4 Powerful Life-Changing Lessons From Think and Grow Rich

This episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast is proudly sponsored by NZ Mortgages. You can check them out at nzmortgages.co nz. What if I told you the reason you're not where you want to be is because you're missing four key principles. These powerful lessons from Think and Grow Rich can completely transform your path to success. I encourage you to take these lessons on board. I'm James Laughlin, and on this channel we unlock your full potential through proven habits and strategies for personal mastery. I'm so fortunate that I get to sit down every single week with world leaders, people that are at the top of their game in sport, business, philanthropy. The list goes on. And they're incredible humans in their own right. And I love to really ask, you know, how do you think you know, how do you make decisions? But sometimes one of the most powerful experiences I have is when I go back to one of the classics. Good example, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Now, look, he was paid by Carnegie to interview a ton of the most successful people of his era. We're talking many, many decades ago. And he spent 25 years deeply interviewing them, trying to figure out how they tick, how they think, how they make money, how they keep it, how they give back, how they create a sense of fulfillment, how they make dreams and then turn them into plans and then bring those plans into goals and then they take care of it. So this book is an old one, but an absolute classic. I find it initially, I find it kind of, kind of difficult to get into, but once you start the ball rolling, it really unfolds from there. And it's a book I've read many times. It's a book I keep coming back to because at different stages of my life and business, it's applicable in different ways. And I see how I can apply it in different ways. So we're going to take a look here. It is Think and Grow Rich. For those that are watching on video, you'll see holding up Napoleon Hill's classic book. Go and buy a copy. You've got to have a copy. I've got a couple of copies sitting around the house. I think I moved house one time and thought I'd lost it, so I went and bought another one. But I don't think you can ever have too many of these. And just to preface it, this is not about getting ridiculously financially wealthy at the expense of people or time or health. Think and Grow Rich to me is a book about getting clear on what you want in all aspects of life. And then having a way to actually bring it into fruition. This is not about woo woo manifestation. This is about getting clear on what you want. This is about having a plan to get there and an internal belief and desire. If you call that woo woo, that's your decision. But I would say that there's so many great people that have proven this over and over. They get clear in their mind, in their mind's eye, what they want, they develop the belief and the desire, then they get after it. They do the work. There's no point sitting on a yoga mat trying to manifest something to come to you and it automatically arrives. That doesn't happen. I do firmly believe in the power of visualization, but it has to be coupled with massive action. Get out there and get the work done right. The magic is in the mahi. And for those of you who are not in New Zealand, mahi is another word for work. The magic is in the hard work. You know, I've mentioned this several times before, but Arthur C. Brooks wrote this amazing book about how to build the life you want. I and in that talks about happiness. And one of the key ways, there's only a very few tiny ways to get to this outcome of happiness is in the pursuit of satisfaction. And anything that brings you satisfaction generally means you've had to do something difficult like take the stairs, not the elevator. So I want to encourage you to get the book Think and grow rich from your local bookstore, from Amazon, from wherever you want to go and get it. But it's definitely an essential read. And if you're not a big reader and you're like, no, James, too much for me, great. I'm going to share with you the four key principles that you could apply today, right now, to your business, your life, your relationships. And I know they will make such a difference. Okay, Number one. Desire is the foundation of success. All achievement begins with a strong burning desire to accomplish anything. You must truly want it and be willing to pursue it relentlessly. Look, when people come to me, particularly say young athletes or people starting out in business, and they want, you know, to be a multimillionaire or a billionaire, or they want a massive team, or they want to go global, or they want to become the most prolific athlete or get into the world's best team, I ask them three questions. One, what do you want? What do you really want? Are you clear on it? How badly do you want it? You know, what's that burning desire? And how much are you willing to suffer to get there? What's the Sacrifices you're willing to make. Now, that all ties into this idea that desires is actually the stepping stone, the very first stepping stone. If you want to get towards what you want goal wise, you've got to have massive motivation, that internal desire that when things get tough, which they will, you can keep on trucking. So it's about understanding what's driving you. Why do you want to work your way up the career ladder? Why do you want a $4 million nest egg? Why do you want to read a book every two weeks? Why do you want to listen to a podcast on your way to work? You've got to understand why. Otherwise you're just filling time. You're literally calling it in, filling space, killing time. There's not enough time in the world, right? We've only got a very finite amount of that. We don't want to kill any of it. We want to use it very effectively and usefully. So the first things is first, you know, what is your desire towards your outcome? Are you really clear on the outcome? Do you know where you're headed? If you know where you're headed, what is it that's driving you? At an event recently, my high performance event, and I asked 400 people, what is your burning desire? What is the thing that's lit inside you, that's driving you towards the goals and the dreams that you want? So for you right now, I want you to get clear now. What is the thing that drives me? What gets me out of bed? What am I excited about? What fires me up? Get clear on that. Okay? The next big takeaway from Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is faith drives your actions. Believing in yourself and your ability to achieve your goals creates the necessary confidence to actually take bold steps. Faith transforms those thoughts you're having into reality. And for me, you know, I'm not a big religious person. I have a lot of respect for people who are. I'm very spiritual, however, and I believe that you've got to have faith. And what is faith? This knowing that you can do the thing, this knowing that something will happen, this knowing that you're going to be able to move forward. This knowing that it's tough, but you know what? It's going to get better. That's faith. It can mean whatever it wants to. For you, it might be very religious connotation, that's okay. But it drives your actions. If you lack belief, well, you're not going to get there. You know, when I work with athletes or in my previous career with musicians when they didn't have the heart to believe in themselves to get on those stages. Well, their performances reflected it and then so did the results. So you've got to have absolute belief here in New Zealand, Obviously humility is a big strength. It's a generalization, I know that. But a lot of great athletes and leaders in New Zealand are very humble. But our greatest strength is often our greatest weakness. So if you're too introverted, too humble, you're not possibly going to have the confidence to step up there and have faith that you can do the thing under pressure. It's about striking that balance, right? Not always easy. And I think that I'd rather err on the side of humility rather than arrogance. But there's that balance where you've got to make sure you've got faith that you can actually move forward with your actions because faith drives your actions. Okay. The third principle is persistence is key to overcoming obstacles. Success rarely comes without challenges. Let's face it, the ability to persist even when faced with setbacks separates those who achieve from those who give up. Separates the good from the great. That's simple as that. Persistence. You got to stay in the game, you got to stay in the fight. What's your fight? What the thing you're fighting about, is it a career thing? Is it a family thing? Are you fighting for a relationship? You've got to stay in it. Persistence is literally the answer to overcoming 99% of obstacles in front of us. Stick at it. Most people struggle with stickability. Why? Because it's a fast paced society we live in. The amount of information getting thrown at us is thousands of percent more data a day than we got just 50, 60 years ago. It's so intense. So often we give up quickly because we're onto the next thing, the next shiny object. Oh, somebody's retargeting an ad specifically for that backpack we just searched for or that holiday we're looking at now. We're seeing it everywhere. We get so distracted. And when you dilute your focus, you dilute your results. It's really important to get clearly focused on what you want, have massive desire and stay in the game. Look, I wasn't the most talented drummer. In fact, I was the opposite. I don't think I had much talent at all. I knew how to lift a pair of wooden sticks and I knew how to use my ears. Then I got to work. It took me years to get even. Decent. I wouldn't even call it good decent. And then as time clicked by, this persistence, this keeps showing up this, getting through the failures. I used to cry as a 10 year old because I couldn't count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3 simple 4, 4 time signature counting, which is basic in pretty much all music, including pop music. I couldn't do it. And you know, fast forward three years from that point of being 10 and I win the World Solo Drumming Championships. I don't share that with you to impress you, but to impress upon you that this persistence piece is absolutely key. The best people I work with, the top performers, the best salespeople, the most prolific athletes, it's not genius, it's not brilliance at the top. You know what it is? It's their persistence, it's their getting out of bed, getting after it and believing in themselves. That's truly what I believe separates the good from the great. The ability to stick at it. Just stay in the game, don't hit game over, stay in the game. So it's important to continually find things to stay in the game for. Keep moving forward, keep getting excited, fire up that internal desire. So crucial. Okay, I'm going to share something really powerful. This is the last principle. This is the one thing in the book that really blew my mind. I didn't understand the concept, I thought it was weird, I thought it was quirky. Then when I actually dipped my toes in and thought, I'm going to give this a crack, my oh my, did it change the trajectory of my life. Before I give that to you, please do me a huge favor. If you're here on YouTube, simply hit that subscribe button, okay? The fourth principle from Think and grow Rich that I believe will transform any anybody from good to great. Number four is the power of the mastermind. Surrounding yourself with a network of supportive like minded individuals amplifies your ability to succeed tenfold. Collective minds create more opportunities and solutions than any one person can. Do it alone. I find myself at times being a lone soldier, going at it alone, you know, with drumming. Very much so at the start it was a solo experience. You know, being a solo champion meant a lot of time alone. Starting out in business, I started out alone. In fact, I started this podcast in my bedroom. It was in a two bedroom apartment in the city center. And in my bedroom I had a little corner set up with a camera and a mic. That was it. By myself. But I realized really quickly we don't do great things by ourselves. We do great things with and through others. So I started to create this community. I joined masterminds. So a mastermind is a group of people who are very good at what they do individually, but they get together as a collective brain and share networks, resources. It's not a networking event, it's way beyond that. It's not this transactional. You do this, I'll do that, way deeper than that. And I got so into seeing the benefits of that for myself and others that I thought, I'm going to start my own mastermind. And so many years ago I started a mastermind and we had a former captain of the All Blacks in there. We had some incredible business owners, founders, people starting out all in the same room for a number of months and we had a blast. And I brought in different people ranging from CEOs of Fortune 100 companies in North America, to sports psychologists, from the U.S. olympic team, to all different types of people, because I knew that we needed people to challenge us and also inform us with new and bright ideas. I still run a mastermind. It's called Roundtable and I love it. I've got a really collective group of people from all different backgrounds. We get together frequently, every couple of months in a location and we bring in a guest speaker. Then we mastermind, we strategize, we plan. And to me that's where the power is I accountability. Being around like minded people, being challenged by people who are maybe way ahead of you financially, way ahead of you in their career, or they could be significantly behind you, but they see the world different. They might not be at the same stage as you yet. And I ask everyone to leave their titles at the door and just bring curiosity, bring their stories and experiences. This is not a hey, I'm bigger and better than you. This is a how can I serve you? How can I help you? It's truly a mastermind. I a brain, this collective brain of thinking. And if you haven't done a mastermind before, please consider it. It's absolutely mind blowing. Find one that works for you. There will be one somewhere. And usually it's limited. I limit mine to a very small amount of people. We come in and we meet regularly, but there's that accountability and that is the difference that makes the difference. And when you do join, if you join a mastermind, please know that what you put in, you get out. Just by being in it will get you nothing. It's how are you showing up? How often are you showing up? How many questions are you asking? What are you bringing? What are you opening up and offering up? Truly, that's one of the big, big insights. I'll just hold up this book again. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. One of the best parts of that book is join a mastermind. Be a part of something bigger than you. I truly feel that these principles emphasize mindset and action and the importance of a strong support system in achieving your goals. Whatever you do, don't go it alone. Get a team around you, get people around you. And you know, I'd love to know what you're up to. Drop me a message. Most of you know by now there's a function in here. You just send me a text, it'll come straight to me. Or on LinkedIn. Add me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you. And of course, if you're not already on our weekly growth newsletter, it's called Growth Weekly. Please get on there. I bring you some of the best thought leaders on the planet and I also give away tons of books. In fact, I've got a signed book from Daniel Pink that I'm giving away shortly. So get on that growth newsletter you'll be in to win it. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. This episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast is proudly sponsored by NZ Mortgages. You can check them out at nzmortgages Co NZ.