It’s time to dive back into the history of self-help and consider its impact on our understanding of how and who we are. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we are looking at the 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.



Think and Grow Rich sits on millions of bookshelves worldwide. It has remained one of the most enduring self-help books since its publication during the Great Depression. Despite documented controversies and allegations concerning the author, Napoleon Hill is still regarded by many contemporary self-help influencers as an important figure.



For this special episode, Napoleon Hill invited me to meet with him, where he promised to reveal the secret to becoming a successful self-help guru. He tasked me with turning this into a formula, which I could then share with the world. If you are ready to hear this secret, you will. But not all are. Which is why, despite it being mentioned in every part of the episode, I have not spelt it out in the starkest terms. For to do so would diminish its potency.




https://youtu.be/Cn6H17AFwPU








12 Steps To Thinking and Growing Rich as a Self-Help Influencer



We will explore these twelve keys to becoming a successful self-help grifter—sorry, I mean self-help guru—that we can learn from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.



Step 1: Lay Out Your Recipe for Success



Your recipe should promise clarity, control, and a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.



Step 2: Parade Yourself As Living Proof



Don’t be shy about telling people how your life changed from implementing your now tried and tested formula.



Step 3: Build Fail-Safe Principles



Be flexible with your words so that in the face of pushback and criticism, you can use them as reinforcement rather than undermining your idea.



Step 4: Establish Your Inner Circle



Join (or build) a fortifed circle of mutual back-scratching allies to grow authority by association and encourage aspirational sycophancy in your readers who dream of one day belonging to it.



Step 5: Drip Your Secret Sauce



Create and nurture a mystical secret, which sustains in your reader the sense that there is still something graspable they haven’t quite embodied - reinforce this with testimonials from those who appear to get it



Step 6: Nail Your Origin Story



Your appeal hinges on your origin story, which should follow a hero’s journey arc that starts with you in the reader’s current position (facing a challenge, wishing for change, etc). Describe the moment when everything changed for you and how this epiphany led your life to transform into what it is now. Firmly suggest that reading your book might be that wake-up call for the reader’s own heroic journey towards the life they’ve dreamed of but never yet dared follow.



Step 7: Use Confidence as Currency



Speak with confidence even if you are full of doubt and fear. The human mind is suggestible; the projection of confidence creates the perception of confidence. If you believe in your idea, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; you know that it’s for the ultimate good of your reader to trust and follow you. Confidence is also what you are selling - people want to feel more of it, so if they see you wearing it, they will follow you.



Step 8: Turn Your Beliefs into Facts



Reinforce a picture of the world your readers want to believe in.