Posted On June 25th, 2024

There’s only one thing that a man can control, his thoughts.

In early March, I visited my father in New Mexico for spring break. During the couple days I was there, I ventured to Santa Fe and stumbled upon a local bookstore. The bookstore was housed in a building with a heavily worn but inviting blue exterior. On the front porch, there were numerous books priced at one dollar. When flipping through this rack, I found a couple significant names, authors, and titles that caught my eye. Many of the books were intriguing, but one stood out instantly: Think and Grow Rich. I had previously heard about this book online via TikTok mindset influencers, “gym bros”, “red-pill” podcasters, amongst others. As someone who practices manifestation, positive thinking, and mindset intentionality, I was drawn to the title, but the opportunity to read the book had never made itself more clear than it had on that warm Santa Fe day. From that day forward, Think and Grow Rich has been attached to my person on a daily basis. Three months later, sitting at a Detroit riverwalk, I finished reading the book. Here are my thoughts.

Think and Grow Rich is one of the greatest books I’ve ever had the chance to read. Before beginning this journey, I was already familiar with the concepts of positive thinking and manifestation, to which I have applied it towards my own creative and professional ventures in my early career. However, I have gained far more wisdom from this book than I initially expected. Based on years of field research and study, Napoleon Hill breaks down the methods by which humans can hinder their own permanent success. These habits include lack of desire, lack of a definite plan, and poor associations. Societal conditioning is the most noteworthy influence on people failing to chase their ambitions. In modern American society, we are funneled through the educational system to become mindless workers who support the capitalistic system. Creativity, leadership, and free thought are detested because it goes against the status quo of what society wants us to be. Thus, as early as possible, society will deem the concept of chasing one’s dreams as unrealistic or naive. When children reach kindergarten age, teachers and families motivate them to aspire for the most incredible ambitions. Here, you would hear children dreaming of becoming astronauts, firefighters, wrestlers, musicians, actors, etc. By the time these children reach 12th grade, they express very few ambitions, instead opting for what are often seen as 'realistic goals', such as engineering, medicine, political science, etc. In these thirteen years of schooling, these young people are conditioned by outside influence to change their own personal goals in a drastic way. A theory as to why other people would seek to destroy the dreamer’s spirit is the fact that these same people were once dreamers who failed to succeed. Thus, this failure has disenchanted their creative spirit, and led them into a trap of “realistic goals”. What their understanding lacks, however, is the nature of their failure. There is no such thing as luck in this world; every example that may appear as luck is simply the result of careful planning, persistent effort, and a positive mental attitude. By the time one is prepared to showcase their work to the masses, their feat looks “effortless”, thus creating the guise of luck. I express this to signify that people often fail because of a lack of three things: a burning desire, a definite plan, and positive associations.

A burning desire is the intense inner drive one has towards fulfilling their goals. This desire never leaves your mind, and it controls aspects of other parts of your life as well. It is the starting point for all achievements. Through societal conditioning, most people’s dreams live and die within this burning desire. In my 3 years of artistic practice, I have interacted with many individuals who have expressed burning desire for some of the most amazing projects I had heard of. When it came time for the hard work to arrive, it never came. The desire would then slowly lose its essence and decay in the mind of its creator. Burning desire without action is a waste of a dream. Laziness and making excuses are common habits of someone whose dreams have decayed. As long as you create an opportunity for yourself to cut corners on your own aspirations, they will never materialize. Every person’s desire is different. Some people desire financial wealth, some desire global influence, some desire inner happiness. No matter your end goal, you must first have a burning passion to run to it at full speed.

Plans are a necessary component of fulfilling your dreams. Coupled with a burning desire, you have set yourself further than most individuals who aspire for wealth. The ladder of success is never crowded at the top. You must write down your goals and place them somewhere where you frequent often in your daily whereabouts. You also must verbally express your goals on a daily basis. These rituals are designed to influence your subconscious mind to nurture these goals. The subconscious mind is a powerful tool that can either assist or severely hinder a person. The subconscious will gear your life towards the direction in which you feed it. For instance, if you practice negative thinking patterns often, these patterns will find their way into your subconscious, eventually causing the brain to find the negative aspects of any situation you find yourself in. Examples of negative thinking would be fear, jealousy, hatred, greed, superstition, anger, and revenge. These emotions must be avoided at all costs if you aspire to find success and wealth. Instead, plan to express only positive emotions, such as desire, faith, love, sex, enthusiasm, romance, and hope. Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time. Faith and fear cannot coexist in one’s mind. When you create a plan, you must believe in its execution wholeheartedly. A prayer expressed with skepticism is a worthless prayer. Have faith in your plans. Have faith in the world, make an effort to create a nirvana in your mind, no matter where or what you find yourself involved in. This habit is what spiritually, financially, and mentally wealthy use to acquire and maintain their status.

Your associations are perhaps one of the most important decisions you will make in your life. The individuals you surround yourself with define who you are. Aligning yourself with like-minded, goal-driven people who will set you on a path towards success. Create a “mastermind” group of like-minded people who can provide guidance, wisdom, accountability, and friendship to one another in their individual ventures. The unique environment from which we come may make this more difficult, as those who have experienced poverty, violence, abuse, or other adverse circumstances may fall victim to negative associations. However, it is up to you to create a better path for your life. No one you will meet in your life will truly understand you better than yourself. No one will understand your dreams as well as you do. Nobody is coming to save you, you must be your own superhero. Your associations are also described by the individuals you admire. Find the nine individuals in history that you admire most and start researching their habits. Make sure these people have created and sustained success in their respective careers. When you build your own practice, mentally consult these nine influences as if they were your coworker or friend. How would your idol run your business? How would your idol respond to your setbacks? When professional long-distance runners aspire to improve their distance time, they often run with individuals faster than them. These people will influence you to improve your performance, mindset, and training. Let your confidants and role models motivate you. Surround yourself with people who inspire you to be a better you.

Think and Grow Rich has shifted my mindset in numerous ways through practical and mental application. I have begun reciting a manifestation prayer in the mornings, where I blatantly state how much money I will soon acquire, where I will be living, what I will be doing in my career, and all my other achievements. I have also written these things out and taped it to my bathroom mirror, so I am forced to look at it every day before I get ready for work. This practice has improved my relationship with my goals tenfold. There is something spiritually gratifying about speaking your goals into the universe every day. I am training my subconscious mind daily to produce positive emotions more than negative. I still face challenges with fear of poverty and fear of criticism, though with this practice, I am in a better mental state than I was at any other point of my early adulthood life. Learning to control my mind has been exciting; I now acknowledge that my mind is the single most barrier between where I am right now and where I want to be. In order to become the best version of me, I must conquer my mind. It’s admirable how Napoleon Hill simplified these metaphysical concepts into digestible lessons, and it was oftentimes very astonishing how these words from 1937 translate seamlessly into the socio-economic context of 2024. The secret to wealth, whether it’s material, financial, spiritual, or mental, is to conquer one’s mind. Once you conquer your mind, this reality will shape itself in whichever way you desire. You are the protagonist of your own story, you hold the pen and pad that dictate the story of your life. Never be modest with your dreams. As long as there is air circulating in your lungs, you are perfectly able to chase your wildest fantasies. Age, economic status, health, and environment should not be made as alibis for your failure to achieve. Always place your best effort in everything you do, your future self will thank you. I will conclude this essay with a quote from Hill, who revealed the “secret” to attaining wealth, years after the book was published.

“Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve. That is the Supreme Secret.... This is the secret known in bygone times; this is the secret which governs present-day accomplishment; this is the secret which will follow man to the stars. This is the secret of the ages.”

— Napoleon Hill