Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) was an American journalist who spent two decades researching 500 successful people such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison to establish an organized system of Personal Achievement.

Napoleon Hill’s Rules of Personal Success

1. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is near the top of the list of causes of failure.

2. Master the negative habits which stand between you and success. Develop the positive habits you’ll need in order to succeed. That is, the positive habits that will lead to sound health, peace of mind, and a positive mental attitude.

3. Write out this phrase and place it where you can see it often: “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Start each day by conditioning your mind so that you go throughout the day with a positive mental attitude. Always keep your mind engaged in thinking of what you want. Refuse to think of those things which you do not want.

4. Achieve self-mastery over your thoughts, and constantly direct them toward your goals and objectives. Learn to focus your attention on the goals that you want to achieve and on finding ways to achieve those goals.

5. Exercise self-discipline over all of your emotions. Emotions are states of mind and, therefore, they’re subject to your control and direction. By learning self-mastery over your thoughts, you can achieve self-mastery over your emotions.

6. Don’t allow trivial matters to turn into major controversies. Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into arguments over unimportant subjects.

7. When overtaken by defeat, remember that man’s faith is tested many times before he’s crowned with final victory. Accept your defeat as nothing more than a challenge to keep trying.

8. Whenever you have a problem, concentrate your attention on the “can-do” portion of the problem. Then, begin to act where you stand and do what you can in order to solve the problem. Learn to transmute all unpleasant circumstances into a positive mental attitude by switching your thoughts to something that you find pleasant. Focus on the pleasant thoughts for five minutes in order to change your mental attitude from negative to positive.

9. Look upon your life as a continuous process of education, of learning from all of your experiences—both the good and the bad. Be always on the alert for gains of wisdom which come to you a little at a time from both your pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

10. Accept all criticism of yourself as an opportunity for self-examination to determine how much of it is justified.

11. Remember always that there are two types of circumstances which cause you to worry: those you can do something about, and those you can do nothing about. The only thing you can do about circumstances you cannot influence is to refuse to allow them to worry you.

12. Your success is something that you’re going to have to achieve for yourself, without someone telling you what to do or how to do it. Those who amount to something worthwhile in life are those who move on their own personal initiative. 

13. Adopt the habit of having a good-hearted laugh every time you become irritated or angry. Begin each day with one minute of hearty laughing; this will change the chemistry of your brain and start you off with a positive mental attitude.

■ Napoleon Hill Trading Rules

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