Volume One – The Principles Of Self Mastery

“There is always plenty of capital available for those with practical plans for using it”

Napoleon exemplifies this statement through the story of a young preacher who announced his forthcoming sermon in the newspaper entitled, “What I would do if I had One Million Dollars”. A wealthy local businessman noticed the planned sermon and attended the church that Sunday. The preacher proceeded to speak about wanting to teach young men and women to think in practical, rather than theoretical terms and to learn from doing. The preacher said if he had one million dollars, he would build a school to teach this way. After the sermon the wealthy businessman approached the preacher and said “young man, I believe you can do everything you say you can, so if you come to my office tomorrow I will give you your million dollars”.

That school is now the Illinois Institute of Technology and you can read more about the history of this event here.

Napoleon goes on to say that it was the preacher’s imagination plus the wealthy businessman’s capital that allowed for the preacher’s success in creating what he wanted to create. To link this back to the introduction, we can see Imagination and Co-operation as key components of this particular success story.

Napoleon goes on to stress that every great structure, utility, fabulous invention, massive global business, anything that has been created that exists today started in an individual’s imagination. Just take a moment to soak that up……

We see massive ventures these days, whether they are organisations like NASA or corporations like Apple, that have thousands of people involved and they are anything but the work of an individual, but, I know at least in the case of Apple, although it is widely known that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple together, one of them would have had the thought first, than first moment of thinking about what a computer might be or how it might be marketed or the fabulous global business they might one day run.

Every single thing a lot of people take for granted in day to day life came about due to an individual imagining it in the very first instance. Napoleon Hill credits Henry Ford for a lot of the success he received from developing the Law Of Success course along with Andrew Carnegie who through a passing comment sparked the imagination of Napoleon resulting in him creating such a course.

Napoleon speaks further regarding imagination, that it can be developed and cultivated through use and that any young boy or girl would truly be fortunate if they learn early in life the power of their imagination. An individual can become more productive in their current endeavor simply by utilizing their imagination. I think this is true, and I know I have done it so very many times in my previous work, simply by taking the time to think about what I was doing, to imagine a better way to do it, I have implemented improvements that not only helped me individually but provided great value to my employer.

I want to mention here that this is not the Law Of Attraction that Napoleon is talking about, it is certainly not an early version of The Secret. Napoleon continues to explain that success is not going to come from imagination alone but it is the first step, that we must decide in our mind, through using our imagination, what it is we want.

The next step is to seek and gain the co-operation of others and that the key way to doing this is by showing a willingness to cooperate with them. I guess without thinking about it we all do this most of the time in our lives in small doses, such as I will cooperate with my employer by doing what they ask of me in order to receive money in return. It prompts me to think about children, they don’t get this principle when they’re young, at least I don’t think they do? Some recent experience for me would suggest children generally ask for what they want and receive it. When they do not receive what they want, or are not allowed to do what they wish to do, they react, often badly.

One of the 17 lessons covered in this program will cover the principle of doing more than you are asked to do, or more than what you are paid to do and Napoleon states that this “law” alone will help you gain cooperation from others and substantially move you toward your success perhaps more so than any other law in the program.

The purpose of the program is noted as allowing us to find out how we may become more capable in our chosen field of work. That we will be analysed and our best qualities classified so we can make the best possible use of our best skills and qualities. Napoleon speaks of there being two ways to changing your circumstances if you find yourself in a line of work you do not like. One is to continue being disinterested and doing a poor job and you will find yourself removed from that job! The other, better option, is to do well, do more than you are paid for, become noticed as a good performer and thus be promoted into a position that you do enjoy.

I could not agree more. I remember in my leadership position with me previous employer, there were a lot of people in my team and throughout the business that did as little as they could and even then would complain about their work and the business that employed them. They would do nothing to help themselves, they would just complain and do little and careless work. Even when I tried to help one of them by giving them a copy of Psycho-Cybernetics, they didn’t even bother reading it.

Napoleon states that “discovery is a matter of investigation and use of imagination” and that this program may help us “discover” our opportunity for success, which is not necessarily outside of our current job, area of interest or physical surrounding.

Next up is Lesson One, which I hope to cover tomorrow and write up my findings. Your comments, thoughts and suggestions are welcome!

Welcome & Introduction

In 1928 Napoleon Hill first published his The Law Of Success – The Principle’s Of Self Mastery series as a set of 8 book volumes. Isn’t it remarkable that more than 80 years later this work is available as a download via iTunes. This very fact alone would attest to the value and popularity of this program.

It’s a program designed to help you achieve what you wish to achieve in your life, success is different to each of us. I’ve been through most of it once but not in a planned way and not in a way that allowed me to make notes, I mainly listened to the audio-book while I walked, ran or drove around, so difficult to scribble down some notes, not to mention dangerous:)

So I have decided to do the program diligently and thought I would chronicle my progress as well as my experiences along the way. So, a little about me. I’m 43 years old, have not worked for nearly one full year, and I did this through my own choice. I am about to be divorced from my ex-wife and have a wonderful new lady in my life, who by the way is also very interested in this program and we are going to go through this together, I also hope to have her author some posts with her thoughts, feelings and experinces of the program.

I welcome and encourage reader comments because I know many people will look for any opportunity to improve their life or situation, especially in these tough times of a global financial crisis as they call it, in more general terms, a recession, perhaps a Depression. Interestingly, this program was first published at the beginning of The Great Depression and as is noted by Napoleon Hill, it can be in these most difficult times that great opportunities present themselves.

Napoleon believes in the power of the human mind and that each one of us must discover a clear purpose for our lives. He says these are the foundations of success, regardless of what we regard success to be to us personally. He continues to cover self confidence, conserving and marshaling your resources, leadership, imagination, accurate thinking, concentration, co-operation and learning from your mistakes all as being crucial to achieving success. There are initially four volumes in this version of the program and it is suggested that after completing volume 2, that volume 1 is reviewed before commencing volume 3 and so on throughout the program. I will do this, I intend to follow the directions completely and I believe this record of the teachings and my learnings will help facilitate such review.

As I sit here thinking about closing out my introduction, knowing that I am about to press the Space Bar on my gorgeous Apple Macbook Pro to start Volume One playing in iTunes, I feel excited about learning these principles in a structured way and I know this is going to make a big difference in my life!