Few books have changed as many lives as Think and Grow Rich. Sold in the tens of millions since 1937, it has shaped generations of entrepreneurs, salespeople, and ordinary people who decided not to stay ordinary. Behind it stands one man: Napoleon Hill.
Around this book there is a legend, and a method. We'll share both honestly, because the legend is disputed, but the method has proven itself in the lives of those who truly apply it.
Who was Napoleon Hill?
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) was an American author who devoted his life to a single question: why do some people succeed while others don't? He claimed he was commissioned in 1908 by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie to study hundreds of successful men over twenty years and draw from them a philosophy of success.
Let's be honest with you, as always here: that story is disputed by historians. Hill only began telling it after Carnegie's death in 1919, and Carnegie's definitive biographer, David Nasaw, found no trace of the meeting. So we won't lean on the legend.
But here's the point that matters: you can doubt the story without doubting the method. What counts isn't whether Carnegie really gave the starting signal, it's what the book has produced in those who took it seriously.
The core idea: your thoughts shape your life
The whole book rests on one conviction, captured in its most famous line:
"Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937)
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Hill actually opened his book with three now-famous words: "thoughts are things." For him, a clear desire, charged with emotion and held until it becomes an obsession, turns into action, then into results. It's the same chain Haanel and Goddard taught, spoken in the language of business.
The method: desire and the six steps
Hill doesn't settle for a principle, he gives a protocol. Everything starts with desire:
"The starting point of all achievement is desire."
Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, Chapter 2 (1937)
The starting point of all achievement is desire. And to turn that desire into reality, he offers six simple steps:
- Fix exactly what you want. Not "more money," but a precise goal.
- Decide what you'll give in return. Nothing is gained without an exchange.
- Set a date. A goal with no deadline stays a wish.
- Build a definite plan and begin at once, whether you feel ready or not.
- Write it all down, in a clear statement.
- Read your statement aloud, twice a day, morning and night, seeing and feeling yourself already in possession of your goal.
You'll notice the last two steps are nothing but a daily ritual of writing and visualization. Hill understood, before neuroscience did, that repeating an emotionally charged intention eventually engraves it into the subconscious.
Those who applied it
This is why the legend hardly matters. Look at the fruits instead.
Bob Proctor, who became one of the world's leading figures in personal development, said this book, discovered in 1961 when he was a firefighter in debt, turned his life completely around. He carried it with him for decades. Earl Nightingale drew from it his famous recording The Strangest Secret, one of the most listened to in history. W. Clement Stone, an insurance magnate, made it his philosophy and partnered with Hill to pass it on.
Tens of millions of readers, across nearly a century, have found in these pages the spark that set them in motion. These are not the proofs of a myth. They are the fruits of a method applied with consistency.
Why it works, without magic
Nothing supernatural here, and that's what makes the method solid. Writing a precise goal clarifies your direction. Rereading it each day tunes your attention to it, so you notice opportunities that were invisible the day before. Charging it with emotion imprints it into your subconscious. And a date plus a plan pushes you to act. Thought, feeling, action: Hill turned into a method what the whole lineage teaches. The difference between those who succeed and everyone else isn't luck, it's clarity held over time.
Putting Hill's method into practice
Hill's steps 5 and 6, writing your goal and rereading it morning and night while feeling it, need a place of their own. A stray note doesn't last. This is exactly what we built with the Manifestation and Visualization Journal: a daily framework to set your intention in the morning, feel it, and anchor it, over 90 days. It isn't just another notebook, it's the method of Hill, Haanel and Goddard brought together in an object you hold in your hands. The PDF of the full method comes free with it, and it also exists as a standalone PDF to start today.
Frequently asked questions about Napoleon Hill
Did Napoleon Hill really meet Andrew Carnegie?
That's what he claimed, but historians doubt it: he only told the story after Carnegie died, and no evidence of the meeting has been found. The book's method, however, doesn't depend on that legend to work.
What is Think and Grow Rich about?
About how a clear desire, sustained through writing, visualization, faith and action, turns into a concrete result. The book lays it out in thirteen principles, including desire, autosuggestion, persistence and the mastermind.
What is Napoleon Hill's method in short?
Six steps: fix a precise goal, decide what you'll give in return, set a date, build a plan and act at once, write it down, then read it aloud morning and night while feeling it already achieved.
Is the book connected to the law of attraction?
Yes. Hill describes the same inner chain as Haanel or Goddard: thought directs, emotion imprints, action makes it real. It's the law of attraction, in a version turned toward action.
Go further
Napoleon Hill belongs to the lineage we explore:
- Write Your Future: Napoleon Hill's method the six-step protocol in detail.
- Charles F. Haanel and The Master Key System the origin of the chain thought, feeling, action.
The legend can be debated. The method is meant to be practiced.
Fix your goal, write it, feel it, act.
That's how you think and grow.
Sources: Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937), introduction and Chapter 2. On the Carnegie controversy: David Nasaw, Andrew Carnegie (2006), and biographical work noting the absence of evidence for the meeting.