“If you think achieving great heights of success will be easy, you either don’t understand at all how the process works or you have your sights set too low. Reaching the top of any field is difficult, time-consuming, and often tedious. The reason it isn’t crowded at the top is that most people won’t do the things that are necessary to achieve success. They are all too willing to give up when the going gets tough. If you need inspiration to persevere, read the biographies of men and women who have achieved greatness in their lives. You will find that they prevailed because they refused to quit. They continued to toil alone long after the masses had given up and gone home. ”
- Napoleon Hill
“Thoughts are things. Every thought you release — good or bad — is a form of energy that can affect those who receive it, for better or worse. More important, your thoughts affect you. You become what you think about most. If you think about success, you condition your mind to seek success, and you attract large portions of it. Conversely, if you think about failure and despair, you will become miserable and desperate. To keep your mind on a positive track, the moment you begin to experience creeping negativism, make a conscious decision to eliminate negative thoughts and replace them with their positive counterparts. ”
- Napoleon Hill
“It is virtually impossible not to transmit your doubts and insecurities to others through body language, tone of voice, inflection, word choice, and other subtle characteristics. When you show by your actions that you lack self-confidence, other people also begin to doubt your ability to perform. You can gain the respect and confidence of others. Begin by making a list of all the things you like about yourself and the things you would like to change. Make a conscious effort to build upon your positive strengths and correct your weaknesses. It may not be easy, but if you assess yourself objectively and persevere in your efforts, you will eventually prevail. ”
- Napoleon Hill
“It would be unrealistic to expect an inexpensive, mass-produced watch to perform with the same degree of accuracy as a finely crafted Rolex. They are not made with the same quality of materials or with the same craftsmanship. Yet we somehow think that we do not need to give the same attention to our most important asset: ourselves. Don’t leave something as important as your character to chance. Choose the character traits you admire, and work to develop them. Don’t be discouraged when you stumble. Building character is a process that takes a lifetime to complete. Fortunately, like anything else, the more you work at character building, the better you become at it.”
Napoleon Hill
“If you are ever to achieve noteworthy success in your life, you must be willing to stand apart from the crowd. Success is something that is achieved by the minority, not the majority, of people. You will also discover as you climb the ladder of success that there are many who, out of jealousy or envy, will belittle your achievements. Nevertheless, if you have the courage of your convictions, nothing can deter you from your course. You develop confidence in your beliefs by doing your own thinking and by constantly testing and revising your knowledge. Use W. Clement Stone’s R2A2 Principle to Recognize and Relate, Assimilate and Apply information from any field to help solve your problems and direct your thinking.”
- Napoleon Hill
“There is no compromise or negotiation when it comes to who will run your life. Either you take charge and live a productive life of your choosing or you allow yourself to be ruled by circumstances. But there will inevitably be setbacks. In the old West, a cowboy expression went, “There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode, and there never was a rider that couldn’t be throwed.” Like everyone else, you will have days when everything goes right and you are on top of the world. Relish those days, enjoy them, and remember them. Recall the euphoria that accompanied them when you need an extra measure of positive thinking to get back in the saddle after you’ve experienced an embarrassing and painful fall.”
- Napoleon Hill
“Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” It’s easy when you are part of a group to “go along to get along,” but when you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity — regardless of what others may do — you are destined for greatness. When you have developed a carefully thought out code of personal conduct, you will never have to ask anyone else what the appropriate course of action should be. You will intuitively know.”
- Napoleon Hill