Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude is a classic self-improvement book that will boost your happiness and give you the life of your dreams by identifying what Napoleon Hill learned interviewing hundreds of successful people and sharing how their outlook on life helped them get to the top.

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When I was about 16-years-old I picked up a book that would end up shaping the rest of my life. I didn’t think much of it, but I really enjoyed learning from what it had to teach me. That book was Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude by the great Napoleon Hill.

Immediately after reading it, my grades began to improve, and I found friends that really cared about me. In the years since then, I’ve had countless experiences that have reminded me that success is only an attitude improvement away. 

Although these suggestions may seem simple at first, I can give you my personal story as a witness that they really will work. It won’t be long before you’re seeing success like you never have before!

Here are the 3 most helpful lessons for boosting your mental energy:

1. Become a success magnet by learning how to develop a positive mental attitude.
2. Problems are nothing more than opportunities.
3. Use autosuggestion to bind your goals to your subconscious and make accomplishing them second nature.

This one is definitely going to change your life. I know because it changed mine! Let’s go!

Lesson 1: The greatest thing you can do to attract success is to have a habitually positive mental attitude.

The #1 determining factor of success is a positive mental attitude, or PMA, Hill suggests.

How much you accomplish in life is directly correlated with how well you nurture your PMA. Like a magnet drawing metallic objects to it, developing this skill of positivity will inevitably draw prosperity to you.

So what does a PMA look like? Well, it’s the ability to look on the bright side of things, to have hope, even in the most dire circumstances. People with a healthy attitude don’t get beaten down by failure but instead, see them as the opportunities they are. Every failure is only a step in the direction toward a solution to problems. 

And with this confidence in the face of failure also comes the courage to try. Having a PMA is even a catalyst for being eager to try and having a hunger for improving yourself. It lights a fire of hope inside of you that provides the constant illumination and warmth of inspiration.

Henry Ford is a good example of having a PMA. His goal was to build a cheap V8 engine that he could mass produce. Prior to this time, only luxury cars had this massive engine in them. Although his engineers were critical of this goal, Ford was persistent. 

It took a year, but Henry Ford’s PMA and determination eventually brought the world it’s first mass-produced V8 engine. And it made him one of the most successful businessmen ever.

Lesson 2: Change your perspective to see the opportunities that always come from difficult situations.

If you break it down, success is just simply solving problems. Just look at the smartest people throughout history. All of their great achievements began with them looking for innovative solutions to a problem.

The way we look at obstacles is purely a matter of our mental attitude. If we give up at every challenge we face, then we have a negative mental attitude, or NMA. If you look for the positives to what’s going on, however, then you’ve got the makings of a PMA, which you can use to fix the issue.

When something goes wrong, we can have a PMA by seeing the opportunity as a challenge. In other words, it’s a chance to show ourselves what we’re made of and how well we can do. Rather than giving up when things get hard, people with a PMA just try harder. 

Even people in jail can have a positive mental attitude and find success. And if they can, then so can you with all the freedoms you have because you aren’t incarcerated!

Charlie Ward’s experience of turning his NAM into a PMA is a great example. After his paradigm shift, guards and his fellow inmates began to respect him. Moving up in the hierarchy, he eventually met Herbert Bigelow, who also began to see what a great man Ward was. 

Bigelow promised Ward a job after they got out, and when he died, Ward took over the company and became a millionaire.

Lesson 3: You are more likely to achieve your goals if you use autosuggestion to connect them with your subconscious.

It might seem like the only way we can get anything done is with conscious action, but that’s not true. Our subconscious is a powerful motivator of our desires, dreams, and behavior.

We can tap into this power with what Hill calls autosuggestion. This ability binds our dreams with our subconscious mind to utilize the power of its influence on everything we do, and more importantly, think.

No matter your goal, whether it’s to improve your finances, relationships, or health, you can try this and it will work. Write down a sentence that describes how you want your life to be in the future, say a year from now. You might write about a certain amount of money you’d like to have, for instance. 

The next step is to repeat this phrase to yourself twice a day, every day until it becomes reality. It might seem strange at first, but before long your subconscious will begin to go to work looking for ways to fulfill your desires. It might begin seeking out new business opportunities, for example, that seem to come out of nowhere.

Try this with your efforts to improve your attitude even. If you tell yourself that you are becoming more positive every day, then eventually your PMA muscle will grow strong.

Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude Review

I’ve always loved this book since I first picked it up as a teenager. I highly recommend Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude to everyone. At first, it seems crazy that your outlook can have such a big impact on your success, but I’m proof that it’s 100% true!

Who would I recommend the Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude summary to?

The 16-year-old who is figuring out who they are and knows they want to be a good person, the 37-year-old who struggles to stay positive but knows it will help them, and anybody who wants to learn the power that your mind has to make you successful.

Last Updated on July 23, 2023