Law Of Success: Part III

Welcome to the conclusion of this special three part series commemorating the 21st Century Edition of Napoleon Hill's landmark work on success, "Law of Success," which reveals the 17 Principles of Success that can help take your life to the next level. These are proven principles based on  25 years of research and personal studies into the lives of over 500 of the world’s greatest achievers.

 

Law of Success Part I and Part II covered the first 11 of these principles. (To read Part I and Part II, visit the blog archives). Law of Success Part III will now conclude with the remaining 6 of these valuable, time-tested principles, which can help you, succeed in all areas of your life.

 

Principle # 12: Concentration

 

“Concentration is the act of focusing the mind on a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation.” – Napoleon Hill

 

In this age of mass communications, we are beginning to face a global epidemic of mass distraction that is becoming dangerous – and in some cases lethal. (The rising pedestrian and motor vehicle driver deaths due to the host of electronic distractions are just one sad example).

 

PSA: Don’t text while driving. A text isn’t worth your life, or worse, the life of someone who had nothing to do with your conversation.

 

The Weapons of Mass Distraction available to us are just overwhelming: email, cell phones, pagers, text messaging, video games, GPS navigational systems, video games, DVD players, TV, web cams, blackberries, faxes, ipods, and the explosion of social networking sites, just to name a few. (When used intelligently these tools can be powerful, but when used ineffectively, they become what I call, “Weapons of Mass Distraction!”

 

For concentration to be effective, Hill states that it is vitally important to keep your mind focused on ONE subject until you’ve mastered it; to focus on ONE given problem until you’ve solved that problem.

 

What I find helps is starting a task with a burst of energy and enthusiasm which will provide the momentum to complete the task successfully, in this age of sensory overload, some sensory deprivation might be in order.

 

Hill recommends that you set some time everyday where you can enter a quiet place, close your eyes, and put your fingers in your ears, blocking all light and sound, and just repeat your chief goal and see yourself in full possession of the goal that you are trying to reach.

 

I would go as far as to say that you need to take at least one day, or even a weekend per month to distress.

 

Principle # 13: Cooperation

 

“Cooperation is the foundation of all successful leadership.” – Napoleon Hill

 

According to Napoleon Hill, there are two forms of cooperation: 1). The cooperation between a group alliance, such as a mastermind group (which was covered in my Law of Success Part I overview) to achieve a desired end, and 2). The cooperation between the conscious and subconscious minds to draw upon creative intelligence (a theme that continues throughout this overview as well as his book).

 

Power is developed through organized effort and, as they say, two heads are better than one. So for any organized effort to be successful, the harmonious cooperation of people focused on a singular purpose or goal is required.

 

Harmony is the key. And it would serve you well to study the main personality types of people before forming a team so you can bring together people who compliment each other rather than compete with each other. (“What Type Am I” by Renee Baron is a good first book to understanding personality types. I also previously mentioned Social Triggers).

 

One thing in the “Law of Success” that really struck me as powerful was an important observation Napoleon Hill had made: “A great leader is one who understands how to create a “motivating objective” that will be accepted with enthusiasm by every member of [the] group...Most people will work harder for the attainment of an ideal than they will for money.”

 

What is your company or team’s “motivating objective” or ideal? In today’s terminology (thanks to Jerry McGuire), this would be your mission statement.

 

Principle # 14: Profiting by Failure

 

"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate." -Thomas Watson, Sr. Founder of IBM

 

Profiting from failure is a topic that has been beat to death by personal development gurus so I won’t spend too much time on this principle. It’s overdone for the very same reason that there’s truth in the idea of people reaching higher levels of success by persevering and learning from failure instead of quitting.

 

It’s no accident that John D. Rockefeller felt that perseverance is the single most important quality to achieving success.

 

I’ve personally seen through the years, that success comes to leaders in almost direct proportion to the amount of adversity and failures they’ve overcome and learned from in life.

 

That old cliché, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’ applies here. Of course, I’m not saying you necessarily keep on doing the same thing expecting the same results (another definition for insanity), but what I am saying is that the only true failure out there that will hurt you is the failure to get back up and try again.

 

I don’t know how many times that I have personally thought about throwing in the towel. In fact, when we were at our lowest, I had actually worked it out in detail how to commit suicide so that it looked like an accident in order for my wife to collect the insurance…the only problem with that was we didn’t pay our policy, so it wouldn’t have paid out anyway.

 

Don’t ever give up. Failure is a learning experience similar to on-the-job training vs. schooling; on-the-job training may take longer, but you gain knowledge and real-world experience, so think of failure as on-the-life training.

 

Seek counselors and mentors that you can trust to help evaluate the effectiveness of your plans. Explore what is limiting your success by asking them how they see you limiting yourself.

 

If your first plan to achieving your goal in life does not succeed, then change the plan. Keep on changing it until you’ve reached your target, just as an ocean liner makes thousands of adjustments and coarse corrections before reaching its destination, you too should constantly re-evaluate your plan to make sure that you are still on the coarse that you want to be on.

 

Principle # 15: Tolerance

 

“Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.” – Lord Thomas Dewar

 

If we adopt a closed mind we stop acquiring knowledge. And natural law states that we are either growing or dying.

 

I don’t like the word ‘tolerance.’ I much rather prefer the term “embrace new ideas” and have an insatiable curiosity for learning other people’s customs, belief systems, and unique perspectives. I look at it as an adventure in someone else’s life.

 

In today’s society, the word tolerance has been distorted to pass off someone’s bigotry and intolerance as a justified action. For example, a white comedian lets the “N” word slip in his act, he is a racist, but the leader of the new black panthers makes the comment about killing all white cracker babies and that is freedom of speech. Tolerance is a two way street and cannot be used to justify the actions of some while condemning the actions of others.

 

Finding ways to harness cultural differences within team dynamics and organizations will be the new currency in an increasingly globalized economy.

 

Principle # 16: The Golden Rule

 

Napoleon Hill recognized that the frivolous use of power from the knowledge that is being shared with you would only backfire and be destructive to self and others. Selfish pursuit of your goal without regard for others will eventually come back to bite you.

 

We reap what we sow. What goes around comes around. Therefore, the Golden Rule is: “do unto others as you’d have done unto you”. Before doing anything, ask yourself if it will benefit or hurt the person or persons involved.

 

It’s easy to be self-centered. To transcend self, think more of what the other person wants and feels before acting, that is what Zig Ziglar is talking about when he saying “You’ll get everything out of life that you want if you help enough people get what they want.”

 

See the good in others. Catch people doing things right instead of always looking for the wrong. Kindness and justice toward others goes a long way in establishing successful business and personal relationships. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.” To help with this, I suggest a short read called The One Minute Manager.

 

Hill takes us deeper with the Golden Rule philosophy when he said, “think of others as you’d wish them to think of you.” Live this philosophy and your life will be enriched in many unforeseen ways.

 

Principle # 17: The Universal Law of Cosmic Habit-force

 

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle

 

This is one of my favorite quotes on habit. The Universal Law of Cosmic Habit-force is that intangible, unseen force which is made tangible and visible in nature. Just observe nature and you will experience Cosmic Habit-force in action.

 

When you fix in your mind a purpose consciousness focused on your chief aim in life through repetition of thoughts and deeds, Cosmic Habit-force will take over and carry it to its logical conclusion, just as an apple seed will always produce an apple tree through proper care and nurturing.

 

It takes constant vigilance, determination, and willpower to maintain that purpose consciousness, but eventually Cosmic Habit-force will always bear fruit and your life will be richly rewarded.

 

In closing this series, I’d like to point out that at the beginning of every chapter in Napoleon Hill’s “Law of Success” are the words: “You can do it if you believe you can!”

 

It’s that simple. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it really is that simple. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.” Jim Rohn said, make a goal to become a millionaire. Not for the sake of becoming a millionaire, but for what you must become to be a millionaire.” Replace bad habits with good disciplines and watch things start to change in your life.

 

Believe in yourself! Believe you can do it and move forward this day with faith and confidence.

 

I hope that you’ve benefited from this series and I’d like to encourage you to share these important principles with your friends, family, and associates. I’d also like to highly recommend getting a copy of Napoleon Hill’s “Law of Success: 21st Century Edition” to add to your personal library.

 

It’s a life-changing book, and I mean that as no exaggeration. To get your copy, visit here.