Page 45 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use,
and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of
my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness,
and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative
attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe
in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.

45

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH

I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud
once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and
ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

Back of this formula is a law of Nature which no man has yet been able to explain.
It has baffled the scientists of all ages. The psychologists have named this law
"auto-suggestion," and let it go at that.

The name by which one calls this law is of little importance. The important fact
about it is-it WORKS for the glory and success of mankind, IF it is used construc-
tively. On the other hand, if used destructively, it will destroy just as readily. In
this statement may be found a very significant truth, namely; that those who go
down in defeat, and end their lives in poverty, misery, and distress, do so because
of negative application of the principle of auto-suggestion.

The cause may be found in the fact that ALL IMPULSES OF THOUGHT HAVE A
TENDENCY TO CLOTHE THEMSELVES IN THEIR PHYSICAL EQUIVALENT.

The subconscious mind, (the chemical laboratory in which all thought impulses
are combined, and made ready for translation into physical reality), makes no
distinction between constructive and destructive thought impulses. It works with
the material we feed it, through our thought impulses. The subconscious mind
will translate into reality a thought driven by FEAR just as readily as it will trans-
late into reality a thought driven by COURAGE, or FAITH.

The pages of medical history are rich with illustrations of cases of "suggestive sui-
cide." A man may commit suicide through negative suggestion, just as effectively
as by any other means. In a midwestern city, a man by the name of Joseph Grant,
a bank official, "borrowed" a large sum of the bank's money, without the consent
of the directors. He lost the money through gambling. One afternoon, the Bank
Examiner came and began to check the accounts. Grant left the bank, took a room
in a local hotel, and when they found him, three days later, he was lying in bed,
wailing and moaning, repeating over and over these words, "My God, this will kill
me! I cannot stand the disgrace." In a short time he was dead. The doctors pro-
nounced the case one of "mental suicide."