Nine years before Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich, he identified and explained the character traits, behaviors, and beliefs that came to be known as the “17 Principles of the Science of Success.”
Napoleon Hill was born in 1883 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. His work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich, is one of the best-selling books of all time. Hill established the Foundation as a nonprofit educational institution whose mission is to perpetuate his philosophy of leadership, self-motivation, and individual achievement.
“Whatever success I may have attained I owe, entirely, to the application of your 17 fundamental principles of the Law of Success. I believe I have the honor of being your first student.” -- William Wrigley, Jr., Founder, The Wrigley Company
“By applying many of the 17 fundamentals of Law of Success philosophy we have built a great chain of successful stores. I presume it would be of no exaggeration of fact if I said that the Woolworth Building might properly be called a monument to the soundness of these principles.” -- F.W. Woolworth, Founder, Woolworth stores
Below are the 17 fundamental principles of the Laws of Success in PDF form for individual download.
Principle 1: Definite Major Purpose
His success has come from setting them, reaching them and setting them again. (PDF; 289 KB)
Principle 2: Mastermind Alliance
A mastermind alliance involves two or more people who work in perfect harmony for the attainment of a definite purpose. (PDF; 313 KB)
Principle 3: Pleasing Personality
Your personality is your unique trademark. It determines your success or your failure in selling yourself. It consists of more than 30 factors, all under your control. The most important factor is your mental attitude, which must be positive to attract others to you. (PDF; 288 KB)
Principle 4: Applied Faith
Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers. A state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success. Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you. Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control. Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself. (PDF; 100 KB)
Principle 5: Go the Extra Mile
Render more and better service than you are paid for, and sooner or later you will receive compound interest from your investment. It is inevitable that every seed of useful service you sow will sprout and reward you with an abundant harvest. (PDF; 409 KB)
Principle 6: Create Personal Initiative
One of the biggest benefits from going the extra mile is the emphasis it requires you to place on personal initiative. This chapter will round out your understanding of personal initiative, and through example it will show you how to multiply that quality in yourself. (PDF; 317 KB)
Principle 7: Build a Positive Mental Attitude
A positive mental attitude is the single most important principle of the science of success. You will depend upon it in everything you do. You can't get the maximum benefit out of the other sixteen principles without understanding and employing PMA. (PDF; 317 KB)
Principle 8: Control Your Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm changes lives. Enthusiasm bears the same relationship to your PMA and your progress toward success as gasoline to a car’s engine; it is the fuel that drives things forward. In working on your PMA, you will learn to control your mind. (PDF; 410 KB)
Principle 9: Enforce Self-Discipline
The power of the will. Earlier chapters have placed heavy emphasis on the importance of taking control of your mind. This control is pivotal to your personal initiative, positive mental attitude, and controlled enthusiasm. Self-discipline is the process that ties all these efforts together for you. (PDF; 424 KB)
Principle 10: Think Accurately
Think of your mind as a piece of land. Through diligent, planned work, it can be cultivated into a beautiful and productive garden. Or it can lie fallow, overrun by weeds sprouting from seed carried by passing birds and the wind. (PDF; 329 KB)
Principle 11: Control Your Attention
By adopting a definite major purpose, you have selected an object on which you have to focus your controlled attention. Forget the old saying “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” You have to put all your eggs in one basket and concentrate your attention on protecting that basket and getting it to the market. (PDF; 402 KB)
Principle 12: Inspire Teamwork
Teamwork as a model for business. Cooperation, like love and friendship, is something you get by giving. There are many travelers on the road that leads to happiness. You will need cooperation, and they will need yours. (PDF; 320 KB)
Principle 13: Learn from Adversity and Defeat
Your attitude toward defeat. Throughout this book I’ve reminded you to look for the seed of an equivalent benefit in every defeat you experience. This isn’t always easy when you’ve suffered a setback, but it is an important part of the science of personal achievement. (PDF; 413 KB)
Principle 14: Cultivate Creative Vision
Creative vision Is needed today. Creative vision requires you to stimulate your imagination to work toward your definite major purpose and to put the results of that imagination to work. Expressed by people unafraid of criticism, creative vision is responsible for the shape of civilization today. (PDF; 225 KB)
Principle 15: Maintain Sound Health
Effective mind-body stimulants. You want to get the greatest vigor and fullest use from your body. You can do this if you understand two important points: 1. Your body and mind are one, effectively a mind-body. 2. Your mind-body is, in turn, at one with nature. (PDF; 340 KB)
Principle 16: Budget Your Time and Money
Time and money are precious resources, and few people striving for success ever believe they possess either one in excess. Understanding how you use them is an important part of evaluating your progress toward success and analyzing what may be holding you back. (PDF; 433 KB)
Principle 17: Use Cosmic Habitforce
You are where you are and what you are because of your established habits. The aim of this book has been to force you to examine those habits and to teach you ways to change them. To do this, you need to understand and apply a universal principle I call cosmic habitforce. (PDF; 433 KB)
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