Book SummaryThe Law of Success, by Napoleon Hill

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Law of Success

In The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill—best-selling author of Think and Grow Rich—demystifies what it takes to achieve success.

Hill bases his advice on one key premise: Your subconscious mind creates your life experiences, drawing upon your recurrent thoughts—which we’ll call habitual thoughts. According to him, these habitual thoughts can either train your subconscious mind to work in alignment with your goals (creating successful experiences) or in opposition to them (creating unsuccessful experiences). Therefore, the only way to achieve success is to align your habitual thoughts with what you want to achieve and retrain your subconscious mind to work in your favor.

(Shortform note: The premise that success comes from alignment between your habitual thoughts and what you want...

The Law of Success Summary Your Subconscious Mind Determines Your Success

Hill argues that your subconscious mind determines how successful you are. According to him, if you’re not achieving the level of success you want, it’s because your habitual, conscious thoughts have trained your subconscious mind to work against your goals. Your subconscious mind does this by influencing you to think or behave in unconstructive ways and attracting people or circumstances that hinder your progress.

Next, we’ll clarify Hill’s thoughts on how your subconscious mind impacts your success. We’ll first explain how your habitual, conscious thoughts leave an impression on your subconscious mind and how this impression influences all your subsequent thoughts and behaviors. Then we’ll explore how your subconscious mind is connected to higher consciousness and how it uses this connection to shape everything that happens in your life.

Your Habitual Conscious Thoughts Train Your Subconscious Mind

Hill argues that your conscious thoughts leave an impression on your subconscious mind, and the more often you think certain thoughts (the more habitual they are), the heavier the impression they leave. This impression trains your subconscious mind to form conclusions...

The Law of Success Summary Your Subconscious Mind Creates Your Experiences

Hill argues that, in addition to influencing the way you respond to what happens in your life, your subconscious mind creates experiences that reflect your habitual thoughts. He explains that your subconscious mind has the power to create your experiences because it’s connected to and interacts with higher consciousness—the force that creates and manages all experiences across the entire universe. This higher consciousness has three distinct traits:

1. It’s the source of all knowledge, containing all the thoughts ever released by conscious beings.
2. Its energy permeates and connects all matter in the universe.
3. It synchronizes all interactions that take place in the universe.

Hill explains that, through its connection to higher consciousness, your subconscious mind can potentially connect to and attract any idea, person, or circumstance into your life. However, the impressions your habitual thoughts leave on your subconscious mind restrict its connection only to the ideas, people, or circumstances that reflect the conclusions your conscious mind has formed about you. These conclusions include how you feel about yourself, your expectations, your hopes, and your...

The Law of Success Summary Retrain Your Subconscious Mind to Create Success

We’ve just explained how your subconscious mind determines the level of success you achieve: Your habitual thoughts leave an impression on your subconscious mind that shapes your thoughts and behaviors as well as everything that happens in your life. We also illustrated numerous ways that misaligned habitual thoughts—those that inhibit your ability to achieve what you want—lead your subconscious mind to work in opposition to your goals.

Hill argues that, fortunately, your subconscious mind is malleable and adapts to reflect your habitual thoughts. This means that, by consciously controlling your habitual thoughts, you can retrain your...

The Law of Success Summary Step #1: Adopt a Positive Attitude

The first step toward retraining your subconscious mind to create success is to adopt a positive attitude. Hill explains that your attitude toward life determines the nature of your habitual thoughts—whether they’re negative or positive—and the overall impression they make on your subconscious mind. This impression then influences whether you move toward or away from success.

The more negative your attitude, the more negatively you think about your life. These negative thoughts leave a pessimistic impression on your subconscious mind—causing it to connect only to the parts of higher consciousness that reflect your pessimism. As a result, your subconscious mind creates experiences that reinforce your negative thought patterns and discourage you from moving toward success.

Conversely, the more positive your attitude, the more positively you think about your life. These positive thoughts leave an optimistic impression on your subconscious mind—causing it to connect only to the parts of higher consciousness that reflect your optimism. As a result, your subconscious mind creates life experiences that reinforce your optimism and encourage you to move toward success....

The Law of Success Summary Step #2: Define a Specific Goal

While you work on cultivating a positive attitude, define a specific goal that you want to achieve. This will help you create a clear vision of what will make you feel successful, and it will give your subconscious mind a clear direction to move toward.

(Shortform note: Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within) expands on how defining a specific goal contributes to success. According to him, the more specific you are about what you want, the easier it is to imagine the benefits of achieving it—these positive expectations increase your motivation to take proactive steps forward. In addition, your goal-specificity allows you to plan and prepare for potential obstacles, which improves your chances of overcoming setbacks and helps you maintain momentum toward what you want.)

Focus on Your Natural Talents and Interests

Hill offers advice for defining your...

The Law of Success Summary Step #3: Create Affirmations and Visualizations

Once you’ve defined a specific goal, create affirmations and visualizations that encourage you to achieve it. Hill explains that continually affirming or visualizing yourself successfully achieving your goal leaves a positive impression on your subconscious mind. The more weight you add to this impression, the quicker you’ll convince your subconscious mind you’re capable of achieving success.

Hill recommends a three-step process for creating affirmations and visualizations to support your goal:

1) Write a short statement describing what you intend to achieve and read it multiple times a day. For example, “I intend to make 50 sales a day.”

(Shortform note: Research suggests that setting and reviewing intentions helps you make choices that initiate successful outcomes. This is because intentions force you to focus on who you want to be, and they increase your self-discipline when you’re faced with conflicting choices. For example, setting an...

The Law of Success Summary Step #4: Take Constructive Actions to Achieve Your Goal

Alongside practicing visualizations and affirmations, take constructive actions to achieve your goal. This will align your behaviors with your positive thoughts and focus your subconscious mind on exactly what you need to do to make progress. Hill recommends the following three-step process for taking constructive actions to achieve your goal:

1. Break your goal down into daily tasks.
2. Create a daily schedule.
3. Expand your knowledge and skills.

Let’s explore each of these steps in detail.

1) Break Your Goal Down Into Daily Tasks

The first step toward taking constructive actions to achieve your goal is to break it down into a series of daily tasks. Hill explains that this process will help you prioritize your time and increase your productivity, which will help you build momentum toward achieving your goal.

(Shortform note: Brendon Burchard (High Performance Habits) expands on this step with in-depth advice on breaking your goal down into constructive tasks. First, [write down five major steps you need to take to achieve your...

The Law of Success Summary Step #5: Build a Supportive Team

Once you’re comfortable taking daily constructive actions, build a supportive team to help you achieve your goal. Hill argues that you’re more likely to achieve success when you work with a team than when you work on your own. He explains that when a group of people collectively work toward a goal, their combined knowledge, expertise, and resources allow them to achieve much more than they could on their own. Teamwork has three primary benefits:

1. It creates a hive mind.
2. It provides social reinforcement.
3. It generates better ideas and decisions.

Let’s explore each of these three benefits in detail.

1) Supportive Teams Create a Hive Mind

According to Hill, sharing a purpose with others aligns the conscious thoughts of each mind, creating a telepathic link between the subconscious minds of everyone involved. This telepathic link enables each individual within the group to access and leverage the knowledge and expertise of every other member of the group.

(Shortform note: While Hill’s idea about a hive mind might sound like something from a science fiction movie, there is some evidence to support it. Some cognitive psychologists have created virtual...

Shortform Exercise: Cultivate Successful Thoughts

Hill suggests that you can train your subconscious mind to work in alignment with your goals by habitually thinking successful thoughts. This exercise will walk you through his process for achieving this.

Your subconscious mind is more likely to create success if you adopt a positive attitude. Write down at least three things that inspire you to think positively.