Think and Grow Rich Breakdown: Thoughts are Things

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is a staple in the personal development space and is an excellent resource for goal setting and staying determined during the up and down that can occur when trading. Hill spent over 20 years and interviewed and studied hundreds of the most successful people in America to see what qualities, characteristics, and habits to see what made a successful person and if we could replicate it. Although we encourage each of you to read this book, we also want to highlight and extract ideas, quotes and concepts that we think could be beneficial to you specifically as a forex trader. We will break down this book chapter by chapter to give you the full picture of how to think and grow rich.

 

Thoughts Are Things

 

“TRULY, “thoughts are things,” and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”

 

Have you ever had an idea? Whether large or small, the only thing that separates the unsuccessful and the highly successful are their ideas and the way they pursue them. Hill says that thoughts aren’t just musing of the mind, but they are literal things that, when we apply purpose, persistence and burning desire, can be converted from an idea we have into a physical realization. 

 

“An intangible impulse of thought can be transmuted into its physical counterpart by the application of known principles.”

 

A recipe is a set of instruction used to achieve a particular outcome. We all have followed a food recipe at some time in our lives. We also know that if we perform the recipe for a cake, we will get cake and no macaroni and cheese. We understand that the steps we take will lead to the outcome we desire. Hill says that there is a recipe for the success that we desire and we can accomplish it in the manner we desire if we simply follow his instructions.

 

“One sound idea is all that one needs to achieve success…Success comes to those who become SUCCESS CONSCIOUS.”

 

This is the crux of this book. Success isn’t something that happens because you simply “hustle”, “grind” or work long hours with no sleep. If your mind is not primed for success, all your efforts will be performed in vain. Success, like all other things, begins in the mind. We have to attack the mental aspect of achieving a goal first before the physical can be of a significant result.

 

“One of these is DESIRE: knowing what one wants.”

 

Who cares if you can achieve whatever you want if you have no idea what you want to achieve. Right now, take out a sheet of paper and write down the goals you want to achieve in your education(learning), in your trading and your investing. Write at least 3 down for each. This exercise will help you discover what you want and determine what is important for you to achieve. This entire book is for naught if you don’t have any goals in mind. Below I have written out some of my goals in the areas of learning, trading and investing.

Learn

• I will have 3 of my heroes to become my mentors (Kanye West, Will Smith, Gerard Adams)
• I will impact the lives of 3,000,000 people for the better
• I will obtain a cleaner’s mentality (Check out Tim Grover’s Relentless)

Invest

• I will invest in my wife to empower her and help her become the best woman, wife, and mother she can be
• I will obtain a “passively” yearly 5% return of $250,000 due to my investments
• I will personally invest in the lives 100 people and teach them how to become their definition of successful

Trade

• I will ride the markets instead of trying to fight them
• I will become a 7-figure forex trader
• I will follow my trading plan every day

I hope you all will enjoy this series breaking down this wonderful book and please let us know if you have any additional quotes you like to talk about or would like further clarification on.

Thanks for reading,

Matthew