Wealth Creation Blog

Hard work and honesty—we’re raised to believe they are the two keys to anything that you want in life. But is this really the magic combination that equates to wealth? Or is there something missing in this formula?

Napoleon Hill On Hard Work + Honesty

“If you are one of those who believe that hard work and honesty alone will bring riches, banish the thought!”

Chalk this up as another post inspired by the great Napoleon Hill. It was this one single quote from his updated version of Think and Grow Rich, re-titled Mindset Mastery, that inspired me today.

These are strong, but meaningful words that he writes. Banish the idea that you can simply work hard, be honest, and magically be wealthy. But why? Isn’t it moral to work hard and be honest? Is there something wrong with these noble traits?

Certainly not. If you read carefully, Hill says nothing of the sort. What he does say is that these two characteristics ALONE will not bring riches. There is most definitely something missing from this equation. Unfortunately, the traditional education and upbringing does not enter anything else into your life’s equation. We are taught to work hard and be honest, and that success will follow. But I think it’s easy to see where just these two things alone will get you. There are plenty of examples all around, every day.

Where Does Hard Work And Honesty Get You?

Let me say unequivocally now that working hard and being honest are important life traits. These two characteristics are not to be banished, simply built upon and added to. Along with them you would need also traits such as positivity, a wealthy mindset, motivation, action, and dedication.

If working hard and being honest by themselves were enough to build wealth, we would have very few poor people in the world. In my experience, most people are hard working and honest, but that alone has not allowed them to get ahead and create wealth. To do that, more needs to be added to the mix. Hard work and integrity are excellent foundations, but more needs to be added to the mix to solidify that footing.

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
Aussie Internet Marketer © 2004 – 2009

Some of you also follow along on my personal blog at SeanRasmussen.com. If you do, you probably are familiar with the Mindset Mastery series. For those of you who are not familiar with this series, this is a series of posts where we work our way through my updated version of the Napoleon Hill classic, Think and Grow Rich (I’ve edited and revised the book so as to make it more applicable to modern life, and offer it as a freed download with the newly revised named, Mindset Mastery).

While working up some posts for the Mindset Mastery series, I came across a couple of quotes by Napoleon Hill which inspired me for posts here on the Wealth Creation Blog. Not really a surprise, so much of Hill’s book is quote-worthy, but these two especially stood out as excellent stand-alone morsels of advice. I’ll dish up one of them for you today.

Only You Limit Your Mind

“There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.”

Think about this. As humans we are constantly thinking about what limitations are set upon us; about what factors may make or break something as a possibility or opportunity. It is our perceived limitations that cause us the greatest anguish in wealth creation. What we’ve learned through our studies and discussion here, from all the greats of wealth creation, is that those limitations are almost always just perception, and are hardly ever really reality.

With this quote Napoleon Hill takes this a step further—with our minds freed, we can do and accomplish anything we set out to do. Limitation is not an excuse because the limits of our minds are only set by our own acknowledgment—what we decide are or are not limits for us. We can just as easily choose not to limit our minds—to develop a confidence in our own abilities, and to shun those who would tell us that our hopes, dreams, plans, and wealth are not possible.

If you can learn to drown out the negativity and noise, you can look inward and put your energy into your own mind and opportunities. In all of life, you choose what your beliefs will be. Choose you! Choose to not limit your mind, and you can think your way to prosperity and financial freedom.

Join me again tomorrow and I’ll bring you another pearl from Mr. Napoleon Hill.

Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 – 2009

Two of the concepts that Napoleon Hill became world-famous for were these:

• “Thoughts are things”, and
• “Mastermind” (a term coined by Hill in Think and Grow Rich)

If you think these are clues to the wealth creation message Napoleon Hill brought us, you are absolutely correct.

Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill took a different tact toward illuminating the keys to wealth creation; unlike Wallace Wattles, he did not explore philosophical or religious theories to arrive at his formula for wealth creation. Hill chose instead to interview hundreds of successful, wealthy people, and extract those traits they had in common that could be credited for their financial successes. His strategy worked beautifully, and what Napoleon Hill left us was a blueprint for living the life of the financially successful.

Hill found that there are, as Andrew Carnegie said there would be, key similarities between the rich and financially successful. These people live in much the same basic manner, and apply their life-theories to their financial endeavors. He was able to identify 13 core principles that the vast majority of wealthy people all exercised in their business and financial dealings.

Mindset Determines Success

Interestingly, although Hill took a different route towards identifying the road to riches, both he and Wattles arrived at the same basic conclusion—mindset determines success in wealth creation.

Hill looked at his 500 subjects, and deduced that the one thing that set them apart from the floundering people of the world is that they set their minds at succeeding in life, committed to their efforts, and remained determined to reach their personal goals for financial success. There are many incidentals that Hill learned along the way, and many, many lessons to be learned in his book, but if there is one thing to take away from Napoleon Hill’s teachings it is that to succeed financially, to enjoy financial freedom and prosperity, you have to develop the mindset to do so. Interesting, isn’t it, that both he and Wattles could come so far around to reach the same conclusion? Maybe there just is something to this concept of developing the wealth creation mindset.

Sean Rasmussen
Wealth Creation Blog
UniversalWealthCreation.com © 2004 – 2008

Napoleon Hill was another important figure in the world of wealth creation; like Wallace Wattles, Hill was one of our founding fathers who brought us a wealth of information about achieving financial success that we probably otherwise never would have had.

Napoleon Hill, also like Wattles, was born into poverty in American in the late 1800′s. He worked his way into law school by writing as a “mountain reporter” for a local newspaper (a post he held from the tender age of 13). Because he was poor, and struggling to pay for college in the early 1900′s, Hill was unable to stay in law school, and eventually had to leave for financial reasons. Hill returned to his reporting job—a move that ultimately spelled the success of not only Napoleon Hill, but of a number of successful individuals embarking on the path to wealth creation.

Financially Successful People

After Napoleon Hill returned to his post as a newspaper reporter, he was given an assignment to write a series of articles chronicling a number of then contemporary successful men. On his list of interview subjects was the famed steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Hill met with Carnegie and listened intently to everything Carnegie had to offer. Carnegie was equally impressed with Hill and presented him with a challenge—interview the most famous and financially successful people in the world, and from their successes create a formula for wealth creation that might be applied to any willing individual’s efforts at wealth creation.

Think And Grow Rich

With his curiosity piqued, Hill accepted Carnegie’s challenge. This ultimately was much to the advantage of the rest of us, as Hill fulfilled his mission. He interviewed more than 500 of the richest and most famous people living on earth at his time, and took from them the keys to their financial success. Hill worked for 20 years to study and compile his findings which he published in his now wealth-creation and empowerment classic, “Think and Grow Rich“. This is a book like no other, detailing the essentials to creating wealth that apply to all kinds of financial wealth creation endeavors. The information Hill brought to us in his book is timeless, because it deals with the human element of successful money making rather than specific financial strategies.

Napoleon Hill brought us an important tool for wealth creation, the likes of which we probably will never see again.

Sean Rasmussen
Wealth Creation Blog
UniversalWealthCreation.com © 2004 – 2008