Fifteen Laws of
Success by Napoleon Hill
1. A Definite Chief
Aim will teach you how to save the wasted effort which the majority
of people expend in trying to find their lifework. This will show
you how to do away forever with aimlessness and fix your heart and
hand upon some definite, well conceived purpose as a life-work.
2. Self Confidence
will help you master the six basic fears with which every person is
cursed – the fear of poverty, the fear of Ill Health, the fear of
Old age, the fear of Criticism, the fear of Loss of Love of Someone
and the fear of Death. It will teach you difference between egotism
and real self-confidence which is based upon definite usable
knowledge.
3. Habit of Saving
will teach you how to distribute your income systematically so that a
definite percentage of it will steadily accumulate, thus forming one
of the greatest known source of personal power. No one may succeed
in life without saving money. There is no exception to this rule,
and no one may escape it.
4. Initiative and
Leadership will show you hot to become a leader instead of a follower
in your chosen field of endeavor. It will develop in you the
instinct for leadership which will cause you gradually to gravitate
to the top in all undertakings in which you participate.
5. Imagination will
stimulate your mind so that you will conceive new ideas and develop
new plans which will help you in attaining the object of your
Definite Chief Aim. This will teach you how to “build new houses
out of old stones” so to speak. It will show you how to create
new ideas out of old, well known concepts, and how to put old ideas
to new uses. This is the equivalent of a very practical course in
salesmanship, and it is sure to prove a veritable gold mine of
knowledge to the person who is in earnest.
6. Enthusiasm will
enable you to “saturate” all with whom you come in contact with
interest in you and in your ideas. Enthusiasm is the foundation of a
Pleasing Personality, and you must have such a personality in order
to influence others to co-operate with you.
7. Self-Control is
the “balance wheel” with which you control your enthusiasm and
direct it where you wish it to carry you. This will teach you in a
most practical manner, to become “the master of your fate, the
Captain of your Soul.”
8. The Habit of
Doing more than Paid For is one of the most important lessons of the
law of Success. It will teach you how to take advantage of the law
of Increasing Returns, which will eventually insure you a return in
money far out of proportion to the service you render. No one may
become a real leader in any walk of life without practicing the habit
of doing more work and better work than that for which he is paid.
9. Pleasing
personality is the 'fulcrum' on which you must place the 'crow-bar'
of your efforts, and when so place, with intelligence, it will enable
you to remove mountains of obstacles. This one has made scores of
Master Salesmen. It has developed leaders over night. It will teach
you how to transform your personality so that you may adapt yourself
to any environment, or to any other personality, in such a manner
that you may easily dominate.
10. Accurate
Thinking is one of the important foundation stone of all enduring
success. This teaches you how to separate “facts” from mere
“information”. It teaches you how to organize known facts into
two classes: The “important” and the “unimportant.” It
teaches you how to determine what is an “important” fact. It
teaches you how to build definite working plans, in pursuit of any
calling, out of FACTS.
11. Concentration
teaches you how to focus your attention upon one subject at a time
until you have worked out practical plans for mastering that subject.
It will teach you how to ally yourself with others in such a manner
that you may have the use of their entire knowledge to back you up in
your own plans and purposes. It will give you a practical working
knowledge of the forces around you, and show you how to harness and
use these forces in furthering your own interests.
12 Co-Operation
will teach you the value of team -work in all you do. In this lesson
you will be taught how to apply the law of the “master mind”.
This will show you how to co-ordinate your own efforts with those of
others, in such a manner that friction, jealousy, strife, envy and
cupidity will be eliminated. You will learn how to make use of all
that other people have learned about the work in which you are
engaged.
13. Profiting by
Failure will teach you how to make stepping stones out of all of your
past and future mistakes and failures. It will teach you the
difference between “failure” and “temporary defeat,” a
difference which is very great and very important. It will teach
you how to profit by your own failures and by the failures of other
people.
14. Tolerance will
teach you how to avoid the disastrous effects of racial and religious
prejudices which mean defeat for millions of people who permit
themselves to become entangled in foolish argument over these
subjects, thereby poisoning their own minds and closing the door to
reason and investigation. This is the twin sister of the one on
“Accurate Thought”, for the reason that no one may become an
Accurate Thinker without practicing tolerance. Intolerance closes
the book of Knowledge and writes on the cover “Finished, I have
learned it all.” Intolerance makes enemies of those who should be
friends. It destroys opportunity and fills the mind with doubt,
mistrust and prejudice.
15. Practicing the
Golden Rule will teach you how to make use of this great universal
law of human conduct in such a manner that you may easily get
harmonious co-operation from any individual or group of individuals.
Lack of understanding of the law upon which the Golden Rule
philosophy is based is one of the major causes of failure of millions
of people who remain in misery, poverty and want all their lives.
This lesson has nothing whatsoever to do with religion in any form,
nor with sectarianism, nor have any of the other lessons of this
course on the Law of Success.
