Napoleon Hill's Success Masters

Napoleon Hill, Staff of Entrepreneur Media, Inc.

• Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781613084106
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlicher Erfolg

Your possibilities for success are endless.

Success is a shapeshifter. Its form changes with the wind, and it cannot be caught or tamed. Often, it feels utterly unattainable. But rather than putting "success" in a box, claiming there's only one path to achieve it, Napoleon Hill has proven in his work that the one thing you really need to succeed is simple: You.

Napoleon Hill's Success Masters is your blueprint to discover the winner inside you and earn the success you desire—with essays from motivational powerhouses including Napoleon Hill alums like Paul Harvey, W. Clement Stone, Henry van Dyke, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, and Earl Nightingale. Dive in and learn how to:

• Master yourself with a positive mindset and a winner's habits
• Create a problem-solving model that works for you in any situation
• Harness the sales pitch that will transform your business
• Turn your day-to-day obstacles into opportunities for growth
• Stay strong through every setback by focusing on moving forward
• Make stronger decisions with curiosity, creativity, and confidence
• Develop an action plan to improve your productivity
• Maximize every hour, even while waiting, driving, or sleeping

Plus, work between the lines, along the margins, and beyond the pages with personal development checklists, exclusive action items, and more from the experts at Entrepreneur.

CHAPTER ONE

Developing the Habits of a Winner

Dr. Denis Waitley

Dr. Denis Waitley entered the Napoleon Hill universe when he was hired by W. Clement Stone, founder of Combined Insurance, to speak to 7,000 salespeople at the company. Dr. Waitley went on to produce recorded lectures that have been listened to by millions, and he became one of the world’s premiere motivational speakers and writers. Some of his most well-known works include the essay “Developing Winner’s Habits” and his bestselling audio, “The Psychology of Winning.”

Waitley graduated from Annapolis and was a pilot with the Blue Angels, the Navy’s precision flying team. He was a psychologist for the Apollo moon program and was a rehabilitating coordinator for America’s returning Vietnam prisoners of war. He is also a member of the International Speakers Hall of Fame and developed the following ten attitudes and actions to help people become total winners:

Positive Self-Awareness

Positive Self-Esteem

Positive Self-Control

Positive Self-Motivation

Positive Self-Expectancy

Positive Self-Image

Positive Self-Direction

Positive Self-Dimension

Positive Self-Discipline

Positive Self-Projection

In this landmark essay, Waitley uses anecdotes from his own life to drive home some of the classic habits of winning that can elevate your level of success, including self-awareness and self-esteem.

SELF-AWARENESS

I teach a program called POW, which everyone thinks means Prisoner of War. But I did it in Cambridge, England, and the little boys applauded when I put it up on the wall. They thought I meant the Prince of Wales. Later, I was in New York and Gloria Steinem saw me put POW up on the board, and she thought it meant Power of Woman! But in reality, the meaning of POW is Psychology of Winning. It always has been.

My father was right. He spent two years with me, age 7 to 9, and then he left home, but it didn’t make any difference because my personality had already been formed. My dad came in and gave me the precious gift that too few parents today give. A new Harvard study shows we spend less than 60 seconds a day alone, one-on-one, with each child when they’re most receptive to input, just before they go to bed. Less than 60 seconds a day alone with each child. Well, I spend time at the dinner table, and I spend time around the television set, and I tuck them in. My dad gave me more: 15 minutes a night, for two years. That was enough. He sat on my bed and told me the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. He said, “You know, I love you.” And he also said, “By the way, you’re born of special stuff, that’s all. Your mother and I played Russian Roulette, and your chamber came up with the best of both of us. I don’t know how you did it.” He said, “Maybe it’s our ancestry.” He said, “I missed my ship. You’ll catch yours.” He said, “By the way, when I turn out the light for you, my son, it goes out all over the world. You see, light is to the eyes of the beholder, to the eyes of the receiver. It doesn’t make any difference what’s going on. It’s how you take it. Keep your eyes open. Keep them shiny. Go for it. Don’t worry about what I did. You don’t have to be like me. You can choose to be different.” Well, he’s the greatest winner I’ve ever known. He gave me the encouragement to understand that it’s my world, too, and that it’s OK to feel good no matter where we came from.

Just when I get to thinking I’m great—and I do about once every two months—I remember I was honored by both houses of Congress as the new speaker on the circuit. I came in from the back of the room late. I was wearing my bank-loan suit (my sincere suit), which I always wear. It has a vest to hold my stomach in (I’m 46 and need all the help I can get.). I walked in from the back of the room, nervous. When I get nervous, I get a good grip on myself and I rock back and forth, toes to heels. When I really got nervous I broke into my Bob Newhart shtick, a nervous laugh, and I went, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” because no one cared that I was there, and I finally got their attention.

As I looked out in the audience, the Senator from Massachusetts recognized me on sight for who I really am. He looked up from his seat, and he said, “Come on down.” Just like Bob Barker on The Price is Right, he said, “Come on down.”

Well, I walked down like Vince Lombardi. I was the Marlboro man in the NFL, leather-on-leather. I thought, What do you know. I finally made it. I walked down and I said, “Senator Kennedy and Senator Mansfield, how you gentlemen doing today?”

Senator Kennedy said, “We need some more rolls and butter here.”

You don’t think it happened, but it really did. They thought I was the maître d’ and so did someone outside, who asked me to show them to their seats.

ENTREPRENEUR TIP

Waitley’s anecdote is a good reminder that self-awareness is often dependent on reading the room and remembering that, sometimes, people’s perceptions of you may not match your own sense of self-awareness.

WINNING

What is winning? Winning is never whining. Winning is picking up a beer can you didn’t throw on the beach. Winning is coming in fourth when you came in fifth last time. Winning is treating animals like people and people like brothers and sisters. Winning is all in the attitude, no question. Talent is cheap. The world is full of talented winos on every corner. Education, you can get. Educated derelicts are wandering around. Instead, I’d give every child in the world a box of attitude for Christmas and keep it going.

The program I teach is called Psychology of Winning: The Ten Traits of the Total Person. I’ve never seen one [a total person], but if there could be one, he or she would be like this. They’d have self-awareness that the world is abundant. They’d look at the environment as a candy store that you couldn’t live in a thousand years and tap out any of it. They’d look at the flowers instead of stepping on the weeds. They’d see that the abundance is there for all of us in the environment.

They’d look at their body, not like I looked at mine. In my awareness, I looked at my body as an old clunker to get me from birth to death with the least number of overhauls. I got a ’33 Dodge Caravan, and if you and I went out to eat, I would eat a salad in front of you, but up in my room I’ve got Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and M&M’s. I’m a closet eater; there’s no question about it.

I thought life was a race to come in first, and I’m darn near there already. I’ve got some self-awareness about my body. Try it sometime.

Once, I walked into my room. I locked the door, I thought. I listened for footsteps; there weren’t any. I locked my bedroom door, took off all my clothes, put a grocery bag over my head, and cut eye holes right in it. I slipped it over my head and looked at myself in front of a full-length mirror for the first time in my life. I didn’t see an old friend. I looked full length at a stranger with a bag over his head, and I saw the Incredible Hulk. I gave myself a side view, and I started laughing. I gave myself a rear view, and I said, “I don’t know who you are, but get dressed and get out.”

Just then my wife walked in, and she said, “Ha, ha, ha!”

And I said, quickly recovering, “Trick or treat, dear.”

And she said, “I’ll take the trick.”

She said, “Be kind to yourself. If you’re going to go into a self-awareness nude-cult movement, go ahead and be nude, but don’t cut eye holes in the bag. You’ll like yourself better that way.” But now, I know what’s happening (and what was happening then): self-awareness. I’ve been selling myself short. The environment is a candy store. My body is a Ferrari. You’re supposed to tweak and tune it to win at the Grand Prix at LeMans. It’s an Apollo spacecraft. You can’t fly the environment unless you feel good. You cannot do good unless you feel good.

I’m lazy. I know 500 songs but only the first four notes. If you think I know anything special, no, I don’t; it’s garbage in, garbage out. I’m lazy. What am I afraid of? I’m afraid to win. Why? Winning is heavy. You have to act responsibly and set an example. People try to knock you off. I’m not afraid to fail. I do it every day. I’m afraid to win because winning is heavy. Self-awareness. Abundance. Moment of truth. Step back.

ENTREPRENEUR TIP

Take five minutes to do a quick self-assessment of your own self-awareness. Focus on one area of your life whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional, and jot down a quick bulleted list of what you notice. You can take these mini self-awareness inventories as frequently as you like. Chart them in your journal so you can see how they change over time.

SELF-ESTEEM

Aside from self-awareness, self-esteem is the single most important human quality. I realize I could have been Paul Newman instead of looking like Alfred E. Neuman. I realize I’m 46. I weigh about 190 with “gusts” to 210. I realize I coulda-woulda-shoulda-mighta-oughta and if only Ida, and, someday, I’ll. But now I know where the action is. If the spiritual love comes through and you feel it, then you give it away.

Why? You wouldn’t know it if you didn’t feel it. How could you love anyone else unless you love yourself? You couldn’t. So then, self-love isn’t narcissism or hedonism. Self-esteem is the single most important quality because skyjackers have none, assassins have none, criminals have none. The winners have it. Why? They want to give it away. They realize happiness is the by-product of a good life, with nothing to be sought. They’re happy in building the best self in order to give it away.

I’ve been able to spot self-esteem early in children. Why? I raised mine the wrong way. I’ve got six children, all boys—except four girls. I want my children to be winners, so I’ve raised them every way I can. I’ve given them all the great “encouragement” a paren...