect of 3, you are avoiding taking action that could have a permanent positive effect of 9. Now, compare that with the risk of being stuck for the next 40 years in an office. What does it really cost you to delay action?

Chapter 4: System Reset: Being Unreasonable and Unambiguous

Because most people are convinced they can only accomplish mediocre things, the competition for mediocre goals is actually more intense than the competition for incredible things.
Perhaps this is also partly due to motivation – we will try much harder for a dream worth dreaming.
Rather than asking yourself, “What do I want,” or “What are my goals,” try, “What excites me?”
You have to define that alternate reality to replace what you’re doing now.
Otherwise, you’re stuck with the vague, “I’ll make X dollars and then I can do what I want.”
Define what you want!
The author introduces the term “dreamlining”: applying a timeline to your dreams to make the shift from ambiguous wants to defined steps.
The goal has to be unrealistic to be effective, and it has to focus on activities to replace the work you’re doing now. • Create a 6-month and 12-month timeline, and for each one write down five things you dream of having five things you dream of being, and five things you dream of doing.Then convert each “being” into a “doing” to make it more defined.
If you need a more defined framework, write down one place to visit, one memory of a lifetime, one thing you’d love to do every day, one thing you’d love to do every week, and one thing you’ve always wanted to learn.
Out of all 15 for each timeline, circle the four that would change it all.
Research and calculate the monthly cost of each of those four.Think in terms of monthly cash flow, not the total cost.
Add up all the expenses, multiply by 1.3 (cushion for savings), then divide by 30 to get your target daily income.
Write down three first steps for each of the four dreams in your six-month timeline and take the first step now.
Do the second four steps by 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, and the last four by 11:00 a.m. the day after.
The steps should be doable enough that you can make this happen.

Step II: E is for Elimination

Chapter 5: The End of Time Management: Illusions and Italians

After defining what you want to do with your time, you have to free that time (without taking an income penalty).
The approach to time management that most people take is the wrong one:  trying to fill every moment with productivity.
Because the expectation in an office environment is constant motion, not productivity, you must remove yourself from that environment.
As an employee, you’ll need to liberate yourself with a remote working arrangement before you can automate it.
If you’re an entrepreneur, the roadblock is your business, not your employer, so you’ll be going in the reverse order – automating in order to liberate yourself.
Tim then introduces the Pareto principle, famously observed by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto: in any field of endeavor, 80% of results come from 20% of actions.
Ask yourself the following questions: What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?
What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?
You’ll have to spend some time to think about these questions, but if you think you can’t answer them clearly, you haven’t thought about them enough.
There are no exceptions to the Pareto principle.
Tim’s example comes from when he realized that five of his customers were bringing in 95% of his revenue.
Two of those five were horrible, and the three others never caused any problems.
So, Tim stopped putting any effort into the 120 other customers and confronted the two problem customers.
One left; one shaped up.
Tim then focused all his effort on finding customers like the top three, and in a month doubled his income and cut his hours from 80 to 15.
If you’re going to join the New Rich, you need to make the fundamental mentality shift that “being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action… lack of time is actually lack of priorities.”
The other half of time management is known as Parkinson’s Law: “A task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.”
These two laws are synergistic: only do the 20% to shorten time, and shorten time so you focus on the 20%.

Chapter 6: The Low-Information Diet: Cultivating Selective Ignorance

Never read the news.
If it’s actually important, people will be talking about it and you’ll find out.
Tim does email once a week for an hour, which might not be possible for those of us stuck in the 9 – 5.
But the point is that if you remove yourself as the bottleneck, the problems disappear.
As a mental reset, he also recommends taking five days to completely eliminate television (except for one hour of pleasure viewing), reading books (except for one hour of fiction), and web surfing (unless necessary for work).
To wrap up the chapter, Tim gives some other tips and tricks, the most important of which is practicing the art of nonfinishing.
Most of us are in the habit of automatically finishing whatever we start, but if you feel an article, movie, meal, or anything else is wasting your time, stop.
It will take practice to break this ingrained and wasteful habit.

My Most Favourite Book The Magic of Thinking Big

David Joseph Schwartz, best known for writing The Magic of Thinking Big in 1959, was an American motivational writer and coach. Schwartz will help you to handle difficult situations better, gain more cash, and find greater happiness and peace of mind.
In 13 separate chapters, Schwartz shows us The Magic of Thinking Big:

Chapter 1: Believe you can succeed and you will

The magnitude of your output is limited by the scale of your thought. It’s going to be harder for you if you don’t feel that you can do anything. You’re still going to look for reasons you can’t do it rather than ways you can find ways you can.
In order to have an increased capacity, we want to rebuild our mind so that we can think broader and it is within that expanded capacity, where we can find out how things work and the action steps.

Here’s a question you may want to ask yourself to assess the level of trust in yourself that you have. You think you’re going to have good relationships, alliances and friendships? If you don’t believe that, then you just aren’t. It’s just your system of belief. Every day, we don’t wake up thinking we want bad partnerships and negative prospects and partners for company.

Here are the three principles for the development and strengthening of belief power:

1) Think about success, not think about failure.

At work, substitute success thought for failure thinking in your home. Think, “I’ll win,” not “I’ll probably lose,” when you face a difficult situation. When you compete with someone else, think, “I’m equal to the best,” not “I’m outclassed.” When opportunity appears, think, “I can do it,” never “I can’t.” Let your thinking process be dominated by the master thought, “I will succeed.” Thinking of the mind’s circumstances of success to build strategies that yield success. Failure to consider does just the same. Failure to think causes the mind to think of other thoughts that cause failure.

2) Frequently remind yourself that you are better than you think you are.

Successful individuals are no supermen. Performance does not need an intelligence of supremacy. Nor is there something about performance magical. And success is not luck-based. Successful individuals are only average people who have built trust in themselves and what they do. Never sell yourself short.

3) Dream big.

The magnitude of your success is measured by the magnitude of your confidence.
You first have to believe it’s true if you want to dream of great ideas or ways of doing stuff. If you don’t believe you can achieve success in fitness or business, then you probably won’t care of all the ways you can accomplish it.

Think of small targets and expect little success. Dream about major targets and achieve great results. Also, note this! Big ideas and big plans are always simpler than small ideas and small plans, and definitely not more challenging.

Chapter 2: Cure Yourself of Excusitis, the Failure Disease

The more successful the person is the less excuses they produce! Highly successful individuals make less excuses because they are actively searching for ways to accomplish their objectives. They don’t care about their wellbeing or their lack of time.

Excusitis occurs in a wide range of ways, but health excusitis, intellect excusitis, age excusitis, and luck excusitis are the worst types of this disease.

“But it isn’t good for my health.”

Refuse to talk about the wellbeing of you. The more you talk about an ailment, the worse it appears to get even the common cold. Talking about poor health is like putting on weeds with fertiliser. Besides, it’s a bad thing to talk about your wellbeing. It bores individuals. Self-centered and old-maidish, it makes one look. One may get a little sympathy (and let me stress the word may but by being a persistent complainer one doesn’t get respect and loyalty.

Be sincerely thankful that it is as good as your wellbeing. An old saying is always worth repeating: “I felt sorry for myself because until I met a man who had no feet, I had ragged shoes.” Instead of moaning about not feeling good,” it is much easier to be grateful that you are as safe as you are.

Remind yourself sometimes, “Wearing out is better than rusting out.” Life is yours to enjoy. Don’t squander it. Don’t let yourself live by dreaming about yourself in a hospital bed.

“But to succeed, you have got to have brains.”

Never underestimate your own intellect, and never overestimate other people’s knowledge. Don’t sell short on yourself. Focus on your money. Discover the superior skills you have. Know, it’s not the amount of brains you have that matters. Instead what matters is how you use your brain. Instead of thinking about how much IQ you have, control your brain.

Remind yourself many times a day, “My attitudes are more important than my intelligence.” Positive attitudes at work and practise at home. See the reasons you should do it not the reasons you can’t do it. Build an attitude of ‘I’m winning’. Make imaginative, constructive use of your intellect. Use it to find ways of winning, not to prove that you are going to fail.

Bear in mind that the capacity to think is of much greater importance than the capacity to memorise information. To build and grow ideas, to find new and better ways of doing things, use your mind. Ask yourself, “Am I using my mental ability to make history, or am I only using it to record the history that others have made?”

Look favourably at your current generation. “Practice looking forward to new horizons and gaining the enthusiasm and feeling of youth. Think, “I’m still young,” not I’m already old.

Calculate the amount of effective time you have left. Note, a person who is thirty still has 80% of his productive life ahead of him. And the fifty-year-old still has a big 40 percent, the best 40 percent, of his years of chance left. Currently, life is longer than most individuals believe!

Invest time in doing what you really want to do in the future. Only when you let your mind go negative and think it’s too late is it too late.

Chapter 3: Build Confidence and Destroy Fear

You have to make peace with your fear because you are afraid of things that are going to drive you further in your goals.

Simply take action and do something if you want the fear to go down. Are you afraid of the next exam? More to study! Are you concerned about people talking? Go to public places and boost your skills in communication. Are you anxious that you can’t protect yourself from a mugger? Go to a class for self-defense or start weightlifting. Know that fear cures behaviour. Isolate your anxiety and take positive action afterwards.

Make a supreme effort to bring in your memory bank just good thoughts. Don’t let negative thoughts that are self-deprecatory develop into mental monsters. Refuse to simply remember traumatic incidents or circumstances.

Put a proper perspective on people. Know, individuals are more similar than they are different, far more alike. Offer the other guy a balanced view. He’s such a different human being. And cultivate an attitude of understanding. A lot of people can bark, but the one that bites is a rare one.

It’s right to practise doing what your conscience tells you. This avoids the development of a toxic guilt complex. A very realistic law for success is doing what’s right.

Chapter 4: How to Think Big

We must develop a “big thinker’s vocabulary” to become a big thinker. Use big bright, cheerful words. Use words that promise victory, hope, happiness, pleasure; avoid words that build images of loss, defeat, sorrow that are negative.

Practice adding value to persons, stuff and yourself. In this planet, what we put out is always going to be returned. It’s probably because you’re not adding enough value if you don’t get back what you say.

Think about trivial things. Concentrate your focus on big targets. Ask yourself, before getting involved in a petty matter, “Is it really important?” ”
Via thinking big, grow big!

Chapter 5: How to Think and Dream Creatively

If you truly believe in yourself and believe that things are possible, you’re more inclined to think that things can be done. He tells us that if we believe that we are able to succeed, we will succeed.

When you think it’s possible to do something the mind can find ways to do it. Trust in a solution paves the way for a solution.

Tell yourself every day How can I do better?” “Self-improvement should not have a limit. When you say, “How can I do better?” “Sound responses may emerge. Just try and see.

Ask yourself, ‘How am I going to do more? Capacity is a mental condition. Asking yourself this question puts your mind at work in order to find smart shortcuts. The business performance balance is do what you do better (improve the quality of your production) and do more of what you do (increase the quantity of your output).

Asking and listening practise. Ask and listen, and to make sound choices, you will receive raw material. Remember: listening is monopolised by big people; talking is monopolised by small people.

Stretch the imagination. Only get stimulated. Associate with individuals who can assist you in dreaming about new ideas, new ways of doing stuff. Mix with individuals with various professional and social preferences.

Chapter 6: You Are What You Think You Are

Upgrading your thought enhances your attitudes, and this creates achievement. Here is a simple way to help you make more of yourself by thinking about how important individuals think. As a reference, use the form below.

It makes you think important; it helps you think important. Your presence is speaking for you. Be sure that it raises your spirits and strengthens your confidence. Your presence speaks to other people. “Make sure that it says, “An important person is here: knowledgeable, wealthy, and trustworthy.

It’s important to think about your career. Think this way, and mental signals about how to do your job better will be given to you. Say that your job is important, and your subordinates would probably think that their job is important.

In all circumstances in life, ask yourself, “Is this the way an important person thinks?” “Obey the answer then.

Chapter 7: Manage Your Environment: Go First Class

The people you surround yourself with the clothing you wear, the area you live in the food you consume, your mind is a consequence of your environment. The way you think affects your climate. To change how you think, enhance your climate.

Make your world, not against you, work for you. Don’t let suppressive forces make you think failure, the pessimistic, you-can’t-do-it individuals.

Don’t let you be held back by small-thinking people. Jealous people would like to see you stumbling. Don’t give any pleasure to them.

Manage mentors of yours. Get your advice from influential individuals and don’t take advice from someone you’re not going to swap places with.

Throw the poison of thinking out of the environment. Just stop gossip. Speak regarding individuals, but remain on the optimistic side.

In anything you do, go first-class. You can’t afford any other way to go.

Chapter 8: Make your Attitudes your Allies

Grow the attitude of “I’m activated”. In proportion to the enthusiasm expended, results arrive. To trigger yourself, three things to do are:

1) Dive deeper into it. Look in to read more about it when you find yourself uninterested in something. It sets off excitement.
Everything about you: your smile, your handshake, your chat, even your walk. Acting alive.
Strong News Broadcast. Nobody has ever done something good by saying bad news.

2) Develop the attitude of “You are important”. When you make them feel important, people do more for you. Know these things to do:
At any opportunity, express gratitude. Make it sound important to people.
By name, call people.

3) Grow the mentality of “Service first and watch money take care of itself. In anything you do, make it a rule: give individuals more than they expect to get.

Chapter 9: Think Right Toward People

Your success in every project depends on other people’s encouragement and acceptance; you won’t achieve your goals alone. You have to be likeable to obtain this assistance. Likeability in all aspects of your life, particularly your career, is a factor.

For lifting, make yourself lighter. Be sympathetic. Practice being the kind of person that people want. This gains their confidence and brings fuel into the programme for efficient construction.

In developing friendships, take the initiative. At any chance, introduce yourself to others. Make sure you get the name of the other person right and make sure he also gets your name straight. You want to get to know your new friends better by dropping a personal message.

Consider the distinctions and shortcomings of people. Don’t expect to be fine with someone. Know, there is a right for the other person to be different. And be a reformer, don’t be.

Practice the generosity of dialogue. Be like people who are good. Encourage others to converse. Let the other person speak to you about his thoughts, his beliefs, his achievements.

Dealing with others is simple when it’s all going well. The true test comes when stuff goes wrong. But how you feel when you lose has a strong influence on when you win again.

When you receive a loss, don’t blame anyone. Know, when you lose, the way you think determines how long it will be before you win.

Chapter 10: Get the Action Habit

Activationists are good individuals; they have developed the habit of taking action. Only be an activationist. Be someone who’s doing stuff.

Do not wait for conditions to be fine. They’ll never be. Expect and overcome future challenges and problems as they occur.

Know, thoughts alone are not going to bring results. Only when you act upon them do ideas have meaning.

To cure fear and build faith, use action. Do what you are afraid of and fear vanishes. Try it out and see.

Mechanically, start your mental engine. Don’t wait for you to pass the spirit. Take action, dig in and the spirit is moved.

Think in terms of the moment. Tomorrow, next week, later, and similar phrases are often associated with the term failure, never again. Be a sort of “I’m starting right now” guy.

Get down to enterprise-pronto. Don’t waste time planning to act. Start to act instead.

Seize the initiative. Only be a crusader. Take the ball and drive. Only be a volunteer. Show that you have the desire to do it and your determination.

Chapter 11: How to Turn Defeat into Victory

In one’s attitudes towards defeats, handicaps, disincentives, and other disappointing circumstances, the difference between success and failure is found.
Five guideposts to help you turn victory into defeat are:

1. Study failures to pave the path for achievement. Learn when you lose, then go on to win next time.

2. Have the courage to be a critical critic on your own. Seek out the shortcomings and flaws and then fix them. This transforms you into a professional.

3. Avoid luck blaming. Investigate each setback. Find out what’s gone wrong. Bear in mind, blaming luck never took anyone where he wanted to go.

4. Blend persistence with experimentation. Stay with your objective, but don’t bang your head against a wall of stone. Test new tactics. Hey. Experiment.

5. Know, in each case, there is a positive side. Just find it. See the side of the positive and whip discouragement.

Chapter 12: Use Goals to Help you Grow

The significance of having objectives is emphasised by Schwartz. Objectives allow you to see where you are headed and where you want to be in one,

Get a definite fix on where you want to go. Create an image 10 years from now of yourself.

Write out your plan for ten years. To be left to chance, your life is too important. In your job, your house, and your social departments, set down on paper what you want to achieve.

Only yield to your desires. To get more control, set goals. To get things done, set targets. Set targets and discover the true pleasure of living.

Let your automatic pilot be your main objective. You’ll find yourself making the right choices to achieve your target when you let your goal absorb you.

One step at a time, accomplish your objective. Regard each task you undertake as a step toward your target, regardless of how small it can seem.

Set targets for thirty days. The effort day-by-day pays off.

In stage, take detours. A detour simply denotes a different route. It should never imply surrendering the objective.

Get invested in yourself. Purchase those things that create productivity and mental strength. Invest in schooling. Invest in a beginner’s concept.

Chapter 13: How to Think Like a Leader

A representation of your internal state is your external environment. If you don’t show yourself in a confident manner, then the world won’t see you as a person of worth.

Trade minds with the individuals you want to impact. If you see it from their eyes, it’s easy to get people to do what you want them to do. Before you act, ask yourself this question: “What would I think of this if I were to exchange places with another person?” ”

In your relations with others, apply the Be-Human” rule. Ask, ‘What is the human way of dealing with this? “Show that you put other people first in everything you do. Only offer the kind of care you want to get to other individuals. You get paid.

Dream about change, believe in progress, promote progress. Dream of improving everything you do. Think of high norms in everything you do. Subordinates appear to become mirror copies of their supervisor over a period of time. Make sure it is worth duplicating the master copy. Make this a personal solution: “I am for it at home, at work, in community life, if it’s advanced.”

Take time to confer with yourself and tap into your ultimate force of thought. Solitude Handled pays off. To unleash your creative force, use it. Use it to find solutions to issues that are personal and company. So take some time on your own every day just to remember. Use the method of reasoning used by all great leaders: confer with yourself.

How to Use the book in Most Crucial Situations

Schwartz gives several recommendations about how to remain on track and how to stop being pressured to think small. Think high, even though they try to push you back, little ones.

Magic resides in thinking high. But forgetting it is so easy. There is a risk that your thoughts will shrink in size when you reach any rough spots. And you lose when it does.

Below are some quick guides when you’re tempted to use the tiny approach to remain tall. Perhaps, for an even more convenient reference, you’ll want to place these guides on small cards.

THINK BIG when little people want to drive you down,

There are some people, to be sure, who want you to fail, to suffer tragedy, to be reprimanded. But you can’t be hurt by these people if you recall three things:

When you fail to fight petty people, you win. Little people fighting reduces you to their scale. Just stay big.

Expect to be struck by a snip. It’s evidence that you’re rising.
Remind yourself that mentally ill snipers are. Just be big. Please feel sorry for them.

Think large enough to be exempt from petty person attacks.

When the sensation of “I-Haven’t-Got-What-It-Takes” creeps up on you, THINK BIG BIG

Remember: you are if you think you’re poor. You are if you think you’re insufficient. You are if you think you’re second-class.
Whip your normal inclination with these resources to sell yourself short:

Look important, look important! It makes you believe it’s necessary. How you look on the outside has a lot to do with how on the inside you feel.
Focus on your money. Create and use a sell-yourself-to-yourself ad. Learn to self-supercharge. Recognize the good self.
Placed other individuals in the right view. The other person is just another human being, so why are you afraid of him?

To see how strong you really are, think Big Enough!

THINK BIG when an argument or quarrel seems unavoidable.

Resisting the desire to argue and quarrel successfully by:

“Asking yourself, “Is this thing really important enough to argue about, honestly now? ”
You never get something from an argument, to remind yourself, but you do lose anything.

To see that quarrels, disputes, feuds, and fusses will never help you get where you want to go, think Big Enough.

THINK BIG when you feel defeated.

Without challenges and defeats, it is not possible to achieve big success. But the rest of your life can be lived without defeat. Big thinkers respond this way to setbacks:

As a lesson, accept the setback. Only benefit from it. Study that. To drive you forward, use it. Rescue something from each setback.
Persistence of Mix of experimentation. Back off with a new strategy and resume afresh.

Think Big Enough to see that loss is nothing more than a state of mind.

THINK BIG when Romance Begins to Slip

Negative, petty, “She’s (He’s) unfair to me so I’m going to get even” kind of romance thought slaughters, kills the love that can be yours. Do this when things in the love department aren’t going right:

Focus on the best qualities of the person you want to love. In the second position, bring little things where they belong.
Do something special for your partner, and frequently do it.

To discover the key to marital joys, think Big Enough.

THINK BIG BIG When you feel like your progress on the job is slowing down,

Higher rank, higher pay, no matter what you do and regardless of your profession, comes from one thing: increasing the quality and quantity of your production. Do this:-Do this:

Say, “I can do better.” Not unattainable is the best. There is space for something to be done better. Nothing is being done as well in this universe as it should be. And when you say, “I can do better,” there will appear ways to do better. Thinking about “I can do better” turns your creative power on.
Think Big Enough to see that money takes care of itself if you put service first.

What did The Magic of Thinking Big teach you? What was a favourite takeaway for you? Is there a big insight I’ve missed? Below comment

Summary 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

A brief synopsis

An productive individual has learned to make the paradigm change from outside-in to inside-out to sum up the seven habits at a high level. From dependency to freedom to interdependence, they have grown along the growth spectrum. An successful individual has discovered the output balance while still increasing their ability to produce.

The first three habits are self-mastery habits or personal victories. Such practises must come first after which come the second three practises of government victories. The last habit is one that is vital to the first six’s proper functioning and regeneration.

Stephen Covey, the well-known author of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, was a leading authority, family expert, trainer, organisational strategist, and author who was widely regarded. He is also acknowledged as one of the 25 most prominent Americans in Time Magazine.

“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.” – Stephen Covey

Habit 1: Be Proactive

“That individual can not say, “I choose otherwise,” until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the decisions I made yesterday.

Covey is redefining some words that we are used to using. You have to neglect, for instance, the dictionary definition of constructive. Plus, how you were taught to attribute this word to your employees cannot be forgotten.

The best way to interpret a paradigm is to first understand the paradigms of human behaviour that are commonly accepted.

1) Ingenetic determinism (you are who you are because of your genes)

2) Mental determinism (your childhood and upbringing shaped your personality)

3) Determinism in the climate (the things around you make you who you are)

The prevalent opinion is that we’re animals at our heart. Therefore a given stimulus forces us to give a particular response. Although this is certainly valid, Covey quotes Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and Holocaust victim: “Man has the freedom to choose between stimulus and response.” (See Frankl’s book Man’s Quest for Meaning for his storey.) Thus we are affected by stimuli, however we have free will.

The author defines proactivity as exercising your right to choose self-awareness, imagination, conscience, or independent will and the paradigm shift that comes with it. Between stimulus and response, this option normally occurs. This view suggests that when you want to let something make you that way, your unhappiness and lack of success are due. Therefore, our answer, which is constructive, must be chosen. The principle of proactivity by Covey does not reduce the influence of biology, upbringing, and environments. We must however, accept our obligation to form our responses to these variables.

Proactivity is not a posture of hope. Proactivity, instead, means comprehending the reality of a situation.

We all have a “circle of concern,” reflecting all the things we care for, Covey explains. In our circle of interest, we can only affect a small portion of items. Many people waste their time and energy thinking about things they can’t influence, or moaning about them. The more you concentrate on things beyond your power i.e., the less things you can control outside your “circle of influence.” It’ll shrink your circle of power. In addition, you will find that your circle of influence will expand by concentrating only on those items under your power.

Stop talking about “have” (if I only had a better job and start saying “be in order to shift the attention to your circle of influence (I can be more efficient).

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Twice, everything is made. As a mental development, you first create something. Then it becomes a tangible creation as a result. Suppose you do not want to monitor your mental inventions consciously. In that case, by implication, your life is being developed. Your life is in essence, influenced by random factors and the desires and agendas of other people.

Starting with the end in mind means, with your beliefs and directions evident, approaching every role you have in life. We will know when we behave in a role that is not in line with our beliefs or is not a product of our constructive nature, since we are self-aware.

The root of your protection (your sense of worth), guidance (your source of direction in life), wisdom (your outlook on life), and strength will be the things at the centre of your life (your capacity to act and accomplish).

Many individuals do not take the time to match their beliefs with their core. They have several alternative centres as a result. People can be spouse-centered, family-centered, centred on wealth, centred on work, centred on pleasure, or self-centered. You probably know someone who is an example of any one of these topics being based around.

All of these centres have enough positive stuff to concentrate on. Covey, however, explains that depending on either of these centres for stability, direction, wisdom, or power is not safe. Instead, we need to have a “principle” core to be a successful individual. Timeless, unchanging ideals should be the cornerstone of our concept core. All these other centres can be put into context by the theory centre.

The personal power of a self-aware, informed, constructive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, activities, and acts of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental forces that limit other people, is the personal power that comes from principle-centered living.

Writing a personal mission statement is the best way to make sure your life is consistent with your values (and the best way to monitor when you go off-center). From the viewpoint of responsibilities and priorities, Covey recommends approaching your personal mission statement. Who would you like to be, and what would you like to achieve?

For families or organisations, this tenet is the same. The first step in the process of being productive is an authentic mission statement. Importantly, to achieve the correct perspective and to set yourself up for the next habit, you need to put in time and effort.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

The second development, the physical realisation of Habits 1 and 2, is Habit 3. Habits 1 and 2 are better described as “leadership.” You can then start contemplating management after developing these two habits. The heart of habit 3 is management.

Strong leadership means putting first things first and doing what others don’t want to do. You must have a burning “yes” inside of you from Habits 1 and 2. This “yes” should allow you to say “no” to other items that do not agree with your values and objectives.

Four levels of time management are defined by Covey:

1) Checklists and Notes (reducing your cognitive burden in the present)

2) Schedules and books for appointments (looking ahead to arrange your future time better)

3) Regular training using objective-setting and prioritisation. Many people never go beyond this point,

4) Categorization of activities and deliberate emphasis and exclusion of such activities

This fourth level is where we are asked by the author to work. He borrowed Dwight Eisenhower’s instrument for this categorization.

In quadrant II, an efficient time manager invests as much time as possible. Before they become urgent, they do things that are important. They emphasise, for instance, relationship building, long-term planning, and preventive maintenance. The more time you spend on this quadrant, the less time you’re going to have to spend on Quadrant I. In quadrants III and IV, assign or otherwise leave something out.

Most individuals, in fact, spend most of their time in quadrants I and III. They always concentrate on urgent items that may or might not be important. Rarely does this approach help you to be successful. By striving to be more disciplined, most of us strive to get out of this vicious circle. The author suggests, however that the problem probably isn’t that you lack discipline. More likely, it is simply that you have not rooted your goals in your beliefs.

Covey recommends a sequence of four measures to become a Quadrant II self-manager:

1) Functions are identified. Write down a list of positions you wish to perform with time and resources. This could be your place as a person (for which you would devote time for self-improvement). Alternatively, your role as a member of the family could be (spouse, son, mother, etc.). Ultimately, it could be your job at work (roles that relate to your job title)

2) Choosing preferences. For each task that you want to achieve over the next week, write down one or two objectives. Since you have already been through the Habits 1 and 2 phase, these goals should be related to your broader objective and long-term goals.

3) Planning. Take this a step past where most people use scheduling to get things. Therefore, a week at a time, sit down and map out your schedule. Scheduling allows you to match your objectives with the best time to achieve them. For instance, for most individuals, peak productivity is about 2 and 5 hours after waking. One application of this idea may be to schedule 2-5 hours after waking on Saturday to do the most important quadrant II operations that your work would not allow you to do during the week.

4) Adapt regular. At the beginning of each day, take a few minutes to study the schedule you put together and revisit the principles that prompted you to set your objectives for the day. Things do change in real life. Therefore, allowing your schedule to be flexible and adaptable while focusing on your beliefs and goals is important.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win

Some unrealistically positive and welcoming attitude is not outlined by Covey. Instead the author describes win/win thought as a mentality that often finds a third alternative to the option of me or you.” Most individuals live in one of the four alternative paradigms that follow:

1) Win/losing (authoritarian or egotistical)

2) Lose/winning (being a pushover)

3) Lose/lose (when two people communicate with each other)

4) Win the Win (focused solely on the results you get for yourself)

We must establish the three character traits central to the win/win paradigm to avoid these unproductive mindsets:

1) Honesty (Integrity) (the value we place on ourselves)

2) Maturity Maturity (the balance between courage and consideration)

3) Abundance Abundance (which comes from a sense of personal worth and security)

As an emotional bank account, try thinking about your relationships. Through making deposits proactively, you ensure that when the time comes to make a withdrawal, the emotional funds will be there.

Win/win is always difficult, but the existence of a hefty emotional bank account makes it much simpler.

Covey offers the following characteristics in order to better explain what a win/win decision is and how it is structured:

1) Strong recognition of desired outcomes

2) Specified parameters within which those results can be achieved

3) Tools to be used to achieve the findings

4) Transparency by clear performance criteria and times for assessment

5) Implications of the evaluation results

The secret to this chapter is that the system, not the people, is the issue in the most difficult circumstances. Many challenging problems can be overcome by approaching certain issues with the issue of how we can improve the framework and make it work for those concerned.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”– Stephen Covey

If you want to interact with people effectively and influence them, you must understand them first. It may be common sense, but it contrasts directly with the modus operandi of most people, which should be primarily concerned with being understood.

Again, Covey breaks it down into a step-by-step structure that makes it easier to understand your actions. Here are his four listening levels:

1) Ignore

2) Pretending to be listening

3) Listening attentively

4) Listening empathically

The first three are self-explanatory, but you may not have previously used the word “empathic listening.” By “listening” to their body language, sound, speech, and emotions, empathic listening means knowing the frame of reference of someone else. This is a massive deposit in an emotional bank account.

We prefer to listen from our frame of reference (even though we listen carefully) in addition to empathic listening and have these “autobiographical responses”:

1) Assess (agree or disagree)

2) The sample (ask questions from our frame of reference)

3) Tips (give counsel based on our own experience)

4) Interpreting (explaining the behaviour of people based on our motivations)

Instead of pushing our natural autobiographical responses to each scenario, we should listen empathically. If we do this we can get beyond a transactional, surface-level exchange and have a real impact. Once those needs are met, the needs stop inspiring people. Met the need to be heard, and you can move on to being good. Afterwards the other half of this habit is known.

The Greek ideas of ethos, pathos, and logos are alluded to by Covey. You should concentrate on your character and then your relationships first. Both, however, rely on the reasoning, which, after the first two philosophies, should be followed. In any trade, most individuals want to skip straight to logos. However before understanding how your logic suits the general image of your viewpoint, someone must first understand you emotionally. Via this structure, approach your communication, and you’ll be shocked at how effectively you get your point across.

This habit is powerful because initially knowing, then being understood, is still in the circle of influence. The door for third alternatives, win/win options, is opened when individuals understand each other.

Habit 6: Synergize

Covey does not apply to the type of “synergy” that happens by lowering administration costs when two businesses combine and become stronger together. In addition, he does not apply to joint attempts to do more than you might do alone.

If you have encountered it, Covey explains synergy as something that might be difficult to comprehend. When a group of people enters a simultaneous and cooperative state of flow, one way to explain it is. This is described by Covey as the “peak experience” of group interaction.

You may have sports experience where the squad has just gelled. When this happens, the plays of your team begin to click as though you were travelling as one body. Alternatively, as a musical group, you may have experience in performing. Just imagine the moments when every note was perfect, and the hooks were strong. Finally, you can remember an emergency in which strangers came together with extraordinary coordination to act.

These examples are what the author means-a mutual peak experience-by synergy. As a culmination of the first five habits, this experience can be created. The key here is that this kind of teamwork doesn’t need to be an uncommon experience. In our daily lives, we can build them. Begin to live at a higher level by putting into practise the first five behaviours and incorporating honesty and transparency. You can become more successful than most people can think of becoming in order to work at this level consistently.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Mind, both of these are built to be habits. A habit is something which is repeatedly done. Subsequently, before practise, you must take the time to refresh yourself.

Covey advises that you take the time to do something to refresh what he categorises as human nature’s four dimensions:

  1. Intellectual (reading, visualizing, planning, writing)
  2. The Physical (exercise, nutrition, stress management)
  3. Psychological (service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security)
  4. Spiritual(value clarification, commitment, study, and meditation)

You harm the rest when you neglect any one place. So, stick to these activities for at least one hour every day.

For the benefit of the other six behaviours, an overall balance of these dimensions is important. This practise, if done correctly, can lead to a virtuous cycle of continual personal development.

Conclusion:

In order to be effective, the crux of the book is that you must come from a position of authenticity. With each successive habit, you can start with your values and construct. Unfortunately, imitating without producing authenticity is human nature.

You will have grasped the greater meaning and the nuances of his points once you’ve read the book, but it’s still useful to refresh your memory in this way:

  1. Only be proactive. Adopt a responsibility mindset for your actions, responses, and outcomes.
  2. Start in mind with the end. Make sure that your efforts begin with the setting up of your values.
  3. Place the first stuff first. Spend your time on things important, not things that are urgent.
  4. Only think Win-Win. With the view of trying to fix the system, not the person, approach any interaction to find the best solution for everyone concerned.
  1. First to discover, then to be learned. It is important to consider people’s needs, create trust, and communicate your emotions; last, communicate your reasoning.
  2. Synergizing. For an exponentially higher degree of successful and co-operative everyday contact, combine the first five behaviours.
  3. Make the saw sharp. Take the time to preserve your mind, body, feelings, and spirit and to refresh them.

Comment below, if you have questions about this review or would like to share what you have learned.

Book Summary of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Brief synopsis

The psychological influence of positive thinking is explored by Think and Grow Rich. For our progress, Napoleon Hill delves into the value of our thinking patterns. Napoleon explains how these constructive thinking strategies were paired with a mixture of persistence, education, and supportive colleagues by the most successful people in the past. When we strive to achieve our life goals, we will all fail, but those who are able to keep trying will succeed.

Think and Grow Rich

During the Great Depression in the US, Think and Grow Rich was published. It was highly successful, however. Think and Grow Rich has sold over 100 million copies to date. This makes it one of the top ten best-selling books of all time on self-help. Even now, Think and Grow Rich has been ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the best-selling paperback business books.

Regarding Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill was a self-help author from America. The value of following particular values to attain personal and financial success was the subject of each of his books. Napoleon toured the US and the world, giving seminars on personal achievement, as well as writing self-help books.

Achievements include detailed preparation and realistic goals

“Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.” – Napoleon Hill

Knowing what you want to accomplish is the only way to become successful. We can not start our journey towards success without specific objectives. Napoleon Hill therefore advises that by describing their personal goals in as precise terms as possible, individuals begin their journey towards success. If you want to become successful, you can define exactly how much money you want to make at a certain age. In order to achieve this aim, monetary and time-specific targets would allow you to have a clear understanding of how much you will have to spend.

You’ll then want to outline a strategy after defining a target and giving it a timeline. A step-by-step guide to achieving the ultimate target should be integrated into this strategy. Then you need to act once you have this strategy. Start immediately and do not waste a minute.

These tips will help keep you motivated and concentrated on the next objective that you need to work on in order to reach your overall objective.

Desire is the starting point of all progress.

Napoleon states that as long as you hang on to your wishes, you will achieve what you want. This does not mean, however, that you should only desire the result. Simply wishing for money, for instance, will get you nowhere. Instead, by being obsessed about creating effective strategies and achievable targets that will help you with your desired result, you need to want to become wealthy.

Napoleon offers an overview that will help you navigate your path to being rich in a systematic way:

Decide how much money you want to make exactly. This ought to be quite true (even to the final dollar)
Determine what you are prepared to give to gain this sum of cash
Choose a date by which you plan to get all of this cash
Build a comprehensive plan of how this objective can be accomplished and decide what you should do right now.
In a simple declaration, write all of the above in
Finally, be sure to read this sentence aloud twice a day, twice a day.

Efficient individuals trust their skills

“There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief.” – Napoleon Hill

A great quality to have is unwavering confidence. Individuals who have an unwavering confidence, according to Napoleon, are usually those who will do whatever it takes to achieve their objectives. This is because, without self-confidence, you can not achieve success.

Napoleon provides Mahatma Gandhi’s example of promoting the strength of faith and self-confidence. The traditional instruments of influence were not accessible to Gandhi: money and the military. He had an unwavering conviction, instead, that he could lead his country, India, to freedom from the colonial rule of Britain. This conviction allowed him to establish a major influence over his fellow countrymen and then to spark a shift.

Unlike Gandhi, we are no different. We can do something if we can harness an unwavering confidence in ourselves and our capacity to attain our objectives.

In addition to terror, you cannot have confidence.

Napoleon notes that it is difficult for faith to coexist with terror. Therefore, once all fears have been mastered, we can have unwavering confidence in order to become wealthy. Fear divides Napoleon into six subtypes:

The fear of poverty, embodied by indifference, indecision, uncertainty, anxiety, extreme caution, and hesitation.

Self-consciousness, lack of poise, a complex of inferiority, extravagance, lack of effort, and lack of ambition reflect the fear of criticism.

Hypochondria, inadequate exercise, susceptibility, self-coddling, and intemperance embody the fear of ill health.

The fear of someone’s loss of love, embodied by envy, the discovery of flaws, and gambling.

The fear of old age, embodied by slowing down and building a complex of inferiority around the age of 40, apologetically referring to oneself as being old,” and killing off the habits of initiative, creativity and self-reliance.

The fear of death, embodied by dying rather than living, lack of intent, and lack of adequate employment

Under one of these bullet points, all worries collapse. All fearful feelings will never result in major economic fainting acts. We can quickly, however, redirect our minds away from scary thoughts. Therefore by controlling your mind, you can control your destiny and thereby, overcome fear and acquire all your desired riches.

Fear was described by Napoleon as being a state of mind. We should chose not to be controlled by these fears, as we have power over our state of mind.

Our subconscious can influence our actions

Unwavering conviction is not something from which we are all born. Over time, however we will learn to cultivate this faith. As the most efficient way to improve one’s self-confidence, Napoleon defines auto-suggestion. To affect your own actions, auto-suggestion requires thinking specific and purposeful thoughts.

Auto-suggestion deals for constructive aspirations and emotions by fuelling the subconscious. These optimistic messages will improve your self-belief as your subconscious impacts on your reality. Subsequently, you can start accepting that you can accomplish your objectives. Auto-suggestion is the inverse to self-suggestion. It was described by Napoleon as the bridge between the conscious and the subconscious mind. Therefore, you will need to bind feelings to these terms as well as read crucial objectives out loud. You should foster the ability to consume you while reciting affirmations. Only when feelings are connected to thoughts can the subconscious mind instigate intervention.

As much as you can, Napoleon suggests using auto-suggestion. The more often you use auto-suggestion, the more likely you are to achieve success.

Napoleon also suggests the following steps toward becoming wealthy, in addition to the chapter on desire:

Find a quiet spot where it won’t bother you. Repeat the written statement generated from the chapter of desire aloud. Then make sure you imagine getting that money as well,

Repeat this action until you have a good picture of all the money you want to make both morning and night.

Keep these desires visualised until they are committed to your memory.

Knowledge Is Power

“An educated man is not, necessarily, one who has an abundance of general or specialized knowledge. An educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he may acquire anything he wants, or its equivalent, without violating the rights of others.” – Napoleon Hill

Napoleon sees experience as one of the most valuable qualities to achieve your life goals. He does not mean information in the conventional context, however. He urges you to throw out your preconceived notions about how important education is. Being competent is not bound up with the degree you have. Henry Ford is a great example of a person who was loaded with useful knowledge but lacked conventional education.

It doesn’t take too many facts to be effective. Instead the development of the right experience and expertise is more important. It will enable you to significantly grow by integrating experience, expertise, and your personal strengths. We should always be willing to learn more while knowledge is more important. It is quick to believe that we know enough already. Still, those who are truly good are the individuals who as they mature, continue to develop their knowledge and experiences. By seeking new things or going to class, taking special classes, you can easily do this.

In addition, you should always strive to surround yourself with individuals who are both professional and have had a wide variety of experiences. In our professional and friendship groups, we don’t want to be the most eligible person. We want to surround ourselves, instead with individuals who can help us develop new skills and ideas.

Imagination will transform your dreams into reality

Each and every tale of success starts with an idea. Ideas spring from the imagination of people. Our imagination is therefore, like the imaginative factory of our minds. To turn dreams into concepts, we can use our imagination. These thoughts, then can be transformed into reality. It is where all plans are formulated and built within your imagination. The only restriction you face depends on how much of your imagination you create. There are two forms of creativity, according to Hill: synthetic and imaginative.

Creative imagination

What helps us to come up with fresh ideas is this kind of creativity. This form of creativity starts from nothing and creates something unique. Only when your conscious mind is activated by desire can this form of imagination be achieved. It’s a muscle that needs exercise.

Synthetic Imagination-In order to generate new concepts, this form of imagination incorporates old ideas. The developers at Sony, for instance, used the technology from the dictaphones of journalists to create the first portable music player: the Walkman. In this type of imagination, nothing is generated because it fits with the current mental content.

Complementing each other are these two kinds of creativity. For all fortunes, ideas are the starting point, and they are the result of the imagination. Napoleon gives Asa Candler’s example. Asa was the inventor of Coca-Cola, which about 140 years ago was gradually developed from a headache drug. Candler took the recipe from a pharmacist and turned the product into a big success through marketing. Indeed a genuinely wise salesperson would realise that where tangible merchandise can not, concepts can be exchanged. Almost all significant fortunes begin when a person with a great idea encounters a person selling ideas. Ideas are irresistible forces when combined with desire. They are mightier than the minds that have produced them. Therefore you have to listen, nurture, and grow a willingness to see them through.

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses

Knowing your strengths and vulnerabilities is all about self-awareness. We can question them and avoid them from influencing our objectives if we are aware of our weaknesses. Vague objectives, lacking motivation, procrastinating, and lacking determination are some of the most common weaknesses. Once we know which weaknesses we have by our strengths, we can strengthen our abilities or account for these weaknesses.

To fully understand what your strengths and weaknesses are a detailed and frank self-analysis is required. You should set up a checklist of questions to do this. The questions suggested by Napoleon are:

Have I met my target for this year?
Was I polite, courteous and cooperative at all times?
Did I make every decision quickly and firmly?

You can then equate your subjective self-analysis with somebody’s objective assessment of you after answering these questions. Therefore, sit down with someone who understands you well and ask them to respectfully explore your strengths and weaknesses.

Strengthen your good thoughts

By supplying us with power and endurance, our subconscious will influence us positively. It can also, however, negatively shape us by making us cynical. Therefore to recognise our goals and priorities, we must train our subconscious. With positive and constructive feedback, we can do this by feeding our subconscious. Hence, regardless of our present circumstances, we should still adopt an optimistic attitude. By surrounding ourselves with hopeful and encouraging people, we will strengthen this.

Competent People Are Resilient

It is also due to a lack of ambition, if you consider those that struggle. Comparatively, those who are successful are also highly resilient people. Individuals who can make split-second decisions are multimillionaires. Nevertheless, they are also able to endorse these decisions until they are successful. With a pinch of salt, they are not afraid of losing money and taking losses.

Good people, despite the challenges that arise, stick to their original plans. They give their dreams, ultimately, space to blossom into reality. Napoleon does not however, advocate avoiding accurate corrections that have to be made. For instance, you can make this change if an easy price correction is going to have a huge effect. You can make the right adjustments at the right time as long as you have your ultimate objective in mind.

Napoleon provides basic rules that you should abide by to build habits of persistence and stamina in your life:

Produce a particular target that you are profoundly excited about.

Build a highly comprehensive strategy that will help you achieve smaller targets that can help you achieve your particular target.

Do not let your emotions or actions have an effect on negative perceptions.

Establish a strong friendship with a person or community who will help you through a tough time and share your success with you.

For persistence, strength of will is integral. Once you can balance ambition and willpower, then you are likely to accomplish your objectives. How effectively you can persist depends entirely on how much motivation you have to achieve your objective. Napoleon also states that it could be important for your Mastermind community to help you to persevere during tough times.

In order to foster persistence, Napoleon Hill also given an eight-stage approach:

As your ultimate goal, you need to know exactly what you want. This is called a clearness of intent by Napoleon.

Having a sincere passion for your target means that you are fascinated with a monetary fortune being amassed.

You have to trust that your strategy will be pursued and each of your objectives can be accomplished. This is called the self-reliance by Napoleon.

Your plans should be coordinated and detailed, so that when things get tough, they are unambiguous. This is what Napoleon calls the concept of plans.

It is always important to base your plans and the related objectives on facts. This is called Napoleon’s precise information.

When things get difficult, you and those around you, like your mastermind, should inspire you to continue. Working with these people to achieve your objectives is defined by Napoleon Hill as cooperation.

On seeing your plans through to completion, you should always focus your attention. This is what Napoleon calls your willpower.

Persistence is dependent on a good habit being formed. Your everyday acts will become a custom and then become who you are. Thus by making bravery a habit, you can overcome fear quickly.

As a guiding power, The Mastermind

Money accumulation needs you to have control. It is not possible to bring the plans into motion without authority.

Napoleon Hill outlines three ways that power can be accumulated:

Infinite Smartness
Experience acquired
Experiment and research

Your party of masterminds is made up of members who know that you do not. Reasonable information can not be gained alone. By organising it into definite plans, this information can be translated into force. Napoleon explains that through cooperative alliances, every great fortune in history has been created, as a set of minds produces results greater than the sum of the parts.

The Sex Transmutation Mystery

Transmutation refers to the transformation of one energy product into another. Napoleon claims that our most primal and intense drive is sex. It is the most strong force. Sex is such a strong wish that people always place their livelihoods and prestige on the line to participate in it. When you channel this energy into other pursuits, however, sex can be incredibly useful. This will require great willpower, but it will have a positive effect.

Napoleon Hill isn’t suggesting that our sexual drives should be repressed. Instead, when it’s needed, he supports giving this sexual energy an alternative outlet. Using this energy, for instance, to complement your creative abilities.

With Smart People, Surround Yourself

You will need smart people who can help you in order to become effective on a large scale. This partnership was identified by Napoleon as a brain trust. A brain trust is a union of intelligent people with similar minds. The brain trust should have a shared purpose, be prepared to improve their abilities, and have a system of controls to hold each other accountable.

You will need to develop a synergistic effect for brain trust to function. This impact happens when the talents of two individuals interact to achieve a common purpose. The outcomes are higher than the sum of the portions of the brain trust.

At least twice a week, Napoleon suggests meeting these citizens. Plus, with each member in the party, you must preserve harmony. Equally persistent must be the people within your party, and they must be pleased to be led by you.