Think and Grow Rich

Reviewed by Dick West

Stunning insights from an old book

Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill in 1937 at a time when the world was just coming out of the depression.

I was born two years earlier and experienced the impact of the depression on my parents and our farming community in Illinois, but did not know anything about it consciously until I was at least 10, I suppose. My elder brother and sister probably felt more of the bite of that experience than I did.

The book showed up in my life when I was 15, my sophomore year in high school. Getting rich was not a big thing in my life having come through Midwest fundamental Protestant (country church) and helping community culture. So I read it and set it aside as not for me, as I now remember.

Then when I was assigned to Bombay and was renting books from a paperback provider in 1988, I found it again and bought in for Rs 3 and found it fascinating. Still, the "getting rich" part did not take with me. 

Then I was lent a series of DVDs by Esther Hicks and her husband Jerry, co-authors of The Law of Attraction. In that series, he highlighted Think and Grow Rich as a great influence on his life, so I downloaded it on Kindle for 99 US cents. (By the way, there is a new version out).

For a long time, I've been wondering what would happen if I just rewrote it as a way to Live Effectively in the New (and fast-changing) Society, especially when my belief is that it's necessary to invent from the future. You can see why I was enthralled by The Shift Age by David Houle and by Otto Scharmer's books, especially his focus on how the Way of Being of a person at Source makes all the difference.

So I thought I'd just do it...  Go back to my Kindle e-book and try to pull out Hill’s advice on "Living Effectively".

Here is what I found:

Think and Grow Rich was inspired by Andrew Carnegie (after he made his millions and retired). It was intended to help people "experience a changed life,” provided you know what it is you want.

Hill warns "There is no such thing as something for nothing!" Education has nothing to do with it. He says the "secret" will jump from the page and stand boldly before you if you are ready for it.

All achievements, all earned riches have their beginning in an idea. It begins with DESIRE. It requires "being determined to remain ready until you get that which you are seeking.”

When defeat overtakes a person, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit... which is what the majority do. The better portion of all the sales I have made were made after people had said “No,” says Hill. Success comes to those who become success conscious.

The ether of the universe... is a form of energy moving at a... high rate of vibration, and (it) is filled with a form of universal power which adapts itself to the nature of the thoughts we have in our minds, and influences us, in natural ways to transmute our thoughts into their physical equivalent.

And all of this is from the introduction and Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is on Desire, the starting point of all achievement. 

Interestingly, Esther Hicks also uses Desire as a foundational part of her fascinating, if controversial, series, The Law of Attraction, and The Vortex DVD series.

PDF files are available at    http://archive.org/details/Think_and_Grow_Rich