Think and Grow Rich Photo Summary

Think and Grow Rich is one of the books I have seen most often on the recommended reading list of people in the present day who have achieved great things. The book was written at the commission of Andrew Carnegie and based on interviews of 500 of those who history now remembers as the greatest men of the early 20th century, including Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilbur Wright, and W. Howard Taft. First published in 1937, it has now sold more than 70 million copies, giving it the distinction of being the all-time bestseller in the personal success category.

I’m going to warn you: this is one of the weirder books that I’ve read. However, given the pedigree of those on whose advice this book was based, as well as those in today’s age who have recommended the book, I was careful not to dismiss anything out of hand. I certainly don’t agree with everything, but it stands to reason that uncommon success must come from uncommon thoughts and actions. If some of this advice seems a little “out there,” or too intangible, nebulous, and ephemeral to be useful, remember who it’s coming from, and suspend judgment until you’ve tested it for yourself.

1. Desire: The Starting Point of All Achievement

It may be stating the obvious, but growing rich starts with the desire to do so. The desire discussed here is not simply wishing, but is an intense, burning obsession, which must be coupled with both a plan and persistence in sticking to the plan. The author presents a six-part method to ensure that this is the type of desire you are starting with:

2. Faith: Visualization of, and Belief In Attainment of Desire 

Of course, the subconscious mind must believe that something is possible in order to act on it. Faith is an interesting concept, but in this context the author defines it as “a state of mind which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of autosuggestion.” He goes on to assert, “Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith.” It is by this practice that you can convince your subconscious mind to “translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, by the most practical procedure available.”



The author attributes both good and ill fortune to this practice. In other words, someone who lets himself believe negative things has communicated to his subconscious to act upon those negative beliefs and translate them into reality. Someone who neglects this practice, and allows his subconscious to go where it will, risks being set up for failure by the operation of the subconscious that will continue regardless.



If you’re like me you’re getting pretty skeptical at this point, so let me illustrate with a practical example from outside the book. It has been well established that consciously choosing to exhibit confident body language when you are in fact not feeling confident will actually make you confident. (See Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk on the subject here.) Various experiments have shown the natural mechanics of this process, with the release or inhibition of certain neurochemicals (testosterone, cortisol, etc.). The point, however, is that a conscious choice influences your subconscious, which in turn directly and immediately causes a change in outcomes in the external world.



The author recommends “deceiving” your subconscious in a similar way – by acting as if you have already achieved whatever it is you are instructing your subconscious mind to do.

3. Autosuggestion: The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind

This is another one of those words that probably sounded strange to Napoleon Hill’s contemporaries, and definitely sounds strange in the 21st century. Simply put, autosuggestion is the practice of communicating to yourself using your conscious mind for the purpose of convincing your subconscious. As humans, we can exercise complete control over what reaches our subconscious mind (through our five senses), but most people don’t often exercise that control.



The author asserts that exercising this control requires both conscious attention, and the mixing of emotion (a word the author uses interchangeably with “belief” or “faith”) with what you tell yourself. He presents repetitive visualization as the best method of accomplishing this mixture – actually picturing the appearance of a specific amount of money, consistently over time. Eventually, this will cue your subconscious to “hand over” specific plans to begin to make it happen.



The author recommends that twice a day, morning and night, you close your eyes, say out loud the amount of money you intend to obtain, when you intend to obtain it, and how (in general terms) you intend to obtain it. In addition, he contends you must write this statement down, place it where you will see it in the morning and at night, and commit it to memory.



This is the core of the book: combining desire with faith to successfully auto-suggest achievements to your subconscious mind. The ensuing chapters consist of various tools for successfully applying this practice.