How to Thrive in Unprecedented Times: An exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Freedom from Your Fears
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Bearing the subtitle “For men and women who resent poverty,” the original 1937 edition of Think and Grow Rich discloses its motives: Napoleon Hill wrote it to help men and women succeed in the face of difficult circumstances, particularly those brought on by the Great Depression. By sharing the achievement principles that had built the fortunes of America’s self-made millionaires, he believed that any person—regardless of their level of education or experience—could identify their definite major purpose and use it to attain great wealth. He writes:
“This message is going out to the world at the end of the longest, and perhaps, the most devastating depression America has ever known. It is reasonable to presume that the message may come to the attention of many who have been wounded by the depression, those who have lost their fortunes, others who have lost their positions, and great numbers who must reorganize their plans and stage a comeback. To all these I wish to convey the thought that all achievement, no matter what may be its nature, or its purpose, must begin with an intense, BURNING DESIRE for something definite.”
If you are experiencing a difficult time, it might seem impossible to bring yourself to a place of hope. And to that Hill would say—you shouldn’t. Hoping and wishing are indicative of a lack of faith and inaction. Instead, you should refocus your thoughts on the certainty that you will rebound and achieve your definite chief aim. All you need are new plans, which you can conceive by visualizing the fruition of your desires and instructing your subconscious to find a means for claiming what has already been made available to you. Understand that everything you want most in life is yours for the taking; you are being held back only by your fears, indecision, and lack of proper plans for obtaining what you desire.
There are amazing opportunities found within challenging times—you simply have to open your mind and enlarge your perspective so that you can recognize them. Circumstances that have caused the common person to retreat have launched the world’s greatest individuals to the heights of prominence. Hill asserts that “when a great crisis comes over the world, there always comes out some unknown with a formula for dissolving that crisis—like Abraham Lincoln, for instance, in a time of need, when this country was about to be split asunder by internal strife; by George Washington, preceding Lincoln; by Franklin D. Roosevelt, at a time when the people were stampeded with fear and they were standing in great lines to draw their money out of the bank.”
We remember these individuals because they did not let fear sway them from their definite major purpose. In fact, they recognized that the trials they faced were really opportunities in disguise. Rather than giving in to feelings of helplessness, uncertainty, overwhelm, and fear, they changed the channel to which their thoughts were tuned and, by so doing, changed their perspective.
You, too, can change the trajectory of your life by learning to control your thoughts and rid your mind of the fears and doubts that are holding you back. Get your copy now of Napoleon Hill’s Freedom from Your Fears, an official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation available from Sound Wisdom on April 20, 2021. Preorder your copy today.