Developing a Winning Mindset Episode 2: Think and Grow Rich?

—By Rebecca Witherspoon, August 20, 2019

“A goal is a dream with a deadline.”

—Napoleon Hill

In our last episode, we talked about bankrupt mindsets and stinkin’ thinking. Today, let’s start delving into practical steps you can take to changing a mindset that keeps you down and transforming it into a winning mindset that moves you toward your desired goals.  

In a previous video I spoke about author Napoleon Hill and his classic book “Think and Grow Rich.” I have to admit, when I first heard of this guy—a long, long time ago—my first thought was, “He’s got to be one of those nut cases who thinks he can scam the world into thinking all they have to do is think their way to wealth and prosperity.” In a way, I wasn’t far off the path. Where I did miss the mark though was that he wasn’t a nut case. He was profoundly insightful. So much so, that I now highly recommend the book as an absolute must read for anyone who wants to succeed in life and/or business. While the ways he says things are a bit archaic for today’s ways of talking and writing, the principals that he laid out in the book are spot on. He hit the bullseye squarely in the center. Mr. Hill’s principals are the very foundation of some of the most influential and successful entrepreneurs and professional business people in the world. People like Jim Rohn, Ed Mylett, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, and so many others. 

For the sake of clear understanding, I will use the language of today to share these principals with you. These principals will lay the foundation for the remainder of this 7-day series on Developing a Winning Mindset. 

10 Foundational Principals to Think and Grow Rich

1. Unwavering Desire. Without a desire to become better than we are, the chances of becoming better are almost non-existent. Simply “wanting” or “wishing” for things to be better will not result in things actually getting better. A gut-deep, unwavering desire is what is required for someone or something to get better. Why? Because desire fuels the fire to move someone from simply wishing about something into actively doing whatever is necessary to achieving that which they desire. In this series, we are talking about developing a winning mindset. If your mindset has previously, or currently, been focused on what you lack, you will subconsciously attract more lack into your life. A poor mindset will keep you frozen in place resulting in an assurance of never reaching your desired goal. When your mindset is focused on the presence or addition of something in your life, an unwavering desire will push you out of your comfort zone into an active state of doing whatever is necessary to obtain that which you seek. Think of a poor mindset as someone who apathetically moves through life allowing circumstances and others to dictate the quality of their life. Think of a winning mindset as someone who says, “Damn the torpedos full speed ahead, nothing is going to stop me from accomplishing my desired goals.” Example 1: You want to buy a home, but have very limited funds and a limited credit history. It’s going to be difficult to gain approval for a mortgage to buy a new home. Not impossible, just difficult. There may be some things that you will need to accomplish prior to obtaining that approval, but you’re not sure what those things might be. You’re scared of finding out so you keep putting it off to go try to get pre-approved. Result? You don’t buy a home. Example 2: You’re a single mom and you work full time. You desperately want to improve your ability to care for your children and provide a better home for them. You look at all your options including trying to find a better job or going back to school to finish your degree. You know you’re going to have to continue to work even if you go back to school, but you decide that your best opportunity to improve the lives of your kids is to sacrifice a short period of time and to go back to school. You obtain financial aid, schedule your classes at night, work full time during the day, go to school full time in the evenings, and what time you do have with your kids you do your best to have it be quality time. You spend many late nights with little sleep but in the end, you graduate and obtain a great paying job that enables you to provide the life you so desperately desired for your kids. Your kids saw the sacrifices you made and the results and as a result they gained valuable insight into the benefits of a good work ethic. You not only succeeded in achieving your goal, you achieved even more than you had dreamed of. Moral of these two examples—one person  allowed fear to overshadow their desire, resulting in their desire not being unwavering enough to overcome the obstacles in their path. The second person’s desire was so strong that they found a way around the obstacles to achieve their desired goal.
2. Unwavering Faith. Deep desires often stem from a belief in something. When we believe in something, especially something that “could” happen, it is absolutely necessary to have faith that it’s even possible for YOU to achieve. Without faith, the first obstacle that comes along will knock you down and it will be almost impossible to get back up. In the two examples above, the first person had no faith that they could even accomplish their desired goal. The second person not only had an unwavering desire, they also had an unwavering faith that they could achieve their desired goal.
3. Visualization. Until you can see what you want to achieve, what the end result of your labors should look like, it will be difficult to achieve your goal. Why? Because you have no target at which to shoot. You must know what you are wanting to achieve in order to be able to go for it. For example, if you want to build a vacation home, you must first describe in detail to an architect what your house will look like. The size of the rooms, the shape of the roof, whether it will have a porch or a sun room. How many bedrooms. How many bathrooms. Will it have a basement, or an upstairs. Will it have a garage, and how big it should be. Will there be extra room for a work area. What kind of kitchen do you want, and what appliances you will want in it. What color the walls will be, whether smooth or textured paint. Any accent walls? What kind of light fixtures you want and where you want them located. How many outlets, and where to locate them. What style of doors do you want. What kind of siding do you want—will it be a standard vinyl siding or will it be low maintenance LP Smart siding. Will you have a shingled roof or a metal roof or some other kind of roof. What style windows do you want and how energy efficient. The list goes on and on. Once the architect clearly understands what you want, only then can they draw up the actual blueprints. Then, there are so many other things that are involved with the successful completion of building that house as you are wanting it to be built and within the timeframe you want it built. Once the home is complete, the end result and whether it accomplishes what you were wanting is 100% dependent on your initial visualization of that home and how detailed you were in visualizing the minute details of the house. The same is true for anything you want to accomplish in your life. You must first visualize what it is you want, including the minute details. Then you should regularly visualize your goal(s) so that you do not lose site of your target. The more you continue to visualize the more your mind will begin to work the details out about how to accomplish that goal.
4. Specialized Knowledge. Once you know your goal in detail, it will become evident what knowledge you may be lacking in to accomplish your goal. By either gaining that specialized knowledge or obtaining access to someone with that specialized knowledge to assist you, you can then begin to implement what is required to accomplish your goal.
5. Imagination. When we were kids we were praised for our imaginations and ingenuity. As we began to get a bit older, many of us were taught that imagination is for young children and we were encouraged to “grow up.” As time goes by, we often lose a big part of our imagination because we were ridiculed for daydreaming and disciplined at school for not doing things in the manner we were taught regardless of whether our answers were right. Imagination slowly but surely becomes suppressed to the point where it’s almost non-existent in many people. We almost become little automatons going about our daily routines. We become creatures of habit day in and day out. To make matters worse, all the while we are slowly dying inside, we wistfully admire the Amelia Earharts, Thomas Edisons, Henry Fords, Steve Jobs, Elon Musks and many others who have a seemingly endless supply of ideas that change the world around us for the better. We wish we had even a little of what they had, but have convinced ourselves that we just aren’t smart enough. Little do we know greatness lurks just at the back of our minds in the form of imagination. Awaken your imagination. Begin to daydream about the things that you would like. Don’t worry about whether it’s logical or how you will get what you want. Just start dreaming and imagining what would make your life fulfilled and meaningful. Use your visualization skills from above to fill in all the fine details. The more you practice imagination, the more open your mind will become to seeing opportunities when they present themselves to you—the opportunities that will help you move closer to what you are visualizing.
6. Organized Planning. This is the part where once you have clearly visualized the end goal, you can begin to figure out the steps necessary to reach your goal. Here’s the thing you really need to know and be prepared for ahead of time. If you are not ready for this, you will not reach your desired goal. Here’s what you need to know—YOU WILL HAVE MISSTEPS ALONG THE WAY. You will begin one plan of action, and discover that you missed something vital in your plan. THAT IS OKAY.  As Thomas Edison so famously said about his repeated failures in developing the lightbulb, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. … Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong until you find the right way to do it. Just know that you will often have to tweak your plan, and sometimes even have to start all over again from scratch. But that’s okay. Keep going. Never give up. Keep on until … until you succeed.
7. Decisions. Allowing yourself to become paralyzed in the decision making process is the number one cause of failure. Procrastination kills! Think of a time when either you or someone you know was in a car accident or near accident. You often have only a split second to make a decision on how to react to lessen the potential danger of harm or death. There is no time to procrastinate, if you do then you will very likely become seriously injured or even killed. Those who succeed have learned the art of making prompt decisions based on known facts, and then being slow to change their minds only when something has been proven to not work. Dedication to a decision is vital to achieving a goal. Too often people who fail will make decisions, but then not be dedicated to their decision. At the first sign of resistance, they chuck their original decision out the window and give up never realizing that their success was just around the corner.
8. Mentorship and Coaching. This is something that I cannot speak enough of. They say that we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with—our intimate circle of influence. If we are spending most of our time around criminals, we will most likely become a criminal. If we spend most of our time around negative people, we will most likely become very negative and toxic to be round. If we spend most of our time around people who have no real ambition in life but to work, pay the bills, spend a bit of time with the family, and repeat the next day, then we will live an average life of mediocrity. If we spend most of our time around positive and uplifting people, we will become positive and uplifting. If we spend our time around primarily successful and ambitious people, we will become successful and ambitious. But here’s the really cool thing about this phenomena. I’m sure you’ve all heard about a kid that grew up in a poor neighborhood, surrounded by gangs, had everything against them in life, should have ended up either in prison at a young age or dead on the side of the street, and yet somehow that kid grew up to be a successful and highly contributing member of his community. Why did that kid succeed when they were surrounded by so many people and things that should have made him or her a failure? In virtually every instance that kid had someone or something that interrupted the natural progression of their life. Either an event that shocked their very core to take action to change, or an individual that somehow inserted enough influence to change the very course of their life. That individual is very like a mentor. A mentor is someone who has already been where you are wanting to go (that’s VERY important) and who is willing to act as a kind of guide, sounding board, accountability person, and someone who you’ve given permission to challenge you to be the best you can be and to call you out when you’re letting yourself down. It’s not the mentor’s job to do the work for you. In fact for a mentor relationship to work, YOU must be willing to be coachable. Being coachable means, when your mentor or coach gives you an assignment, it’s not optional as to whether or not you’ll do it. You do it, period. Your assignments will often take you out of your comfort zone and make you uncomfortable, but that’s exactly how you grow. If you’re not willing to put the work in and complete the assignments given to you , then you are not yet ready and not yet coachable. This also means, that you are not yet ready to do whatever is necessary to achieve your desired goal aka a lack of unwavering desire and a lack of unwavering faith.
9. Subconscious Mind & Affirmations. In an earlier video, I talked about affirmations and beliefs. I talked about how to develop affirmations, and talked about the importance of speaking your affirmations daily without fail. I won’t go into great detail here (go watch that video at this link if you want more detail – https://youtu.be/anqhw5X-OdM), but I will say this. The more you speak your affirmations out loud every single day without fail, the more you are implanting into your subconscious mind those things that you most desire in your life. The more your subconscious mind knows those desires, the more your subconscious mind can begin to work on solutions for making your affirmations a reality in your life. As your subconscious mind works out the details, you will find yourself more and more doing things that will move your toward your desired goal.
10. Outwitting Fear. We have absolute control of our thoughts. Our enemies are indecision, doubt, and fear. Indecision breeds doubt, and the two together give birth to fear. By controlling our thoughts, we control our destiny. So last year some of you may have been witness to a challenge that I set for myself in overcoming fear. I was absolutely terrified but I had an unwavering desire to overcome my fear, an unwavering faith that I could achieve my goal, and was absolutely willing to do what was necessary to overcome that fear. What was the fear? Heights! For almost my entire life, heights have absolutely terrified me. I would be come faint and dizzy. The ground would literally breathe at me in certain situations. I could rarely go out on a balcony on floors higher than 2 or 3 stories. Ladders were a nightmare of unsteadiness for me. Ferris wheels were completely off limits to me as the last time I got on one (in high school) I was screaming at the ride operator before I even reached the top the first time. He had to make a special stop to let me off because I was in danger of throwing myself off the damn ride out of sheer terror. As a result, I was missing out on so many incredible adventures and sites. Well last year I pledged on Facebook live that I was going to do something about overcoming my fear—that something was to zip line at the Grand Canyon. Not only did I follow through, I also video taped and posted the video for the world to see. Outcome? I now want to zip line Niagra Falls next! I stood out on one of the outcroppings at the Grand Canyon and was mesmerized by the view. And I stood at the edge of Mount Precipice in Israel this past spring. I still have a healthy respect for heights and definitely take care (there are even a few things I still will not do, like that damn open air ferris wheel) but the paralyzing fear has receded into my rear view mirror. And if I do feel that fear, I now have experience that tells me that I did it once before and I can do it again. Each time I do it again, it gets easier and more exhilarating. The same is true for overcoming most fears. After all, most F.E.A.R. is simply False Evidence Appearing Real. 

ACTION STEP: If you’re feeling stuck in life, or moving in a direction that you believe is not helpful, or maybe you feel like life is good but it could be better, then I encourage you to sit down and write for 10-20 minutes without interruption. Make sure you are in a location with the least amount of distractions. Turn your phone off. Tell everyone in your family that unless the house is literally burning down around you to leave you alone for just a little while. For those 10-20 minutes I want you to practice opening your mind to your heart. That may be scary for some of you—I know it was very scary for me the first time I did this. What to write about? Think back to when life was less complicated, for many that will be when they were quite a bit younger. Think about and write about the things you used to want to do with your life, no matter how silly those desires seem to you now write them down, as many as you can remember. Write down anything you wanted to do as you began to get a bit older. Keep moving forward in your life in your mind and on the paper. Continue to write the things you have wanted to do throughout your life. For now, don’t second guess what you write or whether you feel what you wanted was realistic or not, just remember and write. 

We will revisit what you write in an upcoming video, so hang on to what you write. Keep it in a safe place. Put a date on that list. You won’t want to miss the next episode, as I will focus on one very practical tools that all the most highly successful people in the world use. 

Thank you for being a part of my journey and allowing me to be a part of yours. If you’re open to learning more about this and other topics that could help move you more quickly toward your desired goals, please email me at rwitherspoon608@yahoo.com.