For 20 years, Napoleon Hill conducted numerous interviews with people who amassed huge fortunes. It turned out that all very rich people have common habits. The most amazing thing is that they have nothing to do with money.

Only 13 rules separate you from the state. Napoleon Hill talked about them 80 years ago in his book Think and Grow Rich. This book has outlived the author and sold all over the world. Hill's recommendations are more relevant now than ever.

Step 1. Desire: you must want to get rich

All super-rich people started out with dreams, hopes, plans, aspirations to make a fortune. They imagined large sums before they saw them in their bank accounts. In itself, such a desire to get rich, of course, will not make a person rich. But, becoming an obsession, it helps to find ways to achieve your goal and move towards it with perseverance that does not know defeat.

What Hill writes about echoes, for example, the advice of contemporary financial planner Carl Richards, author of How to Stop Doing Stupid Things with Your Money. He recommends formulating the goal of savings as clearly as possible for yourself - it will be easier to understand what and how much you can save on.

Step 2: Faith: Convince Yourself You Will Achieve Your Goal

The path to wealth depends on the right mindset - you have to believe that you can get rich. Hill concludes: “Wealth begins with a thought. And its size is limited by the person in whose mind this thought lives. Faith erases the limits!”

Today, business coach and dollar millionaire Steve Sebold says: “Being rich is not a privilege. Being rich is right. And if you create something valuable for others, you have the right to have a fortune of whatever size you want.

Step 3 Self-Suggestion: Program Yourself

For wealth and success to become a reality, you need to sow the desire for them in your subconscious, repeating certain phrases. Briefly state what and how you want to achieve, and try to say it out loud. But the success of self-hypnosis will depend on your ability to focus all your attention on your desire - as long as it does not become an obsession for you, Hill warns.

Example: if you want to become a dollar millionaire by old age by saving a certain amount every week, then repeat to yourself literally the following every day and as often as possible: “I will save money this week so that I have $ 1 million for retirement.”

Step 4. Professionalism: always learn

Hill emphasizes: “Successful people constantly improve their skills in accordance with their interests, business or profession. The one whose education ends with the end of school, as a rule, does not achieve success in life. It is no coincidence that most successful people value reading so highly. For example, it is known that billionaire Warren Buffett devotes up to 80% of his working time to him.

But education then leads to wealth when you receive knowledge in a systematic way, and they themselves are applicable in life. “Step into a rich person’s house and one of the first things you see will be a vast library of books that help successful people become even more successful,” writes Steve Siebold.

Step 5: Imagination: Visualize Your Ideas

Do not be afraid to come up with something fundamentally new and try to imagine the results of the successful implementation of all your ideas. What you can imagine, you can create, says Hill. “Ideas are the starting points for great fortunes… Whoever you are, wherever you live and whatever you do, just remember every time you see the Coca-Cola sign that this gigantic empire of wealth and influence grew out of a single ideas,” advises the author of the book.

Step 6: Planning: Be Consistent

When you can mentally imagine your success, get down to business. Be persistent and purposeful, act step by step. “Most of us start things easily, but few follow through. People tend to give up at the first sign of defeat,” Hill says. But purposefulness cannot be replaced by anything.

For example, if you decide to set aside a certain amount each month for the future, make no exceptions. Make a financial plan and use it to consistently distribute your savings between different investment instruments.

Step 7. Decision Making: Don't Delay

Decisiveness is a character trait that Hill found in all his successful interlocutors. And the losers miss it. “People who fail to get rich, if they can make independent decisions, do it very slowly, but change them very quickly and often,” the author of the book shares his observations. But decisiveness is not only a characteristic of the rich, it is one of the key qualities of any leader. It's better to make a bad decision in the end than to decide nothing.

Step 8: Persevere: Be Persistent

This is a key success factor, although few people have the willpower to translate their desire to get rich into real money. Hill writes: “Wealth does not arise simply in response to desire. It is the result of specific plans, specific aspirations, and requires perseverance.”

Remember that successful people also do not succeed, but, unlike losers, they find the strength to overcome difficulties and move on. “I realized that it doesn’t matter how many times you make a mistake. You should succeed only once, ”billionaire Mark Cuban aptly stated in an interview.

Step 9: Think Tank: Surround yourself with the best

Wealthy people create an environment of talented friends and colleagues who share their views. Combining the intellectual and creative abilities of a few congenial people exponentially increases their power. It's like connecting several batteries together - together they will give more energy than one, writes Hill. By the way, it is precisely the desire to create "think tanks" around oneself that can explain why rich people tend to be friends with their own kind. “Meeting people who are more successful than you helps your mind grow and your income grow faster,” says Steve Siebold. We become like those with whom we associate.

Step 10. Love and sex: be with those who are close to you

Sexual energy not only paints our lives with emotions: if you can harness it and direct it in the right direction, it will increase your creativity, dedication and perseverance - all that play an important role on the path to wealth. “Sexual desire is the strongest of all human desires…

Love, romantic relationships and sex can lead people to unprecedented success. And the one who will experience all three of these emotions at once can become a real genius, ”Napoleon Hill is sure. Modern research confirms this: people who are satisfied with their relationships with their partners earn more and grow faster in positions.

Step 11 Subconscious Mind: Don't Focus on the Negative

If you really want to become rich, you must begin to subconsciously strive for this. The subconscious mind will never stop working, and if you do not find a place in it for your dreams, other thoughts will fill it. “Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time - some of them always dominate. Your duty is to make sure that the former prevail,” Hill instructs. One recent study backs up his view: Positive people are more likely to succeed in their careers and less likely to lose their jobs.

Step 12. Mind: communicate with developed people

Our mind is a transmitter and receiver that receives thoughts from those around us. That's also why it's so important to deal with people who are creative, smart, and positive. The "receiver" of the brain, according to Hill, is our imagination: we imagine what other people say or show us.

It is on this principle that the “think tank” works, to which the author of the book devoted the ninth step in his formula for success. Only in this case, he goes further, advising you to use the talents of people from your environment every time you need to find a solution to a complex problem. Hill calls it "mixing several minds into one."

Step 13: Sixth Sense: Trust Your Intuition

“With the help of your sixth sense, you will be able to anticipate impending dangers in order to avoid them, and notice opportunities in time to take advantage of them,” the book says. The problem is that real intuition is the result of years of experience, and rarely can be boasted by people under 40, Hill admits. But this does not mean that if you are younger, then the path to wealth and success is closed to you: the previous twelve steps are enough to achieve impressive results. Well, when (and if) if the “sixth sense” is added to them, you will become so wise that you can make the right financial and life decisions even intuitively.

“Stop figuring out what successful people have in common, look better at what unites all unsuccessful people,” actor and writer Stephen Fry said in an interview. Indeed, there is something that allows us to assert: this person will not become a winner in life. We'll tell you what we're talking about.

The life scenario of each person is formed in three main directions: winner, average (non-winner) and loser. In the scripting language proposed by the famous psychologist and psychiatrist Eric Berne, the loser is the Frog, and the winner is the Prince or Princess. How to understand which scenario: a winner or a loser, a person follows?

Parents generally wish their children a happy fate, but they wish them happiness in the scenario that is chosen for them. They are most often against changing the role chosen for their child. The mother raising the Frog wants her daughter to be a happy Frog, but resists any attempt by her to become a Princess ("Why did you think you could..?"). The father raising the Prince, of course, wishes his son happiness, but he prefers to see him rather unhappy than a Frog.

Eric Berne believes that losers can be easily identified by their way of speaking. The winner is usually expressed like this: "I won't miss another time" or "Now I know how to do it." The loser will say: “If only...”, “I would, of course...”, “Yes, but...”. The average people say things like: "Yes, I did it, but at least I didn't..." or "Anyway, thanks for that too."

Parental prohibitions that prevent you from becoming a winner

We have combined in a table all the main prohibitions of parents that prevent children from becoming winners in life.

Conventional name of the prohibition and typical phrases in which it is expressed

Reasons for the ban

Symptoms that indicate that a person has such an inhibition

Don't grow up!

“Don't do what your older friends do!”, “Be a good obedient boy”, “Don't think about it seriously. It's too early for you!"

Parents are afraid that the child will grow up, leave them and this will deprive them of the meaning of life. Therefore, they bring him up in such a way that he remains infantile, dependent for a longer time.

A person avoids independence, constantly looking for a senior patron who will take responsibility.

Don't achieve it!

"You're doing everything wrong!", "You can't do it!"

Parents envy the success of the child and try to make sure that there are as few of them as possible. And those that are, are trying to belittle.

A person works diligently to achieve success. But at the last moment, something “unforeseen” happens, nullifying all efforts. For example, he may panic and not come to an important meeting for which he was preparing, forget to turn in the report on time.

Don't stick out!

“Don’t mess with me”, “Don’t be an upstart, behave modestly!”, “Don’t ask for anything!”

Parents are not interested in the needs of the child. They are positive and calm, as long as he sits still and does not bother them. He is called to a quiet, calm behavior.

A person is terribly afraid at least occasionally to be a leader, to take the initiative. He "swallows his tongue" when asked to speak at a meeting. At work, he feels good only in the role of a subordinate.

Do not think!

"Do what you're told! I also found a literate!”, “Stop being smart!”

Parents are not in the mood to constantly think and make any effort to solve life's problems. Their own "too smart" child stung and irritates them, they ridicule him when he tries to talk about something.

A person tends to be lost in the face of problems or lament that they have arisen. But not looking for a solution.

To get rid of these prohibitions, a person does not need threats or orders (there are enough orders in his head), but a permission that would free him from the instructions imposed by his parents.

Negative and unfair orders and prohibitions should be replaced by permissions that have nothing to do with permissiveness education. The most important permissions are permissions to love, to change, to successfully cope with your tasks, to think for yourself. A person who has such permission is immediately visible, as well as one who is bound by all sorts of prohibitions (“He was, of course, allowed to think”, “She was allowed to be beautiful”, “They are allowed to rejoice”).

Eric Berne is sure that permissions do not lead the child to trouble if they are not accompanied by coercion. A true permit is a simple “you can,” like a fishing license. No one forces a boy to fish. Wants - catches, wants - no.

Eric Berne especially emphasizes that being beautiful (as well as being successful) is not a matter of anatomy, but of parental permission. Anatomy, of course, affects the prettiness of the face, but only in response to the smile of a father or mother can a daughter’s face blossom with real beauty. If parents saw their son as a stupid, weak and clumsy child, and their daughter as an ugly and stupid girl, then they will be so.

You can read the summary of the book "Games People Play" by Eric Berne in the Big Thought Library in just 15 minutes now!

Seventh letter. WHAT UNITES PEOPLE

Floors of care. Caring strengthens relationships between people. Strengthens the family, strengthens friendship, strengthens fellow villagers, residents of one city, one country.

Follow a person's life.

A man is born, and the first concern for him is his mother; Gradually (after a few days) the father’s care for him comes into direct contact with the child (before the birth of the child, there was already care for him, but to a certain extent it was “abstract” - the parents prepared for the appearance of the child, dreamed about him).

The feeling of caring for another appears very early, especially in girls. The girl does not speak yet, but is already trying to take care of the doll, nursing her. Boys, very young, like to pick mushrooms, fish. Berries and mushrooms are also loved by girls. And after all, they collect not only for themselves, but for the whole family. They bring it home, prepare it for the winter.

Gradually, children become objects of ever higher care and they themselves begin to show real and wide care - not only about the family, but also about the school where parental care has placed them, about their village, city and country ...

Care is expanding and becoming more altruistic. Children pay for taking care of themselves by taking care of their old parents, when they can no longer repay the care of their children. And this concern for the elderly, and then for the memory of deceased parents, as it were, merges with concern for the historical memory of the family and the motherland as a whole.

If care is directed only at oneself, then an egoist grows up.

Caring unites people, strengthens the memory of the past and is directed entirely towards the future. This is not a feeling itself - it is a concrete manifestation of a feeling of love, friendship, patriotism. The person must be caring. An uncaring or carefree person is most likely a person who is unkind and does not love anyone.

Morality is characterized by a feeling of compassion in the highest degree. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with humanity and the world (not only with people, nations, but also with animals, plants, nature, etc.). The feeling of compassion (or something close to it) makes us fight for cultural monuments, for their preservation, for nature, individual landscapes, for respect for memory. In compassion there is a consciousness of one's unity with other people, with a nation, people, country, universe. That is why the forgotten concept of compassion requires its full revival and development.

Surprisingly correct thought: "A small step for man, a big step for humanity."

Thousands of examples can be cited: it costs nothing to be kind to one person, but it is incredibly difficult for humanity to become kind. You can't fix humanity, but it's easy to fix yourself. Feeding a child, escorting an old man across the street, giving up his seat on a tram, doing a good job, being polite and courteous, etc., etc. - all this is easy for a person, but incredibly difficult for everyone at once. That's why you need to start with yourself.

D.S. Likhachev. Letters about the good and the beautiful / Comp. and general ed. G. A. Dubrovskoy. – Ed. 3rd. – M.: Det. lit., 1989. - 238 p.: fotoil. ISBN 5-08-002068-7 (Fragments from the book)

  1. PRO CAREERISM
  2. Letter twenty-second LOVE TO READ!
  3. Letter twenty-three ON PERSONAL LIBRARIES
  4. Letter twenty-four WE SHALL BE HAPPY (answer to a letter from a schoolboy)
  5. Letter twenty-ninth TRAVEL!
  6. Letter 32 UNDERSTAND ART
  7. Letter 33 ON THE HUMAN IN ART
  8. Letter thirty-four ON RUSSIAN NATURE
  9. Letter thirty-fifth ON RUSSIAN LANDSCAPE PAINTING
  10. Letter thirty-six NATURE OF OTHER COUNTRIES
  11. NIGHT IN PASANAURI
  12. Letter thirty-seven
  13. Letter Thirty-Eight GARDENS AND PARKS
  14. Letter 39 NATURE OF RUSSIA AND PUSHKIN

In order to find out the secret of success, people spend a lot of time, and experts who analyze the achievements of other people are trying to find something in common in the actions of wealthy individuals. First of all, the presence of a huge interest in certain activities, which they developed throughout their lives.

So, Michael Jackson from childhood showed interest in the stage, Walt Disney drew the first cartoons while sitting in class at school, etc. Of course, without the competent use of their hobbies, they would never have succeeded, so the second thing that unites rich people is the desire to receive funds from their work.

Each person has their own interests, someone loves computer games, someone rereads literature with enthusiasm, and someone is interested in learning foreign languages. Regardless of which field of activity is most interesting to a person, the potential for transforming one's own hobbies in a successful business exists.

Wealthy Success

To replicate the success of wealthy people, you must initially set a goal. The main point is that your goal should not be related to receiving money, because. it is money that can cause you to start taking steps in the wrong direction.

Try to pursue other goals from the very beginning of the development of your interest, because money will not make you happy, and the development of your interests will help you achieve the most important “wealth” in life.

The state of mind is one of the most important moments in the life of every person. Think for yourself, who will be, truly counting, a person who constantly works and refuses to rest, or one who likes his work?

Over time, each of these people will have the prospect of achieving financial independence with minimal labor costs, but one of them will consider linking his life with his business, and the other will believe that he can finally get some rest.

Do right choice in life, it is very important. You can achieve a huge fortune in absolutely any area, and even if you reach a stable and large salary, but do not become a millionaire, keep in mind that you did not give up your happiness and moved with enthusiasm in life, and did not suffer, as many do other.

In one lecture, it was said that a certain department of the United States government was engaged in public money, public money, research, i.e. a whole team of scientists was engaged in the study of the issue of success. It was a government program: to figure out how success is achieved. Of course, a country that considers itself No. 1 and in which every American is also the best, he is the best, No. 1, he can, we will win and so on, i.e. this mood, this question was very relevant. They began to study it at the political, one might say, at the state level, and for this they attracted a lot of employees: scientists, sociologists, psychologists who studied the fate and biographies of successful people who have achieved success in various fields.
They took everyone, that's just like a shaft, everyone: successful actors, successful athletes, successful financiers, successful people there in the political sphere. And imagine what experience these scientists made after ... probably more than one year of research. A lot of money has been spent on this. What do you think was the most important conclusion? Fates were different, stories were different, success was in different areas. But, in the end, the study was a success. It turns out that all successful people have one thing in common. Quality or one common episode in their biography, in addition to the fact that they all achieved success. One common episode, after conducting statistics on hundreds of biographies or maybe even thousands of biographies, they found such a serious approach in each .... They are all different, they could not understand what unites them, perhaps even they used astrology, I don’t I know, but now everything is in motion, we looked at how each of them had a fate in terms of growth and in terms of career, success in society. The physical parameters, education, upbringing of these people looked - and nothing gave a clue. There were completely uneducated successful people. There were successful athletes who were completely sick from childhood. There were people who started by selling things there in kiosks and on the streets and who later became billionaires. There were people from wealthy families who became even richer. Of the educated, even more educated.
And it was the other way around, that is, in principle, they were confused, these researchers, until they understood one thing that united all successful destinies without exception. One episode from their fate. Who knows what episode? Namely, in the people it is called "muzzle against the wall." Those. when the fate of a person put such a dead end, after which it was not only possible to achieve success - after which it was hardly possible to live. Those. an athlete who just lay down completely and the doctors said there is no chance here, this is for the rest of his life, i.e. paralyzed with a broken spine. The financier who lost money once, and when he recovered a year later, through his manipulations or some other things, or because of changes in the world, suffered another failure. Those. as if a man barely got up, and fate dealt him another blow. Married couples, even those who are practically... the family has gone through a huge crisis, that is, the husband lost his job, he got a mistress and so on.

It turns out that what unites all successful people is that a big rise and a big, huge, unspeakable success was preceded by a critical drop, just a complete collapse of health, finances, relationships. What is the logic here? What's next to make of this? Nothing further was explained. Nothing was explained in this lecture. It was said something like that there is no need to be afraid of this.

This is the 90s, then no matter how science was so far away. It turns out that everything is very simple - if a person has the opportunity, after failures, to survive all the difficult negative emotions that are associated with this failure, he receives an even greater resource, greater inspiration, greater strength to achieve success. Therefore, in any sphere of life, we need either a voluntary ability, a regulated process (I would even say, voluntary-compulsory for oneself) of experiencing negative emotions, or fate will have to deal with this. This will have to deal with external conditions. In fact, even fate does not. In fact, people who have a very strong potential for success, for some kind of achievement, they themselves find such conditions, their psyche pushes them into such conditions, such circumstances in which they must experience a very strong collapse. A very strong crisis. And this later contributes to their growth. It's an underhand process, really. The same thing happens in the family. We are looking for a scandal if we do not have a source where we can calmly experience negative emotions. We are literally looking for it. The woman is looking for him, without knowing it herself. Even the most ideal man who gives massages and bakes pancakes on Sundays... I had such an example: a woman left a man who, as they say, carried her in her arms for 4 years.

R.A. Narushevich "Emotions are the colors of life"