“It’s ALL BEEN DEBUNKED!”
I’ve been lucky in the YouTube comment section.
My last few videos did well, and normal, good, easy-going people left comments by the hundreds.
Super cool.
But the last dozen comments or so were about an example I used from Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich.
To be fair… the guy seemed like kind of a douchenozzle.
He desperately wanted to be a business success like his idols but — instead of giving value and building something — he decided to run goofy schemes and scams and called it a “business”
(Sounds like a lot of companies today… hell, even Hunter Biden ran a crypto rugpull last week… like Jesus, man, can all of these political scum go away?)
But I digest…
Robert Kiyosaki is a dick, too.
The author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad lied. There was no “Rich Dad” and his “Poor Dad” was a wealthy superintendent of the Hawaiian public school system, all while owning a large section of Waikiki Beach!
But his “Rich Dad” was teachings from an incredible woman named D.C. Cordova and a seminar called ‘Money & U’ (where Robert was a trainer).
He got booted out when he published the book shitting on his father.
But here’s the point:
Rich Dad, Poor Dad was an awakening for millions of entrepreneurs and inspiration for my own businesses.
They say “never meet your heroes,” and when I did meet him years later, he WAS a dick. A rude, dismissive jerk. To me and a dozen of my friends (his now ex-wife was incredible, though).
But that book… made an impact.
That’s how I think about Think & Grow Rich
Forget any feelings you might have about Hill for a second…
What was the book about? 13 Principles that all successful people seem to share.
And because it was written in the 30s (almost 100 years ago now), the language is a little… old-timey?
So let me give you the 13 principles in my own personal updated language:
1/ It’s okay to want something
2/ Believe in yourself
3/ Only speak positively about yourself
4/ Get good at something
5/ Use your imagination
6/ Get organized. Have a step-by-step plan.
7/ Make better decisions
8/ Be persistent
9/ Surround yourself with supportive people
10/ If you worked as hard on your goals as you did to get laid, you’d be successful by now.
11/ Your beliefs matter
12/ Your brain picks up on positivity and negativity. Decide what you’re going to feed it.
13/ Trust your gut
None of this is groundbreaking.
But to say “this has been debunked!” is stupid.
To those people:
Stop being a sheep
Life is NOT 50% black, 50% white.
It’s 1% white
1% black
98% grey.
Every rule has an exception.
Every exception has a rule.
You’ve got to be comfortable in that grey zone.
You’ve got to be comfortable with the unknown.
You’ve got to be comfortable taking value from unsuspected places.
Hate Napoleon Hill all you want…
… but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
See you next week,
Steve
P.S. Scale & Success is my current attempt to answer the billion-dollar question. You can see what we’re building here.
P.P.S. If this gave you a better question to ask about your own business, send it to one entrepreneur who could use it.
