. The Law of Success In Sixteen Lessons By Napoleon Hill Teaching, for the First Time in the History of the World, the True Philosophy upon which all Personal Success is Built. Lesson 11 Accurate Thought Brought to you by Chris And Susan Beesley Click here to visit my website and get more free eBooks and information. Click here if you would like to have a personalized copy of this eBook so you can make money by giving it away for free! You have permission to distribute this eBook in printed or electronic form as long as no changes are made and it is distributed in whole – every page must be included. This eBook publication was created with extracted material from the complete and original 1928 version of The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill that is in the public domain in the United States. However, it may not be in the public domain in other countries. If you are outside the U.S. then make sure you check the copyright laws in your country before you distribute or keep a copy of this eBook. This new enhanced eBook edition is copyright protected. Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. If you have any questions please contact us at http://www.profittips.com/contact.html 1 The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . About the Author Napoleon Hill was born into poverty in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. When he was 13 he began his writing career as a "mountain reporter" for small town newspapers and went on to become one of America's most beloved motivational authors. He dedicated more than 25 years of his life to define the reasons why so many people fail to achieve true financial success and happiness in their life. His big break came in 1908 when Robert L. Taylor former Governor of Tennessee and owner of Bob Taylor's Magazine employed Hill to write "success stories" about famous men. Hill's first assignment was to interview one of the richest men in the world, the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. During the interview Carnegie asked Hill if he wanted the opportunity to organize the World's first philosophy of individual achievement based upon the principles of success that he and other self-made millionaires had used to accumulate their vast fortunes. Carnegie explained that the task would require years of work and that he would only pay Hill's expenses because he wanted to make sure Hill would learn the philosophy and prove it worked through his own success and financial achievements. Hill accepted the task, so Carnegie commissioned Hill to interview over 500 millionaires, and with Carnegie's help Hill formulated a philosophy of success (The Law of Success), which was a success formula for the average person. "The Law of Success in 16 Lessons" was Hill's first book set. It was originally published in 1925 as a multi-volume study course, and it was re-released in 1928 in an abridged version under the title "The Law of Success". The Law of Success later evolved into Napoleon Hill's personal success teachings that were called "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, capitalism, democracy, and harmony to be important elements of this philosophy. Napoleon Hill passed away in November 1970 after a long and successful career writing, teaching, and lecturing about the principles of success. His work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. Perhaps no other "success" book has influenced more people than Napoleon Hill's 1937 classic "Think and Grow Rich" which is an outstanding follow-up to The Law of Success. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.:,;-_!"'#+~*@§$%&/\´`^°|µ()=?[]123467890 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.:,;-_!"'#+~*@§$%&/\´`^°|µ()=?[]123467890 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.:,;-_!"'#+~*@§$%&/\´`^°|µ()=?[]123467890 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.:,;-_!"'#+~*@§$%&/\´`^°|µ()=?[]123467890 2 The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . Lesson Eleven ACCURATE THOUGHT 3 - 3 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . IT is pardonable to tell your friends, by tact- ful suggestion, of your needs, but take care not to ask them outright for assistance if you would retain their friendship. 4 - 4 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . THE LAW OF SUCCESS Lesson Eleven ACCURATE THOUGHT "You Can Do It if You Believe You Can!” THIS is at one and the same time the most important, the most interesting and the most difficult to present lesson of this entire course on the Law of Success. It is important because it deals with a principle which runs through the entire course. It is interesting for the same reason. It is difficult to present for the reason that it will carry the average student far beyond the boundary line of his common experiences and into a realm of thought in which he is not accustomed to dwell. Unless you study this lesson with an open mind, you will miss the very key-stone to the arch of this course, and without this stone you can never complete your Temple of Success. This lesson will bring you a conception of thought which may carry you far above the level to which you have risen by the evolutionary processes to which you have been subjected in the past; and, for this reason, you should not be disappointed if, at first 5 - 5 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . reading, you do not fully understand it. Most of us disbelieve that which we cannot understand, and it is with knowledge of this human tendency in mind that I caution you against closing your mind if you do not grasp all that is in this lesson at the first reading. For thousands of years men made ships of wood, and of nothing else. They used wood because they believed that it was the only substance that would float; but that was because they had not yet advanced far enough in their thinking process to understand the truth that steel will float, and that it is far superior to wood for the building of ships. They did not know that anything could float which was lighter than the amount of water is displaced, and until they learned of this great truth they went on making ships of wood. Until some twenty-five years ago, most men thought that only the birds could fly, but now we know that man can not only equal the flying of the birds, but he can excel it. Men did not know, until quite recently, that the great open void known as the air is more alive and more sensitive than anything that is on the earth. They did not know that the spoken word would travel through the ether with the speed of a flash of lightning, without the aid of wires. How could they know this when their minds had not been unfolded sufficiently to enable them to grasp it? The purpose of this lesson is to aid you in so unfolding and expanding your mind that you will be able to think with accuracy, for this unfoldment will open to you a door that leads to all the power you will need in completing your Temple of Success. 6 - 6 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . All through the preceding lessons of this course you observed that we have dealt with principles which any one could easily grasp and apply. You will also observe that these principles have been so presented that they lead to success as measured by material wealth. This seemed necessary for the reason that to most people the word success and the word money are synonymous terms. Obviously, the previous lessons of this course were intended for those who look upon worldly things and material wealth as being all that there is to success. Presenting the matter in another way, I was conscious of the fact that the majority of the students of this course would feel disappointed if I pointed out to them a roadway to success that leads through other than the doorways of business, and finance, and industry; for it is a matter of common knowledge that most men want success that is spelled $UCCE$$! Very well - let those who are satisfied with this standard of success have it; but some there are who will want to go higher up the ladder, in search of success which is measured in other than material standards, and it is for their benefit in particular that this and the subsequent lessons of this course are intended. · · · · · · · · Accurate thought involves two fundamentals which all who indulge in it must observe. First, to think accurately you must separate facts from mere information. There is much "information" available to you that is not based upon facts. Second, you must separate facts into two classes; namely, the important 7 - 7 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . and the unimportant, or, the relevant and the irrelevant. Only by so doing can you think clearly. All facts which you can use in the attainment of your definite chief aim are important and relevant; all that you cannot use are unimportant and irrelevant. It is mainly the neglect of some to make this distinction which accounts for the chasm which separates so widely people who appear to have equal ability, and who have had equal opportunity. Without going outside of your own circle of acquaintances you can point to one or more persons who have had no greater opportunity than you have had, and who appear to have no more, and perhaps less, ability than you, who are achieving far greater success. And you wonder why! Search diligently and you will discover that all such people have acquired the habit of combining and using the important facts which affect their line of work. Far from working harder than you, they are perhaps working less and with greater ease. By virtue of their having learned the secret of separating the important facts from the unimportant, they have provided themselves with a sort of fulcrum and lever with which they can move with their little fingers loads that you cannot budge with the entire weight of your body. The person who forms the habit of directing his attention to the important facts out of which he is constructing his Temple of Success, thereby provides himself with a power which may be likened to a trip- hammer which strikes a ten-ton blow as compared to a tack-hammer which strikes a one-pound blow! If these similes appear to be elementary you must 8 - 8 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . keep in mind the fact that some of the students of this course have not yet developed the capacity to think in more complicated terms, and to try to force them to do so would be the equivalent of leaving them hopelessly behind. That you may understand the importance of distinguishing between facts and mere information, study that type of man who is guided entirely by that which he hears; the type who is influenced by all the "whisperings of the winds of gossip"; that accepts, without analysis, all that he reads in the newspapers and judges others by what their enemies and competitors and contemporaries say about them. Search your circle of acquaintances and pick out one of this type as an example to keep before your mind while we are on this subject. Observe that this man usually begins his conversation with some such term as this - "I see by the papers," or "they say." The accurate thinker knows that the newspapers are not always accurate in their reports, and he also knows that what "they say" usually carries more falsehood than truth. If you have not risen above the "I see by the papers," and the "they say" class, you have still far to go before you become an accurate thinker. Of course, much truth and many facts travel in the guise of idle gossip and newspaper reports; but the accurate thinker will not accept as such all that he sees and hears. This is a point which I feel impelled to emphasize, for the reason that it constitutes the rocks and reefs on which so many people flounder and go down to defeat in a bottomless ocean of false conclusions. In the realm of legal procedure, there is a 9 - 9 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved. . THE great Edison failed ten thousand times before he made the incandescent electric light work. Do not become discouraged and "quit" if you fail once or twice before making your plans work. 10 - 10 - The Law of Success - Copyright © 2010 ProfitTips.com All Rights Reserved.