I was reading this morning some of my notes from a book that I have read and that I suggest you read as well, if you have time. Or you can shoot me an email and I can send you some notes. I will be posting a book summary on my website thebrianwillett.com in the next few days. The book is Napoleon Hill’s famous “Think and Grow Rich.”
The book was first published during the Great Depression. At the time of Hill’s death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold more than 20 million copies and by 2011 over 70 million copies had been sold worldwide. It remains the biggest seller of Napoleon Hill’s books. BusinessWeek Magazine’s Best-Seller List ranked it the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was published.Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell’s A Lifetime “Must Read” Books List.
In the book, Hill discusses the 14 emotions that we all have. Seven of the 14 are considered positive emotions and we should embrace and allow them to push us. The other seven are considered negative and we should avoid them. I have included some commentary in each below. The commentary is my thoughts and although I believe most of what Mr. Hill writes, I have added my thoughts on each emotion as well.
Desire: The emotion of desire is where it all begins. We should embrace and look for this. Without it we will accomplish nothing, but with it we can accomplish anything.
Enthusiasm: What is more contagious that enthusiasm? With an enthusiastic desire, nothing can stop a person from anything they put their mind to. Think about the things that you get enthusiastic about. Now, how can you do that all day, everyday.
Faith: What is faith? Faith is belief in something that you have no evidence that exists. All you have is your experiences with or without faith and you allow that to control your attitude towards believing that it can or could exist.
Love: We all seek to be loved and want to provide love to someone or something else. This is the strongest emotion we all have. We should embrace it and love often.
Sex: It is one of the most potent emotions we have. It can drive us to do some of the most positive things in our lives or it can drive us to do some of the dumbest things in our lives.
Romance: What a great emotion we all have the opportunity to experience in our life. To have that emotion with another person, it is such an emotion that can drive us to be something better than we would be without that person or that feeling in our presence.
Hope: In my upcoming book 7 Ways to More. I use the words faith and hope interchangeably. Hope is the belief that something can or could exist when you don’t have any evidence that it does. It is an attitude and a powerful one that can change your life.
Fear: Although Mr. Hill states fear as being a negative emotion and I agree with him: Only if you allow fear to control your life. Prevent you from getting out of your comfort zone or not doing something you should do. However, fear can be positive in these ways. Being fearful of going broke if you keep spending everything you make, or being fearful that you have to find a way to make more time to spend with your children so they have the mentoring necessary to become successful in life. These are fears that can drive you to desire. The key is to not allow fear to drive you to not do something, but let it drive you to do something.
Jealousy: I can’t think of a better (better in this context) waste of time: than time spent on being jealous of another person. If you just took the time you were spending on being jealous and put it towards accomplishing something for yourself, who knows what could happen.
Hatred: I really try to not use the word hate. Although, it has crept into my vocabulary at times. When we allow hatred of another person to be all-consuming is where we get into trouble. It can push us to be someone we are not, or to do something we wouldn’t typically do. So we can hate something, but we shouldn’t hate the person, but the thing the person is doing.
Revenge: A person cuts you off in the middle of the expressway. You take off chasing after them in a high rate of speed, and before you catch up with them, a cop pulls you over. Sound familiar? Maybe not to you, but this is a story that is repeated over and over everyday on the roadways. Seeking revenge is can cause this, but what if you actually caught up to the person? How have we seen these stories end?
Greed: We all have met greedy people haven’t we? They are usually not very enjoyable people to be around. They only care about themselves and how they can benefit from a situation or another person.
Superstition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition_(disambiguation) When you read this definition, it becomes very clear why this is a negative emotion, don’t allow this kind of thinking to creep into your thoughts.
Anger: I have seen people lose the love of others, their life, and many other things just because of this strong emotion of anger. Although we can use it to fuel us at times, we must be cautious of its power and not use it very often.
These are 14 emotions we all have at times. The key to all of the above emotions is to be aware of your emotions and how you use them. Self-Awareness is always the first step to managing emotions.
For those of your who don’t know a 7 and 7 is a drink. Click the link below to learn more about it. Just like the drink, it is important to manage your emotions like you do the two liquids that make up the drink. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_and_7
To your success and your future.
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