Empathy Can Help You Wake Up Wealthier by Alyson Van Hooser

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Headlines everywhere are claiming that empathy is an important LEADERSHIP skill. But that’s not quite right. It’s a necessary SUCCESS skill. If we choose to change our mindset regarding empathy, it might just be the catalyst for a more successful future for you! 

I am on a sold-out mission to show the world—to show you—the undeniable power of empathy and how it can transform your personal and professional success. 

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t believe in get-rich-quick schemes. Instead, over my lifetime, I’ve discovered that empathy can help you lead better, sell more, connect deeper, and ultimately, quite literally, wake up wealthier every single day. 

Whether we’re talking about navigating conflict, building a stronger team, selling more products and services, shifting a culture, improving communication, making better decisions, becoming more innovative, mending a broken relationship, earning trust and respect, etc., I’ve discovered that a simple choice to start with empathy can transform the outcome in the best way. In today’s blog, I’ll give you a brief example or two of just how a simple choice can help you wake up wealthier! 

Three Types of Wealth 

There are three ways I believe we can measure wealth. 

RELATIONSHIPS 

Your first thought might be money. And yes, that’s one way to measure wealth. However, it’s not the most meaningful way. 

I believe the most meaningful way to measure wealth in this life is in the quality of the relationships we build with other people. If you talk to anyone who has lived a long, fulfilling life and asked them what the key to their happiness and contentment is—their overwhelming answer would be the deep connections they’ve built with the people they did life with at work or home, with their friends, family, and their community. If you want to have a rich life, you must invest in your relationships. 

IMPACT 

The second way to measure wealth in your life is in the impact you make either now or for the future. If you leave this world a better place for others, you might just find that is exactly what fills your soul and fulfills your purpose. 

FINANCES 

The third, most common way to measure wealth is from a financial perspective. Whether you’re trying to influence someone to buy more, to stay longer, or perform better…your ability to perform well can have a direct effect on just how financially wealthy you become. 

Whether you measure your wealth in terms of the quality of your relationships, the level of impact you make, the number in your bank account, or a combination of all three, if you want to wake up wealthier every day, hands down, start with empathy. 

How to Make Empathy Work for Everyone 

When most people think of empathy, they think of kindness and compassion. Not me. And from this point forward, I hope you don’t either.  

The benefits of compassion and kindness can sometimes only be one-sided. However, choosing empathy from the beginning allows you to create better results for everyone involved. 

The value of empathy is rooted in uncovering prioritized needs and being able to think like someone else. If you can learn to uncover the most important needs of someone else and think like them, then you give yourself the opportunity to create a unique roadmap to a more impactful result for both parties. 

Empathy is a top success skill. It must be developed. When you can think like someone else and choose to meet their needs first, then you can lead better, sell more, and connect deeper. All of which lead to better outcomes for all involved. 

Servant Heart vs. Empathetic Mind 

I told you I’d give you an example of how empathy can help you become wealthier. Here’s one example from an “impact” perspective. Here you’ll see that empathy was not used first, and the maximum impact was not realized in the end. 

Servant leadership became mainstream in the 1970s and is now widely accepted and practiced today. Leading with a servant’s heart is important; however, leading with an empathetic mind is critical for maximum impact.  

Leading with a “Servant’s Heart” is important; however, leading with an “Empathetic Mind” is critical. —Alyson Van Hooser 

An F4 tornado ripped through my community at about 10:00 pm several months ago. Before the sun had risen, semi-trucks full of bottled water were headed our way. Standing on my back porch, I could see a local church parking lot filling with pallets of bottled water for the next several days. So many kind, generous people from literally across the world wanted to help, to make a positive difference. They knew people were struggling here in Kentucky and had lost everything. They know that water is essential. So, with a servant’s heart, people gave their own time and resources to help. All who witnessed the generosity or was a beneficiary of it are still so deeply grateful, including me.  

Several days passed after the tornado hit, and a disconnect became obvious to me. This was a familiar situation…one where we had incredibly compassionate, kind, servant leaders who were exhausting their resources to help and serve people by giving clean water. However, the donors weren’t making the positive impact they’d hoped for. Even months after the natural disaster, buildings were filled with donated goods and community leaders struggled to freely give it all away. Through social media and word of mouth, most of the appreciation and satisfaction that many expected to hear from the recipients of their generosity was instead drowned out by the droves of people that desperately needed different resources such as heaters, baby formula, bottles, shoes, furniture, and shelter. There were important needs that were unmet. Because of that, the impact that was intended was not realized. 

Oftentimes leaders are doing good work, but they’re not meeting the real need of their people. When that happens, leaders are often confused when they don’t get the response they thought they would from their people. I would suggest that what we have here is a lack of empathy. If we start with empathy, we save time, money, and maximize our return. 

If you want to connect deeper, lead better, sell more, make a bigger impact, make sure you’re actually serving the real need your people have. Don’t assume you know the need. You might have a bias you don’t even realize or be comparing their experience to your own—which may be totally different in reality. Get to know their story. Uncover their need. Serve their need first, then work better together going forward. You’ll see results so much faster if you start with empathy before you take action! 

The Transformational Power of Empathy 

If you want to improve your success from a relationship, impact, or financial perspective, focus on people’s needs. Maybe someone needs to feel as though they belong, as though you care, as though they’re respected, maybe they need a warm meal, a listening ear, etc. Start there, with empathy. 

From a leadership perspective, one example may be that if an employee is struggling to get out of bed in the morning because they’re depressed, and yet you’re offering free pizza and hybrid work options to boost morale and performance, you might be wasting your resources. Start with empathy. Get to know your people on a very real level. Uncover their unmet need that will lead to a transformational outcome. Make a decision that meets their need first. When you do that, you’ll eliminate a barrier to an authentic connection, which will give you permission to move forward toward the win-win outcome you crave. 

If you look at this from a sales perspective, one example may be that before you try to sell something, uncover the needs of your future customer. Maybe they need to know you’re honest, or that you’re not going to take advantage of them. It’s possible they need to talk to you at a certain time or to talk fast…or maybe slow down. Start with empathy. When you do that, you uncover exactly how you need to move forward so they will be more likely to buy from you. 

The transformational power of empathy lies in your ability to correctly uncover the most important needs people have and allows you to think like someone else. Empathy is a skill. It must be developed. When you’ve highly developed your ability to effectively empathize—to accurately uncover needs and think like someone else—THAT is how and when you begin to create your unique, extremely specific roadmap to success…ensuring every single day that either from a relationship, impact, or financial perspective, you can wake up wealthier. 

How are you making sure your skill of empathy is the best it can be? 

Alyson Van Hooser is a leadership keynote speaker and trainer on millennials, Gen Z, and women in business. With the grit that comes only from tough experiences, Alyson has learned a thing or two about personal and professional success. From her management experience with Walmart, as an elected city council member, bank manager—all before the age of 30—Alyson has wisdom well beyond her years! Her book Level Up: Elevate Your Game & Crush Your Goals is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and other fine retailers. Connect with Alyson on LinkedIn and Instagram. This article originally appeared here on the Van Hooser Associates Leadership Blog and has been edited for inclusion on the Sound Wisdom Blog.

The Golden Age by Jim Stovall

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We human beings are too often plagued with what I would call “Greener Grass Syndrome.” This syndrome involves looking back in time and declaring a point in history as “the good old days” or projecting into the future and declaring “someday things will get better.” In reality, the only point in recorded history that matters to you and me is the current immediate moment we are living right now. 

Yesterday is a canceled check, and tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is cash, so we need to recognize its value and spend it wisely. Virgil, the Latin poet, has been quoted as saying, “Today is the great golden age.” Virgil proved to be prophetic as the period surrounding his creative life is considered a golden age of thought and literature. But in Virgil’s life and the history of the world, that period emerged as a golden age because he believed it was. 

Yesterday is a canceled check, and tomorrow is a promissory note 

If, on the other hand, Virgil had believed that conditions during his time were not conducive to new thoughts and ideas, or if he was stuck in the mindset that things aren’t as good as they used to be in the past or would be in the future, we would likely have never heard of Virgil or been aware of the wisdom he brought to the world. 

There are always a million reasons why we can’t succeed here and now, but here and now is all we have, and it is as fertile and filled with promise as we believe it to be. There are always obstacles and challenges. Somehow we convince ourselves that people living today face obstacles that no previous generation ever had to experience. There have always been wars, pandemics, and financial downturns. My late, great friend and mentor Paul Harvey said, “It’s times like these that remind us there have always been times like these.” 

There are always critics, negative thinkers, and naysayers. They confront us daily just as they did during Virgil’s time. If Virgil were alive here in the 21st century, I’m quite certain he would declare the current moment in which you and I are living as a golden age. If you believe there are no opportunities available in the world today, your thoughts will make it so. And if you believe this is a golden age, your mind will manifest magic and miracles. 

As you go through your day today, look for the positive elements that make this a golden age. 

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor). His latest book, coauthored with Greg S. Reid, is Passport to Success: Experience Next Level Living, now available wherever books are sold.

Achieve Everything You Want by Sam Silverstein

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What if I told you that accountability was at the center of achieving everything you ever wanted? Does accountability really seem that powerful? 

Here’s the thing—what happens to us is based on the actions we take. Those actions are determined by what we believe. What we believe about people will determine the level of accountability that we have. And what we believe is at the very heart of determining what we achieve. Let’s discuss. 

Do you know what you believe? This is the most powerful question I have ever asked a leader or any audience I have spoken to. Action follows belief. So, if your beliefs determine your actions, and your actions determine your results, it only makes sense that knowing what you believe is not only important—it can be life-changing. 

Let’s say you believe, as one leader once shared with me, that you have 35 problems in your organization and each one has a first name. If that is how you see your people, then you will treat them accordingly, and you will get a specific result from that. 

If you believe that your people can solve your problems, then you will support them differently, empower them differently, commit to them differently, and you will get a different result. 

If a child in school sees everyone around them as the source of their problems, they will act one way. If that same person sees people as the potential solution to challenges, as teammates, as friends, they will act differently and get a different result. 

What you want in life will always be connected to what you believe about yourself, the people around you, both your and others’ capabilities, your responsibility to help them be successful, and more. 

What the accountable leader understands is that at the very core of their achievement, high or low, is a belief, right or wrong, that is leading directly to that result. 

Don’t just change what you are doing if you’re not getting the results you want. Question the beliefs that are leading to the actions that deliver those results and then evaluate if you should change those beliefs to achieve a different result. 

That really is accountability in action. 

Sam Silverstein is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. Get his book The Theory of Accountability and discover the formula that enables you to be an accountable leader in your life and organization. You can follow Sam on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

How Do You Define “Success”? An Exclusive Excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Think Your Way to Wealth by Napoleon Hill

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The following is an exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Think Your Way to Wealth, an official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation.  

HILL: How would you define “success”? 

 CARNEGIE: My definition of success is this: the power with which to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others. 

HILL: But Mr. Carnegie, is it not true that success is often the result of “luck”? 

CARNEGIE: If you would analyze the definition of success that I just provided, you would see that there is no element of “luck” in it. Individuals might come by opportunities by mere chance or luck, but when opportunities are encountered this way, people have a way of falling out of them just as easily as they fell into them. In order to hold on to an opportunity, there must be Definiteness of Purpose! 

HILL: Mr. Carnegie, in your definition of success, you used the word “power.” You said that success is achieved through “the power with which to acquire whatever one wants.” Can you further explain what this power consists of? 

CARNEGIE: Personal power is acquired through a combination of individual traits and habits, some of which will be explained as we explore the other sixteen principles of achievement. Briefly, let me share the ten qualities of personal power: 

1. The habit of Definiteness of Purpose 

2. The ability to make prompt decisions 

3. Soundness of character (intentional honesty) 

4. Strict discipline over one’s emotions 

5. Extreme desire—to the point of obsession—to render useful service 

6. Thorough knowledge of one’s occupation 

7. Tolerance on all subjects 

8. Loyalty to one’s personal associates and faith in a Supreme Being 

9. Enduring thirst for knowledge 

10. Alertness of imagination 

Anyone may develop these traits—traits that lead to the development of a form of personal power that can be used without “violating the rights of others.” That is the only form of personal power that an individual can afford to wield.  

This is an exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Think Your Way to Wealth, available now from Sound Wisdom and the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Originally published in 1948, Think Your Way to Wealth presents all seventeen principles of success as they were first described to him by Carnegie and other high-achieving individuals. Discover a master plan for success based on the original interviews with steel magnate Andrew Carnegie that inspired Napoleon Hill’s bestselling books Think and Grow Rich and The Law of Success.

Delayed Gratification by Jim Stovall

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There is not one simple overriding key to success. Instead, there are a number of keys that make success possible. However, one of the most significant concepts among the keys to success is that of delayed gratification. Olympian Peter Vidmar said, “Don’t sacrifice what you want most for what you want now.” Few things in life that are worthwhile come easily or are attained quickly. 

I’ve long believed that there’s no shortcut to anywhere worth going. One of the most significant indicators of future success came to light through research done on preschool children that became known as The Marshmallow Test. In this research, a preschool-aged child was taken into a small room and told to sit at a table. On the table in front of them was one marshmallow. The only instructions given to the child was that they could eat the marshmallow now, or if they waited five minutes, the researcher would come back and give them a second marshmallow. That simple test proved to be an amazingly accurate indicator of how children would succeed throughout their education and career. 

Many of our ancestors grew up in an agrarian society. They lived on farms and daily observed the cycle of planting and harvesting. Farmers worked all year and basically had one payday after they harvested their crops. People who are willing to plow, plant, fertilize, and cultivate their fields in hopes of a good crop later in the year understand delayed gratification. 

Higher education offers many lessons in delayed gratification. Obviously, students are studying today putting in effort and energy that will pay off years down the road in the form of a degree. College students are often faced with the dilemma of enjoying a night out with friends now or studying for a test that will potentially result in a good grade later. Success in life comes when we can strike a balance between smelling the rose today and planting roses that will be enjoyed in the future.   

The recipe for failure is quite simply short-term, bad decisions repeated regularly. If you eat poorly today and neglect to exercise, it will have little, if any, effect on your long-term health. However, if you make it a regular, ongoing habit, it can literally kill you. The difficulty arises that if you eat well and exercise today, you won’t experience positive results as quickly as tomorrow. Success is cumulative. 

The regular, systematic investments in your retirement plan or investment portfolio will seem insignificant at the moment but will make you wealthy in the future. 

As you go through your day today, make choices that will bring you success in the future. 

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including The Gift of Giving, co-authored with Don Green, the executive director of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).

Enthusiasm by Napoleon Hill

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ENTHUSIASM is a state of mind that inspires and arouses one to put action into the task at hand. It does more than this—it is contagious, and vitally affects not only the enthusiast, but all with whom he comes in contact. 

Enthusiasm bears the same relationship to a human being that steam does to the locomotive—it is the vital moving force that impels action. The greatest leaders of men are those who know how to inspire enthusiasm in their followers. 

Enthusiasm is not merely a figure of speech; it is a vital force that you can harness and use with profit. Without it, you would resemble an electric battery without electricity. 

“Enthusiasm is the vital moving force that impels action.” 

Enthusiasm is the vital force with which you recharge your body and develop a dynamic personality. Some people are blessed with natural enthusiasm, while others must acquire it. The procedure through which it may be developed is simple. It begins by the doing of the work or rendering of the service that one likes best. If you should be so situated that you cannot conveniently engage in the work that you like best, for the time being, then you can proceed along another line very effectively by adopting a definite chief aim that contemplates your engaging in that particular work at some future time. 

Happiness, the final object of all human effort, is a state of mind that can be maintained only through the hope of future achievement. Happiness lies always in the future and never in the past. The happy person is the one who dreams of heights of achievement that are yet unattained. The home you intend to own, the money you intend to earn and place in the bank, the trip you intend to take when you can afford it, the position in life you intend to fill when you have prepared yourself, and the preparation itself—these are the things that produce happiness. Likewise, these are the materials out of which your definite chief aim is formed; these are the things over which you may become enthusiastic, no matter what your present station in life may be. 

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. He began his writing career at age 13 as a mountain reporter for small-town newspapers and went on to become America’s most beloved motivational author. Dr. Hill's work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. Now you can preorder his illuminating memoirs, Master Mind, from Sound Wisdom and read previously unpublished, unpublicized details about his life, marriages, businesses, and experience teaching the seventeen principles of success by which the world’s most prosperous entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and cultural icons live.

How to Get What You Want by Earl Nightingale

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A very wise man once said, “If you can tell me what you want, I can tell you how to get it.” He was a wise man because he knew that the problem with people is not their ability to achieve what they want. The great majority of people who are dissatisfied with their lives, who feel the world is passing them by and that they are not getting anywhere, are not suffering from a lack of ability—far from it. They are suffering from not having decided where they want to go. 

William James, the father of American psychology, put it this way: “If you would be rich, you will be rich; if you would be good, you will be good; if you would be learned, you will be learned. Wish, then, for one thing exclusively and not for a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.” 

So the secret to achievement is to decide on one thing you want very much. Yes, there are lots of other things you want too, but one thing at a time. Write down all the things you want and then pick the one, just one, that you want more than the rest. Stick with that one thing until it is achieved; then go on to the next item on your agenda. A man following this course can accomplish more in five years than the average man accomplishes in forty. This is because the average man never seems to make the one decision that would give direction and purpose to his life. 

“Decide on one thing you want very much.” 

A gentleman by the name of Edward Bulwer Lytton put it this way: “The man who seeks one, and but one, thing in life may hope to achieve it; but he who seeks all things wherever he goes, only reaps, from the hopes which he sows, a harvest of barren regrets.” This is the whole point. Seek one thing, not two or more…one thing at a time. 

The next question: “How do I know I have the ability to achieve what I want?” The answer is that we do not seriously want things we don’t have the ability to achieve. We all seem to have a built-in governor that keeps us from wanting things beyond our capabilities. That is why one man sets his heart on becoming a lawyer while another applies for a job with the forest service or in an automobile factory. The wide spectrum of occupations and accomplishments shows us the diversity of human desires. Seeing a man working atop the dizzying heights of the steel skeleton of a skyscraper, you have probably said to yourself, “I wouldn’t do that for all the money in the world.” But he enjoys the work and will do it for so much an hour. 

Have no doubt that you can accomplish your goal. It is deciding on the goal that can be the most crucial decision of your life. It has been written, “Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success.” 

This is an excerpt from Earl Nightingale’s Successful Living in a Changing World, an official Nightingale-Conant publication. Known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” Earl Nightingale grew up in California during the Great Depression. Because his family was very poor, Nightingale educated himself in his local library. His main focus: what makes people turn out the way they do in terms of their wealth, their career achievements, and their happiness. After beginning his career in the US Marines during World War II, he was hired as a radio announcer. He eventually became a popular daily broadcaster for CBS. Through his interest in both personal development and audio, he partnered with Lloyd Conant to form the Nightingale-Conant Corporation, the world’s largest producer of audio programs. Sign up to receive free samples from Sound Wisdom’s Nightingale-Conant Collection here.

Small Details and Big Results by Jim Stovall

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The concept of going the extra mile is among the many transformational thoughts that have become the enduring legacy of the author Napoleon Hill. If you watch a horse race, oftentimes the difference between first place, second place, and the other horses in the field is such a slim margin that they have to utilize a photo finish to determine which horse won, as well as which horses finished out of the money. While the difference may be fractions of an inch, the result can be dramatically different. 

The first-place horse in one of the Triple Crown races receives millions of dollars in prize money, endorsements, and future payouts, while other horses in the field—who ran almost as fast over an entire mile—may leave the track with almost nothing to show for their efforts.   

Rarely do we ever make a 100% improvement. We, instead, make one hundred 1% improvements. It’s the small details that produce tiny margins that can make all the difference. If you think about why you do business with the companies and individuals you choose to spend your money with, many times you will realize that their products and services may be no different than their competitors, but you chose them because of some small gesture or minor convenience they offer that made all the difference to you. 

“Real competition begins when most people are ready to quit.”

Shortly after Muhammed Ali became the heavyweight champion of the world, he was asked how many push-ups he did each day. He responded, “I don’t start counting till it hurts.” Ali understood that the real competition begins when most people are ready to quit. My late great friend and mentor, legendary coach John Wooden—during his unparalleled run of winning ten championships in twelve years—taught his teams that while it may appear that basketball games are won or lost on last-second shots, in reality any basket made or missed throughout the entire game could have made all the difference. 

In your personal or professional life, think about the small and insignificant things that can make all the difference to those around you. 

I consult with several real estate firms, and I find the real estate industry to be a great proving ground for success principles because everyone has access to the same listings at the same price. However, with this totally level playing field, some real estate professionals make millions of dollars per year while others are working for less than minimum wage. The difference is not the property or the price. It is the service, the attitude, and the small details that make all the difference.  

As you go through your day today, you can win big victories if you pay attention to small details.  

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including the Wisdom for Winners series. His most recent book, a collaboration with the Napoleon Hill Foundation, is Dear Napoleon: The Living Legacy of Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich, which collects the stories of real people whose lives have been altered by the work and wisdom of Napoleon Hill. Jim Stovall is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).

Definiteness of Purpose by Napoleon Hill

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Desire is the factor that determines that your definite purpose in life shall be. No one can select your dominating desire for you, but once you select it yourself, it becomes your definite chief aim and occupies the spotlight of your mind until it is satisfied by transformation into reality, unless you permit it to be pushed aside by conflicting desires. 

To emphasize the principle that I am here trying to make clear, I believe it not unreasonable to suggest that to be sure of successful achievement, one’s definite chief aim in life should be backed up with a burning desire for its achievement. I have noticed that boys and girls who enter college and pay their way through by working seem to get more out of their schooling than do those whose expenses are paid for them. The secret of this may be found in the fact that those who are willing to work their way through are blessed with a burning desire for education, and such a desire, if the object of desire is within reason, is practically sure of realization. 

These are the steps leading from desire to fulfillment: First the burning desire, then the crystallization of that desire into a definite purpose, then sufficient appropriate action to achieve that purpose. Remember that these three steps are always necessary to insure success. 

A definite purpose is something that you must create for yourself. No one else will create it for you, and it will not create itself. What are you going to do about it? and when? and how? 

When you come to select your definite chief aim, just keep in mind the fact that you cannot aim too high. 

If your aim in life is vague, your achievements will also be vague, and it might well be added, very meager. Know what you want, when you want it, why you want it, and HOW you intend to get it. 

Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. He began his writing career at age 13 as a mountain reporter for small-town newspapers and went on to become America’s most beloved motivational author. Dr. Hill's work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. Now you can preorder his illuminating memoirs, Master Mind, from Sound Wisdom and read previously unpublished, unpublicized details about his life, marriages, businesses, and experience teaching the seventeen principles of success by which the world’s most prosperous entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and cultural icons live.

Just Say “No” by Jim Stovall

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Unless we learn how to say “no” to the things that are wrong for us in our personal and professional lives, we won’t be able to say “yes” to the right things. Our lives are a constant struggle between the elements of time and money. Typically, we start out as young adults and have very little money but a lot of flexible time. Then, based on our efforts, later in life we often find ourselves with a lot of money and far less free time.  

Wealth and money bring choices in our lives. We can buy products that we hope will make our lives better and more convenient, or we can buy services that replace our efforts, resulting in us having more free time. Unfortunately, too often, we value our money more than our time. This is an unwise calculation because we can always acquire more money, but we are all allotted a finite amount of time each day, and we are allotted a finite number of days here on earth.  

If someone calls you on the phone or barges into your office unannounced, interrupting your workflow and wasting your time, you often overlook this as a normal part of your professional life. If that same person reached into your wallet and took twenty dollars of your money, you would stop them and make them give you your money back. While it’s prudent and proper to protect your money in this example, it’s far more important and productive to protect your time. 

Oprah Winfrey provided me with a great time management lesson that has had an impact on both my personal and professional life. Years ago, when I started having a bit of success as an author, speaker, movie producer, and columnist, I began receiving invitations to speak at events, make appearances, and do book signings. Some of these offers made sense for me within the context of my professional goals, and others did not. I found myself creating excuses in the form of scheduling conflicts to turn down the offers that did not make sense for me.  

When someone called to ask if I could be at their event on Tuesday the 27th, I might reply, “Oh, I’m sorry I have another event that night.” In my mind, I was saying, “No, thank you.” Oprah helped me to understand that in the mind of the person inviting me to be a part of their event, they heard my excuse as, “I would agree to do it, but I’m already booked for that date and time.” I found myself being trapped into doing events I really didn’t want to do because promoters were willing to move the date and time of their event to avoid my conflict. Oprah gave me the simple, straightforward, and profound answer to any request that doesn’t fit my goals and objectives. Instead of coming up with elaborate conflicts and excuses, I have found it much better to simply respond by saying, “I’m sorry, that’s not going to work for me.” 

This simple but straightforward response can save you a lot of time and avoid potential embarrassment as you strive to fill your calendar with activities that move you toward your personal and professional goals.  

As you go through your day today, manage your money and protect your time. 

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including the Wisdom for Winners series. His most recent book, a collaboration with the Napoleon Hill Foundation, is Dear Napoleon: The Living Legacy of Napoleon Hill and Think and Grow Rich, which collects the stories of real people whose lives have been altered by the work and wisdom of Napoleon Hill. Jim Stovall is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).

How’s the World Treating You? by Earl Nightingale

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We live in a world of words. We have a word for everything, and some of these names and labels mean a great deal to us. Words such as “love,” “happiness,” “success,” “achievement,” “joy,” and “ability” describe conditions all of us want, but there is one word that controls them all. That is, there is one word that describes a condition that will bring us all of these things or keep us from getting any one of them. 

If your youngster asked what this word is, could you tell him? If, from all of the many thousands of words in the language, you were asked to select the one that would influence your life more than any other, could you pick the right word? I call it the “magic word,” and it is “ATTITUDE!” Once we are grown and on our own, this word actually controls our environment, our entire world. 

If you are curious about what kind of an attitude you have, a simple test will tell you what it has been up to this point in your life. Just answer this question with a “yes” or “no”: “Do you feel the world is treating you well?” If your attitude toward the world is good, you will obtain good results. If your attitude is excellent, excellent will be your results. If your attitude is negative, little that is positive awaits you. And if your attitude is just so-so, you will live in a world that is not particularly bad, nor particularly good, just so-so. 

Our environment, which is another way of saying how the world treats us, is nothing more than a reflection—a mirror, actually—of our own attitude. 

One of the most pitiful aspects of society is the really large percentage of people who lead dismal, narrow, darkened lives, crying out against what appears to be a cruel world, which they believe has singled them out for a lifetime of trouble, misery, and bad luck. Those who find themselves in such a prison of discontent should face the fact that they have very probably built their prison with their own hands. And unless they change, their cell will continue to grow smaller and darker. 

The world doesn’t care whether we change or not. Adopting a good, healthy attitude toward life doesn’t affect life and the people with whom we come in contact nearly as much as it affects us. As it says in the Bible: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” 

It would be impossible even to estimate the number of jobs that have been lost, the number of promotions missed, the number of sales not made, the number of marriages ruined by poor attitudes. But you can number in the millions the jobs that are held but hated, the marriages that are tolerated but unhappy, all because of people who are waiting for others, or the world, to change toward them, instead of being big enough and wise enough to realize that we only get back what we put out. 

In 30 days, you can change your world and your environment by taking this simple test. For 30 days, treat every person you meet, without a single exception, as the most important person on earth. You will find that they will begin treating you the same way. You see, every person, as far as he or she is concerned, is the most important person on earth. How does the world look at you? Exactly as you look at the world. 

his is an excerpt from Earl Nightingale’s Successful Living in a Changing World, an official Nightingale-Conant publication. Known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” Earl Nightingale grew up in California during the Great Depression. Because his family was very poor, Nightingale educated himself in his local library. His main focus: what makes people turn out the way they do in terms of their wealth, their career achievements, and their happiness. After beginning his career in the US Marines during World War II, he was hired as a radio announcer. He eventually became a popular daily broadcaster for CBS. Through his interest in both personal development and audio, he partnered with Lloyd Conant to form the Nightingale-Conant Corporation, the world’s largest producer of audio programs. Sign up to receive free samples from Sound Wisdom’s Nightingale-Conant Collection here. 

The Most Important Thing by Earl Nightingale

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Ask yourself: “What’s the most important thing on earth as far as a human being is concerned?” I think it is truth. Truth is knowledge, and truth is honesty. To the extent that a person has knowledge and honesty, they are rich. Mirabeau once said: “If honesty did not exist, we ought to invent it as the best means of getting rich.” Shakespeare wrote: “To be honest as the world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.” Both of them were right. 

To be ignorant is to be poor. It does not have to do with money, necessarily, although one seldom finds a person with knowledge who is not getting along well in the world. They may not be wealthy in the conventional sense, but they have enough for their needs, and they’re enormously wealthy in many important ways. A person will enjoy life, the world, and people to the extent that they move away from ignorance and toward knowledge. Perhaps just as important, or even more so, the degree to which a person has truth and knowledge will determine their degree of freedom as an individual. Every human being has to be born ignorant and, for a time, live in ignorance. But if they remain ignorant, that is their own fault. The fight against ignorance waged by everyone during his or her lifetime must be an individual, personal thing. No one can give us truth. Another person can point out the truth and urge us to strive to make it our own, but it is far too great a thing to be received passively. It must be searched for actively if it is to have significance. We can be inspired to search for truth, but unless we find it for ourselves it will do us little good. 

“The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom—they are the pillars of society.” —Henrik Ibsen 

A strong man cannot make a weak man strong. But a weak man can make himself strong by following a planned course of action for a given time, and of course, a strong man can make himself stronger. 

To my way of thinking, each of us has the opportunity for freedom and the wealth that comes with knowledge and understanding. If we decide to stop before we have reached our riches, we should blame no one but ourselves. I believe a man is poor to the extent that he is ignorant, because the riches and the freedom he seeks—if he is truly seeking them—are all around him. They are under his feet and perched on his shoulder; they are in public library and the corner bookstore. Truth and the riches it brings surround us every day of our lives. If we do not see them, we are poor indeed. Horace Mann put it this way: “Keep one thing forever in view—the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinions of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.” 

This is an excerpt from Earl Nightingale’s Successful Living in a Changing World, an official Nightingale-Conant publication. Known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” Earl Nightingale grew up in California during the Great Depression. Because his family was very poor, Nightingale educated himself in his local library. His main focus: what makes people turn out the way they do in terms of their wealth, their career achievements, and their happiness. After beginning his career in the US Marines during World War II, he was hired as a radio announcer. He eventually became a popular daily broadcaster for CBS. Through his interest in both personal development and audio, he partnered with Lloyd Conant to form the Nightingale-Conant Corporation, the world’s largest producer of audio programs. Sign up to receive free samples from Sound Wisdom’s Nightingale-Conant Collection here.

Freedom and Success by Jim Stovall

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For over 20 years, my column has been read each week by people around the world. The readers of the Winners’ Wisdom columns represent a multitude of nationalities, faiths, creeds, and cultures.  

If you have been a reader of mine for any length of time, you know that I believe that our success is greatly a product of our own attitude, effort, and ingenuity; however, this belief presumes that you live in a free and open society.  

In the two decades I have been writing Winners’ Wisdom, technology has changed the world. In the mid-1990s, most of the readers of my weekly columns accessed my message via a print publication such as a magazine or newspaper. Today because of the Internet, a diverse group of people around the globe read this weekly offering via the Internet. Many of these new online readers live in countries where they face resistance and oppression toward their success, freedom, and happiness.  

Freedom is an often-misunderstood word. We all grasp the concept of being able to do what we want to do and when we want to do it, but our ideas of freedom often get confused when we think of other people’s liberty, particularly when it relates to those with whom we disagree. The great American patriot Thomas Paine, said, “He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his own enemy from oppression.”  

If you and I believe in liberty and enjoy our own freedom to succeed or fail on our own terms, we must not only tolerate those with whom we disagree, but we must be willing to fight for their rights as well as our own. I believe a true patriot and lover of liberty should be able to readily identify and articulate several beliefs, positions, and practices they disagree with personally but would defend vigorously.  

I’m a voracious reader and find that I gain more enlightenment and deeper learning when reading books written by authors with whom I disagree. In many cases, I find that our areas of disagreement aren’t as deep as I thought they were, and as I begin to understand the motives behind other people’s mission and message, I find a lot of common ground. There is a phrase generally attributed to Native American wisdom that says, “Don’t judge a man unless you have walked a mile in his moccasins.”  

Many times, issues boil down to right versus wrong; in which case, we must stand up for what is right. But sometimes that which we think is wrong is merely a different perspective.  

As you go through your day today, celebrate your own freedom by protecting the freedom of others. 

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor). This and other motivational pieces by Jim can be found in Wisdom for Winners Volume Three, an official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. You can listen to the audiobook here on Audible or purchase your electronic or print copy wherever books are sold.

Our Changing World by Earl Nightingale

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If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. —Benjamin Franklin 

Machines become obsolete because they are unable to change. Times change—they must and will, with ever-accelerating momentum. As they do, the machines of today will be outdated. But human beings are not machines, however fond they are of acting like them; they can change. 

Never before in the history of humankind has it been so necessary as it is today for us to develop a new awareness of ourselves with respect to our changing world. We need to face the fact that in the world of tomorrow, jobs will be radically different; many will be eliminated entirely. What can we do about it? We can take the advice of the former president of the University of Chicago, Robert M. Hutchins: “We can learn!” If we refuse to learn, if we insist on acting like machines, we may find ourselves idle tomorrow. 

Every job is part of a much larger organization. Organizations and industries don’t die; they  just change. The industry that once manufactured covered wagons is still here, but today it is making engines, tractors, and automobiles. 

The minute a person stops learning, our world will begin to pass them by. 

Let us say that through a set of circumstances a young man finds himself working as an attendant in a service station. He might wish he had done things differently, but it does no good to brood over the past. These are the facts: he is working in a service station. He wants to get married and have a home and children. And to do this, he decides that he must earn more money. His first inclination is to look around for a job that pays more. But before he moves to a different job, he should be aware that the move entails not only earning more, but also learning a good deal more than he now knows. Otherwise, the chances are he will be no better off than he is pumping gas. 

I think that instead of just looking at his job, he should look at the whole industry of which it is a part. In our example, this is the petroleum industry, one of the world’s largest and most profitable. Without leaving his job for the present, he could spend his free time studying the industry he is already in. Now, instead of being a service station attendant, he is a trainee in a major industry. He no longer has just a job; he has his foot on the first rung of what can be a fine and extremely rewarding career. By sticking with his studies and doing an outstanding job when he is working, he will soon be able to marry and have that home and, in time, anything else he wants. Learning is the answer. 

The same thing applies to the person working in the supermarket, the local factory, or as a salesperson. Naturally, it is best to stay in school, for school is the best place to learn. But for those who have dropped out, the answer is the same: Learn! Learn all you can and keep learning, whether you are 16 or 60, and you will find your way—a way infinitely more interesting and substantially more rewarding—in this changing world of ours. 

The minute a person stops learning, our world will begin to pass them by. They will be left a lonely and disconsolate figure in its wake. To learn or not to learn is a decision each of us must make. 

This is an exclusive excerpt from Earl Nightingale’s Successful Living in a Changing World, an official Nightingale-Conant publication recently released by Sound Wisdom. Known as the “Dean of Personal Development,” Earl Nightingale grew up in California during the Great Depression. Because his family was very poor, Nightingale educated himself in his local library. His main focus: what makes people turn out the way they do in terms of their wealth, their career achievements, and their happiness. After beginning his career in the US Marines during World War II, he was hired as a radio announcer. He eventually became a popular daily broadcaster for CBS. Through his interest in both personal development and audio, he partnered with Lloyd Conant to form the Nightingale-Conant Corporation, the world’s largest producer of audio programs.

Pre-crastination by Jim Stovall

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One of my treasured friends and mentors, Dr. Denis Waitley, is among the greatest success authors and speakers of our time. He often describes a mythical, magical place he calls Someday Isle (Someday I’ll). Denis describes Someday Isle as a tropical paradise where the gentle waves lap up onto the golden sand and the palm trees sway in the warm breeze. Someday Isle would be a paradise on earth except for one thing: nothing ever happens. Someday Isle is the place unsuccessful people go in their minds when they tell themselves and other people, “Someday, I’ll do…” Just like the island, someday never comes. 

Our lives are the accumulated total of the things we do, not the things we thought about doing, meant to do, wanted to do, or were going to do when we got time. Procrastination kills dreams, success, and goals. For years, I thought the ideal would be to do everything on time and when I had it scheduled. Then, I discovered pre-crastination. Expert sources tell me that there are over 300,000 words in the English language. Regular readers of these columns in newspapers, magazines, and online publications around the world know that there are occasions when the supply of words in the English language is not sufficient for me, so I create a new word. 

Our lives are the accumulated total of the things we do, not the things we thought about doing, meant to do, wanted to do, or were going to do when we got time.   

Pre-crastination is the act of taking something we were going to do at a point in the future and doing it now. This column you are reading will be sent out to thousands of sources around the world in the normal weekly rotation we established when this Winners’ Wisdom column became syndicated. Even though my column goes out each week, I decided years ago to pre-crastinate. Therefore, these words were written approximately six months before you are reading them.  

Pre-crastination is a way to pay it forward to ourselves. When today’s schedule permits, I often pre-crastinate and do something I had slated to do days, weeks, or even months in the future. Pre-crastination will allow you to rarely, if ever, have to deal with deadlines. If you’ve ever been invited to attend a once-in-a-lifetime event in your personal or professional life but found that you didn’t have time, you are not a victim of your current calendar as much as you have failed to pre-crastinate.    

Calendars and “to-do” lists exist to serve us. When we do not follow the minimal schedule we have set for ourselves, we have set ourselves up for failure. When we follow our own schedule, we are doing what is expected and can anticipate average or mediocre results. But, when we pre-crastinate, we are doing what the great author and thought leader Napoleon Hill described as going the extra mile. If you will invest the best of your efforts in every minute, hour, and day of your life, your investment will pay off far beyond your wildest dreams.   

As you go through your day today, do everything you have scheduled, then pre-crastinate. 

Today’s the day! 

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including the Wisdom for Winners series. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).

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.

“The Art of Concentration” by Napoleon Hill

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First: When you wish to be sure of your ability to recall a sense impression, such as a name, date, or place, be sure to make the impression vivid by concentrating your attention upon it to the finest detail. An effective way to do this is to repeat, several times, that which you wish to remember. Just as a photographer must give an “exposure” proper time to record itself on the sensitized plate of the camera, so must we give the subconscious mind time to record properly and clearly any sense impression that we wish to be able to recall with readiness. 

Second: Associate that which you wish to remember with some other object, name, place, or date with which you are quite familiar, and which you can easily recall when you wish,—for example, the name of your home town, your close friend, the date of your birth, etc.—for your mind will then file away the sense impression that you wish to be able to recall with the one that you can easily recall, so that when bringing forth one into the conscious mind, it brings also the other one with it. 

 Third: Repeat that which you wish to remember a number of times, at the same time concentrating your mind upon it, just as you would fix your mind on a certain hour at which you wished to arise in the morning, which, as you know, insures your awakening at that precise hour. 

The law of association is the most important feature of a well-trained memory, yet it is a very simple law. All you have to do to make use of it is to record the name of that which you wish to remember with the name of that which you can readily remember, and the recalling of one brings with it the other. 

Your ability to train your memory, or to develop a desired habit, is a matter solely of being able to fix your attention on a given subject until the outline of that subject has been thoroughly impressed upon the “sensitized plate” of your mind. 

Concentration itself is nothing but a matter of control of the attention! 

Learn to fix your attention on a given subject, at will, for whatever length of time you choose, and you will have learned the secret passageway to power and plenty! 

This is concentration! 

This is an exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s The Law of Success. This official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation offers a condensed version of Hill’s original 8-volume work that established his Law of Success philosophy. Curated by the executive board of the Napoleon Hill Foundation, it is the best distillation of Hill’s seminal work. It is available from Sound Wisdom on March 23, 2021. Preorder your copy now!

The Most Crucial Trait for Success Is Also the Most Underdeveloped One: An exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Self-Confidence Formula

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What is the most crucial trait for determining an individual’s success in life? 

• Desire? 

• Definiteness of purpose? 

• Faith? 

• A positive mental attitude? 

What if there were a quality whose presence energized all these other success requisites—and whose absence rendered them innocuous?  

According to Napoleon Hill, there is such a foundational attribute, one that both contributes to and results from all principles of individual achievement that came to form his Law of Success philosophy. As he exclaims: 

Try as hard as you wish and you cannot be happy unless you BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! Work with all the strength at your command and you cannot accumulate more than barely enough to live on unless you BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! 

The one and only person in all this world through whose efforts you can be supremely happy UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, and through whose labor you can accumulate all the material wealth that you can use legitimately, is YOURSELF! 

Self-confidence might rightly be understood as the backbone of Hill’s success system. But despite how crucial it is for prosperity and happiness, this characteristic is significantly underdeveloped in most individuals. 

The majority of human beings in today’s world move through life aimlessly and dejectedly, casting their eyes on the ground rather than up and ahead to the financial, spiritual, and emotional riches they could claim. They allow external opinions to dictate how they see themselves and how they see the world. Their passivity permits negative thoughts to infiltrate their subconscious mind, which then undermines them by working to translate those dominating ideas into reality. As a result, people without self-confidence drift through life, endlessly dissatisfied with their circumstances and using this unrest as an alibi for their poor self-regard. 

The time for self-doubt and self-criticism is over. Your faith in yourself and your ability to attain your chief desire make the difference between your success and failure. Hanging in the balance are your emotional and financial security. It’s time to begin a journey of discovering, acknowledging, and sharing your strengths so that you can regain the energy and motivation you need to achieve your goals. 

This is an exclusive excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s Self-Confidence Formula. This official publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation equips you with the strategies recommended by Hill for controlling your thoughts in order to boost self-confidence. It is available from Sound Wisdom on March 16, 2021. Preorder your copy now.

The Mystery of Life by Jim Stovall

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Control is an illusion. We seek to plan, organize, and manage every area of our lives. While I am a big advocate of financial plans, exercise and health habits, as well as managing the various areas of risk, life is often chaotic and unpredictable. The poet Robert Frost said, “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”   

In psychological studies of happiness and satisfaction, researchers found that people with predictable and mundane lives were unhappy, but, ironically, people with some of the most adventurous and unpredictable lives were also unhappy. As in most things, the researchers found that people with a moderate amount of adventure combined with periods of stability were found to be the happiest and most fulfilled.  

The only things we can control are our efforts and our attitudes. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can always determine what we are going to do about it. Recently, I’ve undertaken a study of stoicism, and I’m finding that the philosophy has a lot of merit. Stoics are people who endeavor to face life without emotional swings. Mr. Spock of Star Trek-fame comes to mind. Stoics understand that the best of times are fleeting and the worst of times are often filled with great opportunity.  

Success is more about making the whole world a better place than trying to improve our own world. 

There’s an element of faith in finding the silver lining within every raincloud. I had the privilege of interviewing the legendary football coach Lou Holtz. He expressed his faith and optimism by saying, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.” 

Long-time readers of these columns know that I believe we need only three things to be happy: something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. We can find all of these elements in the best of times as well as in the worst of times. Success is more about making the whole world a better place than trying to improve our own world. Happiness and joy are much more of a decision than a condition of life. We must enjoy the good times, remain optimistic during the bad times, and celebrate it all. 

As you go through your day today, accept every mystery of life as a grand adventure. 

Today’s the day!  

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including The Gift of Giving, co-authored with Don Green, executive director and CEO of the Napoleon Hill Foundation. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).

How to Get the Exact Position You Desire by Jennifer Janechek

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Seven steps to your dream job

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill informs readers that “your achievement can be no greater than your plans are sound.” The sixth “step to riches,” then, is organized planning. In order to attain your life purpose—or what Hill terms your “definite major purpose”—you must create and implement plans characterized by definiteness. 

A new publication by Sound Wisdom and the Napoleon Hill Foundation, Think and Grow Rich in Ten Minutes a Day, distills Hill’s success philosophy so that the busy modern reader can quickly and effectively study and put into practice the greatest personal development program of all time. One of the many insights covered in this book is how to create plans to obtain the exact position you desire. Hill’s seven steps are as follows:  

1. Determine the exact job you want. If it doesn’t exist, create the position yourself. 

2. Select the company or individual for which/whom you intend to work. 

3. Research this company or individual extensively.

4. Analyze your talents and capabilities to determine what exactly you can offer this company or individual. 

5. Do not worry about whether there is a current job posting or position available; focus on the value you can add. 

6. Write—or hire someone to write—a cover letter that explains in detail your plan for providing the company/individual with specific benefits through your services. 

7. Identify the proper person with authority to whom you can send your letter (and résumé). 

As Hill’s advice intimates, many individuals focus more on themselves in their cover letter and interview than on the company. Instead, you should frame your skills and experience in terms of the value they bring to the organization to which you’re applying. That’s where your research will come in handy. Explain not only how you possess the competencies identified on the job ad but also how your values align with those of the company. And be as specific as possible: the more concrete examples you can give for how you plan to add value, the better. 

Hill firmly believed in the importance of choosing a job purposefully rather than “falling into” the first one that offers you a paycheck. Even if necessity drives you into a position that is not your desired one, you can approach it as an opportunity to build your résumé and skills while searching for another—using the seven steps above—with definiteness.  

For more concise, easy-to-implement success principles from the most well-known achievement philosophy of all time, order your copy of Think and Grow Rich in Ten Minutes a Day, available on November 17, 2020, from Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Porchlight Books, Apple Books, Google Play, and other fine retailers. For the latest from the Napoleon Hill Collection, including free book and audiobook samples, visit this webpage.