Truthful Living

by Napoleon Hill

  James J. Hill selected the subject of railroad building about which to think, and, through application of the same principles, he became the world’s greatest railroad builder, even though he didn’t start this thinking process until after he was 38 years old.

  Orville and Wilbur Wright selected the subject of airplanes about which to think, and they mastered the air and became wealthy in money.

  Alexander Graham Bell selected the telephone about which to think, and now we may speak with clearness from New York to San Francisco.

  Marconi went a step further and selected the subject of wireless telegraphy about which to think, and now we can communicate with ships in mid-ocean or from coast to coast across the ocean without the use of wires.

  The beginning of all these successes was thought – scientific, accurate thought! Furthermore, the process through which these men thought scientifically and accurately was exactly the same in every instance. The same material went into that thought in every case, and the principles underlying it were exactly the same as those which we shall describe for your benefit in this lesson.

  “The power to concentrate presupposes the ability to finish all that you start – to stick to everything you undertake with a grim persistence that knows no defeat!”

  – Napoleon Hill

  The difference between the work done and the results obtained by the men just mentioned, and the work now being done by you and me is chiefly a difference of the subjects selected about which to think and the manner in which the thinking is done. The chances are that you and I can succeed to just as great an extent as did any of these men if we have selected the right subject about which to think and if we think as accurately as these men did.

  Those two “ifs” tell the entire story!

  It is not the purpose of this lesson to tell you or even suggest what subject you ought to select about which to think, but it is our purpose to show you “How to Think Scientifically and Accurately” on all subjects, whether they be of minor or major importance in relation to your vocation or life’s work.

  CONCENTRATION

  After you have decided upon a subject to which you wish to direct your thought accurately, the next principle of which you must make use is that of Concentration. We will not here go into a thorough scientific explanation of Concentration as that subject is thoroughly explained in subsequent lessons, at the proper time. Our purpose now is to speak of it very briefly as being one of the chief essentials which must be employed in accurate thinking. Concentration is the great highway, so to speak, over which you must transport the other principles which go into accurate thinking. It is the rifle barrel that continues the force of all the other principles into one channel and directs them straight to the bull’s eye of the object of your thought.

  You can never become an accurate thinker until you have learned to concentrate the forces of your mind and direct them upon one subject until that subject has been mastered.

  The power to concentrate presupposes the ability to finish all that you start – to stick to everything you undertake with a grim persistence that knows no defeat!

  “Thought without persistent, concentrated bodily action would be useless.”

  – Napoleon Hill

  Concentration means the ability to direct your mind upon a task until it is completed, and you can concentrate upon sharpening a pencil just as well as you can upon becoming a great railroad builder or oil refiner. The principle in each instance is precisely the same.

  I must here caution you, however, that unless you form the habit of persistent concentration on the little routine things you do, you will not likely learn how to concentrate upon the bigger things. The extent to which you practice the habit of concentrating upon your routine duties for one day will probably give you an accurate estimate of your ability to concentrate upon the bigger things.

  Writing is one of the greatest aids in acquiring the habit of concentration as well as in learning how to organize and classify facts. Thought that is followed with writing is just that much nearer transformation from the mental to the physical state. The architect first thinks, then transfers his “thought” to a blueprint, and from the blueprint the contractor and builder buys the materials and constructs the physical object of the architect’s thoughts, which we call a “house.”

  Writing out our thoughts not only aids concentration, but this bodily, physical action helps us make the first step toward the crystallization of thought into reality. Thought without persistent, concentrated bodily action would be useless.

  In classifying your facts, the most important thing is to distinguish between “relevant” and “irrelevant” facts, retaining the former and discarding the latter.

  Your subconscious mind builds a mental picture out of the material that you permit to reach it.

  Your subconscious mind might be likened to a wax plate. It receives and records all that you permit to reach it through your five senses. It accepts information just as readily as it accepts facts. Bear this in mind in connection with the following underscored paragraph.

  Thought which you permit to reach your mind, whether in the nature of facts or mere information, has a tendency to reproduce itself in bodily action.

  “Your mind functions with the thought of material that you supply it. It makes no effort to discriminate. What goes into your mind through your five senses and is there recorded is sure to come out again through the physical, muscular action of your body.”

  – Napoleon Hill

  If you want your mind to function accurately and effectively, then bring about this result by seeing that nothing but facts reach it.

  WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT!

  (An after-the-lesson visit with Mr. Hill)

  My friend, you have commenced this course and you are going to complete it, primarily because you want to become a master and thereby earn all the money you need for your worldly requirements, but by far the eternal, the biggest, most stupendous fact you will get from this course is a clear understanding of this principle that I have just stated!

  When you get this clearly fixed in your mind, that everything physical or mechanical created by mankind must first be created in thought, you will be mighty near the real source, the real cause of all the power you need with which to accomplish anything you desire.

  I am so sure that I am guiding you in the right direction that I would write this principle out for you in letters a foot high, on a sheet of pure gold, so it might be more impressive, if I were financially able to do so. I am doing the next best thing by bringing it up for explanation throughout this course, and in that way presenting it to you from every possible angle so you may understand how to make sure of it.

  If you want to see some of the results and the wreckage of our inadequate public school system, take a look inside of any prison and you will see them. There is no such thing as “born criminal.” People become criminals through ignorance and lack of understanding of the principle I have stated.

  Let a child learn when it enters kindergarten and the grade schools that it will become an exact duplicate in bodily action of the thoughts it holds in its mind, and then teach it how to select and hold in that mind the right story of thought material, between the ages of four and twenty, and you may tear down your reform schools and prisons as far as the child is concerned.

  It is an everlasting disgrace to humanity that we have left it to sects and denominational institutions such as the Christian Science Church, the New Thought Organizations, and a few others of similar nature to corner the market of knowledge and teach the scientific principles of the mind that are available alike to all of us – the principles which, by the eternal, ought to be taught to all of us before we grow up in ignorance and develop the traits of dishonesty, lack of self-confidence, cynicism, hatred, revenge, skepticism, fear, and the other curses which stand between us and a full and happy life! It is an everlasting indictment against our public school system that the work being done by George Washingt
on Institute is not done in the public schools, where humanity may get ahold on it sooner in life.

  This great principle of the human mind which was planted there for our use and enjoyment by the Divine Hand at our birth ought to be shorn of the “occultism” and “mystery” with which it is too often shrouded. It ought to be as well understood as are the principles of arithmetic and grammar, for without it a knowledge of these may serve only the purpose of making a person a more adept criminal.

  Give the boys and girls an even break when they leave school by sending them away with a reasonable knowledge concerning the most powerful influence that they have, their own minds, and you will soon see the wealth of the world distribute itself so evenly that it will not be possible for some of us to starve to death amid plenty while others revel in over abundance.

  This principle isn’t Socialism – it’s deeper and more fundamental than Socialism because if the principle I have stated were taught in the public schools and understood by all, it would make Socialism unnecessary and impossible! Instead of dividing up the wealth of the world, distribute the intelligence through which wealth is created (notice I said created, not acquired) and it will stay distributed! Dividing the wealth of the world would do no good without this knowledge because it would soon be right back into the hands of the few who now have it – the few who now understand this principle.

  You have grown to maturity and, I sincerely trust, have acquired the qualities of reliability and self-confidence. If you haven’t, you will by the time you complete this course. The principles we are teaching will help you yet to succeed and get whatever you want or need in this world, but think of the time you have lost if you haven’t understood and been making use of them in the years gone by. Now, by the eternal, through your help, your children will come into a full understanding of these, the greatest of Nature’s laws, before they are sent out into the world to learn them by chance. Think of the great advantage that you can give your children in this way.

  Cordially your friend,

  Napoleon Hill

  80 East Randolph St.

  Chicago, U.S.A.

  GITOMER’S THOUGHTFUL ACTIONS

  HOW TO IMPLEMENT THIS LESSON

  Hill starts Think and Grow Rich with the timeless statement, “Thoughts are things” – this is insight to the importance that thinking plays in your life, and mine. Hill explains that time, focus, and concentration are the bellwethers of your thought process. The question is: How much “think time” are you allowing yourself? For most it’s not enough. Here’s what to do. . . Schedule ten morning minutes each day of thought time, and document your journey. At the end of a year you will have devoted more than 60 full hours to personal thought time. I’ll bet there’s a usable idea or two in there someplace.

  “You may be wealthy for all I know, that isn’t SUCCESS! You may have a splendid education for all I know, but that isn’t success either! You may have wealthy parents, but neither is that SUCCESS, for you must remember that wealth, as measured in dollars and cents, is an evasive thing which sometimes takes wings and flies away. The only real, permanent, and worthwhile SUCCESS is represented by the character you are building.”

  – Napoleon Hill

  Lesson Number

  4

  IMAGINATION

  GITOMER INSIGHT: Ever get a great idea? Ever daydream? Of course you have. This lesson provides insightful information about HOW and WHY ideas and creativity happen. The insight contained here will give you incentive and inspiration to begin generating both self-improvement ideas AND money generating ideas. Imagine that. . .

  In this lesson, you are taking up one of the most important subjects covered in the fundamentals of living and success – Imagination.

  Imagination is held by your instructors to be the most important subject in connection with your education.

  Imagination – worlds of it – is one of man’s most useful qualifications; the more he has of it, the better. Just as Dr. Hess says, “The man with imagination is he who has visions of a world to come and whose influence repopulates and builds anew the earth.”

  Thoroughly absorb that statement! Study deeply, ponder over, and fully realize what that sentence means! Give just as close attention to the other valuable thoughts presented by Dr. Hess in this lesson; master them! Then you will know the importance of Imagination to your success.

  It is impossible for any student to give this subject too much study. Without a complete knowledge of the principles of Imagination and their application to work, you cannot have the firm grounding in fundamentals that you need for a well-rounded education.

  The big places in all walks of life today go to the men of ideas, the men who are able to think constructively, and from time immemorial the great thinkers have been the well-read men – the men who have profited by the study and experience of those who went before them.

  To be successful, you must be able to plan and think, and it is the aim and ambition of your instructors to teach you this above all else – to plan and to think.

  I want you to become the architect who conceives the structure in heart and brain and then places a picture of it on paper. I do not want you to become the carpenter, the man who executes the plans of the architect. The reason for this is obvious: the architect, the man who plans, probably makes $10,000 a year, whereas the man who executes the plan generally draws around five dollars a day at his limit.

  GITOMER NOTE: Keep in mind this is in dollars from 1917– $10,000 in today’s dollars would be approximately $150,000, and $5.00 a day back then is about $80.00 today.

  You bet it takes energy and imagination to do the exceptional thing, and the man who hesitates because of lack of self-confidence, to put into operation a sales situation or campaign because the plan isn’t new and original, might as well quit before starting.

  GET MORE INFO NOW: According to Hill, “The Advertiser’s Imagination” is vitally important and should be read and studied a dozen times. It’s taken from a book called Productive Advertising written in 1915 by Herbert Hess – find it here: HillsFirstWritings.com.

  That you may more fully appreciate the value of Imagination, read the following editorial, written by Bruce Barton, appearing in Every Week magazine. This is an editorial which no student of life and success can afford to miss. But – do not content yourself with reading this editorial only once; go over it again and again until you have thoroughly assimilated the big thought on the back of it. Here it is:

  “SOME POOR BLIND FOOLS HAVE NEVER SEEN A MIRACLE.”

  (Note: The author is not making a reference to physical blindness.)

  Here is an important distinction that many people overlook:

  God made THE world; but He doesn’t make YOUR world.

  He provides the raw materials, and out of them every man selects what he wants and builds an individual world for himself.

  The fool looks over the wealth of material provided, and selects a few plates of ham and eggs, a few pairs of trousers, a few dollar bills – and is satisfied.

  The wise man builds his world out of wonderful sunsets, and thrilling experiences, and the song of the stars, and romance and miracles.

  Nothing wonderful ever happens in the life of the fool.

  “A primrose by the river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, and it was nothing more”; an electric light is simply an electric light; a telephone is only a telephone – nothing unusual at all.

  But the wise man never ceases to wonder how a tiny speck of seed, apparently dead and buried, can produce a beautiful yellow flower.

  He never lifts the telephone receiver or switches on an electric light without a certain feeling of awe.

  And think what a miracle it is, this harnessing of electricity to the service of man!

  Who, unless his sense of awe has grown blunt through constant familiarity, would believe it?

  The sun, the center of our universe, goes down behind the western horizon. I touch a button and presto! I have called
it back again – the room is flooded again with light.

  The thunder that men once called the voice of God rolls out its mighty waves of sound, and the sound carries only a few score miles. But I – puny speck upon the face of the earth – I lift a little instrument and, behold, my whisper is heard a thousand miles away.

  Prometheus stole fire from the gods and brought it down to earth. And for that crime the gods chained him to a lonely rock and sent a huge bird to tear out his vitals. Each night the wound healed, and each day it was torn open again.

  That was the punishment of the man who dared to wrest away the richest treasure of the gods.

  But fire – the treasure of the gods – has almost disappeared out of our daily life; we scorn it.

  Do we want heat? We press a button and lo, heat invisible, silent, all-pervasive, flows into our homes over a copper wire.

  DO we need power? We have but to press another switch, and giants come to us over the same slender roadway. Clothed in invincible garments, they cleanse our homes, wash our clothes, crank our automobiles – do everything that once taxed the strength of men and hurried women into old age.

  Don’t let your life become a prosaic affair; don’t let familiarity with the marvels about you breed thoughtlessness and contempt.

  Let the fool build his world out of mere food and drink and clothes! You fashion yours out of marvelous experiences; furnish and decorate it with miracles!

  Exercise your mind in the wholesome activity of wonder; train your soul to reverent awe.

  If you had stood with Moses at the shore of the Red Sea, and had seen it divide to let the children of Israel pass over, you would have had no difficulty in recognizing that as a miracle.

  But every night when the sun goes down, a man stands in a power house in your city and throws a switch, and instantly the city and the country for miles around are flooded with sunshine.