Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Napoleon Hill's Law of Success

Welcome back, prosperous friends!

We have been exploring together the question, "How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?"  We have decided that it's not what you do so much as how you do it that matters.  Each of us will ultimately pick a different What, but the How will be the same for all of us.   In his book The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill breaks down the fifteen qualities of a successful person.  Let's count down to number one together.

Quality #15:  The Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  If you are to be successful, you must have a code of ethics which guides your actions.   Karmic law treats everyone equally:  what goes around comes around.  If you consistently treat others honestly, fairly, generously, sincerely, then that is how the world will treat you in turn.

Quality #14:  Tolerance.  Live and let live.  We are all different, and it is our differences that make this world such a beautifully rich tapestry.  Intolerance, ignorance and superstition have been the cause of all wars, conflicts, and strife.  We must learn to question our most deep-seated assumptions about what we believe to be right, and must learn to make room in our minds and hearts for points of view that differ from our own.

Quality #13:  Failure.  Interesting that failure would be a quality of success, isn't it?  According to Hill we learn more from our failures than from any other lesson.  He prefers to call them "Temporary Defeats," because it's only a failure if you quit.  Hill lost his fortune more than once.  Every time, just before the big fall, he felt like he was on top of the world.  They say that "pride goeth before the fall," and Hill found that to be true in his case.  He eventually, after about the sixth time, started learning that every time he got cocky it was a sign that he was taking himself too seriously, and that if he weren't careful everything would soon fall apart.  Don't be afraid of failure, but don't rule it out either.  It's just a thing.  Learn from it and move on.  Hill writes, "You have failed many times?  How fortunate!  You ought to know, by now, some of the things NOT do do." 

Quality #12:  Co-operation.  Hill describes two forms of co-operation that are essential to success:  "First, the Co-operation between people who group themselves together or form alliances for the purpose of attaining a given end, under the principles known as the Law of the Master Mind.  Second, the Co-operation between the conscious and the sub-conscious minds, which forms a reasonable hypothesis of man's ability to contact, communicate with and draw upon infinite intelligence."  We cannot attract that which we desire unless our mind and our heart are of one accord.  We cannot make progress in the physical world if we are at cross-purposes with our team.  The key is focused effort, all working toward the same end.  We cannot be successful in a vacuum, so learning to cooperate with others is an essential quality to cultivate.

Quality #11:  Concentration.  "Concentration is the act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation."  In addition to consistently focusing our mind on our desired goal, we must also form consistent habits that move us toward that goal.  (We will find that focus is a recurring theme in many of these qualities.)

Quality #10:  Accurate Thought.  "Accurate thought involves two fundamentals which all who indulge in it must observe. First, to think accurately you must separate facts from mere information.  There is much "information" available to you that is not based upon facts.  Second, you must separate facts into two classes; namely, the important and the unimportant, or, the relevant and the irrelevant. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:  "Don't believe everything you think."  Learn to cultivate a discerning mind.  It will be well worth the considerable effort.

Quality #9:  Pleasing Personality.  An attractive personality is a personality that attracts.  If we are wanting to learn to attract abundance, being attractive is an important quality to develop.  Quality #15 dealt with our character.  Here, we are focusing on the externals:  body language, clothing, facial expression, handshake.  But even if you are, as Hill so colorfully puts it, "as homely as the circus fat woman," there is one key that will always cause others to see your personality as a pleasing one, and that is by "taking a keen heart-interest in the other fellow's 'game' in life."    When building your business network, don't aggressively sell your wares to your colleagues.  That is a sure way to annoy people, which is definitely not attractive.  Instead, learn to approach each business relationship with the question, What are the biggest challenges you face in your business, and how can I help you to resolve them? 

Quality #8:  Habit of Doing More Than Paid For.  This is easier to do when you are able to do the kind of work that you LOVE.  "A (wo)man is most efficient and will more quickly and easily succeed when engaged in work that he loves, or work that he performs in behalf of some person whom he loves."  We talked about this quality in an earlier post.  If you think you should be earning $100 an hour instead of $10 an hour, then work as if you already being paid the larger amount.  If you truly hate your job and cannot find anything about it to love, then this might be hard for you.  So here's my advice:  Quit.  Even if the new job is still not the job of your dreams, using a different set of skills might be more appealing to you.  Life is too short to do work that you hate.

Quality  #7:  Self-Control.  Discipline.  There really is no way around this one.  Every morning I have to wake up two hours early to write this blog before work.  Some days I really don't want to get out of bed.  It takes a lot of self-control to make ourselves do unpleasant things, or even do pleasant things consistently.

Quality #6:  Enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is "the vital moving force that impels action.  The greatest leaders of men are those who know how to inspire enthusasm in their followers ....  Mix enthusiasm with your work and it will not seem hard or monotonous.  Enthusiasm will so energize your entire body that you can get along with less than half the usual amount of sleep and at the same time it will enable you to perform from two to three times as much work as you usually perform in a given period, without fatigue."  Find a way to do your work with enthusiasm.

Quality #5:  Imagination.  "The imagination is both interpretive and creative in nature."  Let your mind be free to wander.  Dream big dreams.  If you can see it in your mind, you can make it happen in your world.

Quality #4:  Initiative and Leadership.  Do what needs to be done without being asked.  If you have ever had employees, you will agree that initiative is a rare quality.  "One of the peculiarities of Leadership is the fact that it is never found in those who have not acquired the habit of taking the initiative.  Leadership is something that you must invite yourself into; it will never thrust itself upon you."  Even if you are currently doing a job that you dislike, you can begin to practice the habit of taking initiative.

Quality #3:  The Habit of Saving.  No matter how little money you make, even if you are making less money than you need to get by, make it a habit to always save a certain percentage of every dollar that you bring in.  People are not wealthy who have not amassed a sum of capital.  Capital is just a fancy name for a big pile of money.  Start saving yours now. 

Quality #2:  Self-Confidence.  We talked about this quality in great detail a few days ago in an earlier post.  I have a colleague who, when introducing himself at networking functions, describes himself as "quite possibly the best carpet cleaner on the entire planet."  That's self-confidence, and if I were to ever have a carpet, he would be the guy I hire.  Be that guy. 

Quality #1:  A Definite Chief Aim.  I have saved this quality for last, because this is exactly the question we are trying to answer here in Phase 2 of the Prosperity Project.  What work should I be doing that will earn me the kind of money I would like to be making?  In order to be successful, we must FOCUS our energies and activities toward one specific goal.  We cannot work two or more businesses at the same time and be successful at either one of them.  This is a challenge for people like me who must work one job to pay the bills while building my dream business in my spare time.  If you find yourself in that position, it is important to compartmentalize your time.  While at your job, do your work with enthusiasm, take initiative, and always do more than you are paid to do.  When the time clock rings, it's time to leave the job behind and to focus on your true life's work, whatever that may be.  If you do not have the luxury of already working in your dream job, then you will need to be extremely disciplined to carve out sufficient hours during your day to make progress toward your Definite Chief Aim.  It is why I wake up hours before the sun to write before I go to work.  If I am serious about being a writer, then I must do whatever it takes to find the time to write.

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We'll look more at this topic tomorrow; but for now, here is today's cluster of study questions:

Is there some activity that you've always wanted to do, but haven't?  Does your practical side get in the way of living your dream?  Is there something that you wanted to be as a child but which seemed impractical when you got older?  What is it that you are doing in your wildest dreams, when no one is looking? 

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Do What You Love, Do It With Others

Greetings, my prosperous friends.

Every day we're learning a little bit more about how we can go from making the small (or nonexistent) amount of money we are earning now, to making enough money that we can have real wealth.  We decided that wealth is simply the freedom to be, do, and have anything that we can dream of, and that money is only an energetic tool that can help to make that happen.  And yesterday, we explored the idea that successful people exude self-confidence because they are doing something that they are knowledgeable about and that they do well. 

So now, let's look at our answers to yesterday's study question.  When you are in the flow, when time stand stills, when you are doing work that you enjoy, what are you doing?  The answer to that question is one clue to answering the question, "What can I do that will earn me some real money?"  

On Day 27 of the Prosperity Project, we talked about the idea of a Master Mind.  People like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie amassed huge fortunes because they didn't rely only on their own limited personal knowledge.  Instead, they assembled a team of people, each of whom were experts in their particular field.  These people didn't need to know everything about making cars or steel, they only needed to know their own part of it.  If everyone on the team does what they do best, then they will be doing work that engages them and for which they have a passion.  A team assembled around that level of excellence is bound to be successful.  Ford and Carnegie themselves were doing work that they did best:  they were excellent at having a vision, seeing the big picture, and organizing and directing the efforts of their team. 

Now, I want to digress here for a moment to point out that not everyone is destined to be a master of industry.  Not everyone is an entrepreneur, so although it is popular in these times to entertain the idea of starting your own business, that route may not be for you.  Remember, that wealth is being free to be, do, and have, whatever you want.  Owning your own business may require that you spend long hours doing work that you hate, and being tied to a business that you can't leave or it will fail.  That is not freedom. 

My brother, for example, is a master craftsmen.  He can take old furniture and turn it into a priceless work of art.  He can turn fabric into stunning high-end draperies that have been showcased in major national trade magazines.  He loves working in his shop; he is the very best at what he does, and he enjoys his work immensely.  He is limited in the money that he can earn, however, because his earnings are tied to his personal labor.  Granted, he gets top dollar for his work because of the level of excellence that he puts into his pieces, but if he wants to make any real money at it he needs to hire help.   He tried that for a short time, but realized that he was spending his time managing his staff instead of working in his shop.  Instead of being a master craftsman, he had turned into a manager and hated his job! 

The point that I am making here is that our aim is to create the life that will bring us the most pleasure.  We want to have a life that is so enjoyable that when we open our eyes in the morning we bound out of bed ready to greet the new day.  If we hate our job, that is very unlikely.  If we hate our job, it doesn't matter how much money it pays.  If, then, we are to be successful, we want to design a life around activities that we enjoy.  We want to spend our days doing what we love to do best. 

In order to be successful, in order to earn larger wages doing work that we enjoy, we should follow Ford and Carnegie's lead and become a part of a Master Mind team.  That could take many forms:  we could be the entrepreneur who is the visionary who puts that team together; we could form a partnership with others who are starting up a new enterprise, or we could be happy simply being an employee of a company that pays us to play at what we love all day.  We don't have to own a business in order to be considered successful, we simply need to be doing work that makes us happy.  

So how, then, do we get there?  As the Munchkins told Dorothy, "It is always best to start at the beginning."  Start where you are.  If you have a job already, even if it is a job that you don't particularly enjoy and that does not pay you much money, begin working that job as if you are an integral part of a Master Mind team.   Do your part of the job with enthusiasm, with the idea of advancing the cause of the team. It will be wonderful practice for you, and because you will now be focusing on the positive aspects of the job instead of on the parts that you hate, you will begin attracting more opportunities to be an essential part of a successful team.  I guarantee that if you begin working your current job with enthusiasm, you will find that your current job will evolve:  you will find yourself spending more time doing work that you love, and less time doing the stuff you hate. 


If you do not currently have a job, then you have lots of free time on your hands.  Volunteer for something that allows you to use the skills that you identified yesterday as being your favorite thing to do.  Don't worry that you're spending your time working for free; you will be adding value to the world by doing work you love, and the Universe will reward you by sending to you more opportunities to do that work for a fee.  Remember that the Universe wants to support you. 

Today's study question will help you to gain a clearer picture of the kind of work that you are ultimately wanting to attract to yourself:

IF MONEY WERE NO OBJECT, HOW WOULD YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS? 

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It

Greetings, prosperous friends!  Yesterday we gave some thought as to what wealth is, and we found that we are already abundantly wealthy right where we are.  We remembered that if we focus on the wealth that we already have in our lives, even more wealth can be attracted to us.  We learned that the secret is to look upon all that we already have with an attitude of grateful appreciation, seeing it all as very good.

Start Where You Are
In Phase 1 of the Prosperity Project we had dreams of homes and vacations, gifts to friends, charitable foundations ... all things that require big money.  How, then, do we get from where we are now to where we want to be?  The answer has always been to Start Where You Are.   Buddhists have been teaching us that for centuries.  The Tao Te Ching teaches that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Since all we ever really have is the Right Here And Now, we have no choice but to change our lives in this present moment by changing ourselves.  Since in the present moment we have whatever job we have (or don't have), then instead of trying to change WHAT we do we should focus on changing HOW we do things. 

The Certain Way
In The Science of Getting Rich,  Wallace Wattles tells us that in order to earn more money we must do all that we do in what he calls a Certain Way.  In an earlier post, we learned that when we do things in the Certain Way we make it a point, in every transaction, to give people more in use value than they give you in money.  We learned to always give way more than we are paid to give.  We also learned to be larger than our current position, by never leaving undone anything that can reasonably be done by us.  Not to say that we should overwork, but we should always do all of today's work today.  Tomorrow's work will take care of itself.

Do Today's Work Today
Wattles is very clear on why we should never leave work undone, and if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense:  When we set our intention, when we have a Clear Mental Image of what it is that we want to create in our lives and we intend to make that a reality for ourselves, the universe starts setting things up so that our dreams can materialize.  That requires an incredible amount of orchestration, because other people will need to be inspired to do their part, which in turn will cause even more people to do their part, which will eventually cause a synchronistic opportunity to present itself to us, which will be the break we need to materialize our dreams.  If, however, we fail to do that one all-important thing because we're too busy watching General Hospital; if we decide to wait until tomorrow, or the weekend, or next week to get around to it, then it throws off that divine timing.  By doing the thing we were inspired to do that very same day we get the inspiration, we are honoring the Universe's time schedule.  If we fail to do that one thing, then the Universe's beautifully orchestrated miracle of timing is thwarted, and things must be set up all over again.  What could have happened quickly for us, now must take quite a bit more time ... all because we got in our own way by procrastinating!

It's Not What You Do, It's How You Do It
Many of us here on the Prosperity Project have been wondering what THING we can do that will earn us large sums of money.  We are looking at our present jobs realizing that no matter how hard we work, we will never make a lot of money there.  Napoleon Hill tells the story of a man who worked outside his office window selling peanuts on a street corner.  That man worked hard every day; he was always busy.  When he wasn't selling peanuts he was cooking peanuts and doing all the busywork involved with selling food.  But in spite of how hard he worked all day, he still only earned pennies.  Many of us are like that peanut seller:  We are busy all day, working hard with little time for ourselves, to earn just a few pennies a day.  Many of us work hard all week and barely make ends meet.  People who make gobs of money work no harder than we do, they just work a bit differently.

The secret to earning more money is to remember that what we do is not nearly as important as how we do it.  Whatever our work may currently be, we should do it with enthusiasm.   We should do more than is expected of us, and always do all of today's work today.   Yes, in order to make more money we will eventually need to do more lucrative work.  But here and now, today, we don't need to decide what that work should be.  We don't need to make plans to quit our jobs and start some get-rich-quick scheme.  We need not make any heroic efforts at changing our circumstances.  What we do need to change is how we go about doing the things that are already ours to do.  We need to BE the kind of people who deserve to be paid the kind of money we would like to be earning.  Someone once gave me some excellent advice:  If we think we should be earning $100 an hour, then we should do the job currently set before us as if we were being paid $100 an hour to do it.

Here's today's study question:  PRETEND YOU ARE A CONSULTANT BEING PAID HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO WORK IN YOUR COMPANY AND IMPROVE THINGS FROM THE INSIDE.  HOW WOULD YOU WORK DIFFERENTLY IF YOU WERE BEING PAID TEN TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU CURRENTLY EARN?