Your Thoughts and My Thoughts

Yes, I know it's September 1st. 

But this is my conclusion of Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich".  And it's interesting that the last few steps talked about in the last few chapters all have to do with the workings of the mind. 

Really the last three steps are the use of the subconcious mind, the workings of the brain itself, and the use of your sixth sense.  And all of these steps have to do with your thought process and how it affects whether you life is a positive and prosperous one, or a negative and lacking one.  I could go on all day about the use of gut instincts, or how the brain works in more mysterious ways than we can even tell right now, or how I got a better grade on my fantasy football draft than my husband did, but instead I'll leave it up to a quote from the 19th century poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  And it goes like this.

"You never can tell what a thought will do
         In bringing you hate or love-
 For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
         Are swifter than carrier doves.
 They follow the law of the universe-
         Each thing creates its kind.
 And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
         Whatever went out from your mind."

I think that says everything about this book in a nutshell.  It really is all about your thought process in gaining whatever you desire.  You want positive and abundant things in your life?  You'd better believe you can attain them.  You feel like nothing goes right in your life?  Well maybe that's why they don't.  And always be persistant.  Never give in, no matter what the naysayers say.  And just because you failed once doesn't mean that you will keep failing.  The only true failure is when you don't try at all.

So what are my thoughts on this book?

It's ALOT better than what I thought it would be.  To be honest I thought I was going to have to push myself through it, reading about how to set up a portfolio and how to read stock options.  But it stated nothing about it.  In fact alot of what Napoleon Hill talks about as the basic steps for sucess I was really surprised about.  And found the sucess stories actually refreshing and quite informative.  My only complaint would be that he's often very repetative about his points.  I feel like some chapters could have been somewhat shorter because he kept saying the same thing.  But I have to say I got alot more out of this book than I thought I would have.   And it's not that I'm stopping what I learned from this book right now. I'm still making lists from my first Activity and have created another one where I'm using another one of Napoleon Hill's lists to grade my fear factor in a way and figure out what areas of fear I need to work on.

I've been pleasently surprised by this book.

Would I recommend it?

Absofreakinlutly!  In fact I'm going to give it to my husband right now! I have to say that if I keep this rhythm up I'm going to have a very hard time picking my favorite for this year.

Now on to the next book!

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey