Why “How to Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, Actually Makes you Rich
Explained by a behavioral psychologist
Since its publication in 1937, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich has become one of the most iconic books on success and wealth. Generations of entrepreneurs, creatives, and dreamers have drawn inspiration from its pages.
Hill often hints at “a secret” throughout his book — one he suggests each reader must discover for themselves, as I encourage you as well. But behind all the mystery, metaphors and bold promises there’s actually a lot of practical advice that makes sense from a psychological perspective.
While reading, I found that Many of Hill’s core ideas align with what modern psychology knows about human motivation, behavior, and performance.
Now, getting rich is often a complex result from factors ranging from your environment and genes, to your decisions and behavior. However, I do believe that when you implement the strategies mentioned in the book, you’re getting much closer to transforming your desire for money into reality.
So, let’s find out how “How to Think and Grow rich” actually makes you rich!
Desire is the starting point of achievement
Hill begins with a bold claim:
“All riches begin with desire.”
But he’s not talking about a casual wish — he means a burning, definite desire that takes hold of your thoughts and fuels your daily action. This maps surprisingly well onto modern , which finds that clear, challenging goals dramatically boost motivation and performance.
Psychologists know that goals direct attention, energize effort, and help people persist through obstacles. Vague ambitions like “I want to make more money” rarely inspire action. But when you set a specific goal:
“I want to earn €10,000 in freelance work over the next three months”
Your brain starts to map out a plan. Which is exactly what you need to do at the beginning of the book. You begin tracking your progress, adjusting strategies, and prioritizing your time. The stronger and more concrete the desire, the more likely it becomes a reality.
Faith and belief turn desire into reality
Hill argues that desire is powerless without belief. In his words, you must have “faith”.
In psychology, this is similar to — the belief in your own ability to achieve something. Introduced by Albert Bandura, self-efficacy shapes what goals people set, how much effort they invest, and how they respond to setbacks.
If you believe you can build a successful business or achieve a certain career, you’re more likely to start, more willing to fail, and more likely to try again. For instance, someone who wants to launch a coaching practice but doubts their ability might procrastinate or abandon the idea. But someone with high self-efficacy will face those same obstacles and push through them. They expect to succeed — and often do.
Autosuggestion: programming the mind through repetition
One of Hill’s signature ideas is “autosuggestion” — repeating affirmations to yourself to reprogram your subconscious. It sounds mystical, but modern psychology gives us a more grounded explanation. Repeated affirmations can act as that subtly shape attention and behavior. They also tap into and , which influence how we perceive, act, and make decisions in our world.
Verbal self-cues work a bit like mental nudges — they remind you of your goals and desired identity throughout the day, keeping them front-of-mind when choices arise. Interestingly, positive self-talk seems to have a limited effect on performance while negative self-talk can significantly decrease it.
Expectancy effects, on the other hand, refer to how our beliefs shape our behavior. If you expect to be confident or successful, you’re more likely to act in ways that make that belief come true.
Priming adds another layer: repeated exposure to certain words or ideas can subtly influence how we interpret situations and what actions we take. These aren’t tricks — they’re part of how our brain filters and responds to the world.
For example, telling yourself “I’m becoming a confident negotiator” every morning doesn’t magically change your skills — but it might change your behavior in small ways. You might be more likely to speak up, to prepare better, or to reflect on what worked. Over time, these small shifts compound.
Autosuggestion isn’t magic — it’s developing an unconscious shift in mindset and attention towards productive decisions and behavior.
Visualizing success to prepare for action
Hill tells readers to visualize themselves already in possession of wealth and success.
Modern psychology supports this through research on and . Mental imagery helps you mentally rehearse future actions, while implementation intentions help you plan when, where, and how you’ll execute them.
Take the example of an aspiring entrepreneur preparing for a pitch. Visualizing the moment — standing in front of investors, speaking with clarity, handling questions — can help reduce anxiety and increase confidence.
Add a specific plan like “If I wake up at 7am, then I’ll spend 30 minutes refining my pitch,” and you’re turning vision into execution.
The more vividly you imagine success and link it to action, the more likely it becomes.
Specialized knowledge beats general knowledge
Hill emphasizes the importance of specialized knowledge over general information. In today’s world, this advice holds even more weight. Research on shows that expertise is built through focused effort in a specific domain — not broad, casual learning.
Think of someone who focuses on mastering specific skills such as SEO, investing, or even writing. Instead of bouncing between unrelated topics, they break the skill down, practice with feedback, and level up intentionally.
Over time, you’re no longer being paid just for your work — but for your judgment, decisions, and the value that comes from your specialized knowledge. That’s how top performers build competence — and, often, wealth.
The power of persistence
Hill calls persistence the secret ingredient behind every success story.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth presented this decades later with the concept of — passion and perseverance over the long haul. Even when talent and intelligence are equal, grit often makes the difference.
Persistence doesn’t mean doing the same thing over and over. It means adapting, learning, and continuing even when progress is slow.
A freelancer who keeps iterating on their portfolio, sending cold emails, and improving after rejection is building more than income — they’re building the psychological habit of resilience. Which in turn, increases your chances of finding succes one day.
Mastermind groups: success is social
Hill claimed that aligning yourself with intelligent, driven peers — the “mastermind” — creates a synergistic effect. Today, we know that social capital, peer learning, and distributed cognition are powerful drivers of performance. These concepts show how ideas, accountability, and motivation can be amplified in a group setting.
This isn’t just theory — it shows up in real life. One of the most famous modern examples is the PayPal Mafia: a group of former PayPal employees and founders who went on to build companies like Tesla, LinkedIn, YouTube, Yelp, and Palantir. Their success didn’t just come from individual brilliance — it came from sharing ideas, backing each other’s ventures, and continuing to collaborate years after PayPal was sold.
Mastermind groups provide feedback, expand access to resources, and increase psychological commitment. For example, a startup founder in such a group may receive direct help on fundraising, get strategic advice, or find renewed motivation by hearing others’ wins and struggles.
Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it happens in community.
Decisiveness in decisions
Hill warned against indecision and praised quick, firm decision-making. Modern research backs him up: people with an — the belief that they can influence the outcomes in their lives — tend to take more initiative, persist longer in the face of challenges, and feel more ownership over their actions.
This mindset plays a huge role in how we approach decisions. If you believe your choices matter, you’re more likely to make them with confidence. On the other hand, people with an external locus of control — who see outcomes as dependent on luck, fate, or other people — often delay decisions or avoid them altogether, because they feel powerless to influence the result anyway.
Indecision often stems from fear, perfectionism, or overthinking. But people who develop decision-making systems — like setting personal deadlines, narrowing choices, or trusting their instincts on low-stakes issues — free up mental space to act, iterate, and learn. In wealth-building and business, delay often means missed opportunity. As Hill might say:
“Clarity, confidence, and speed beat hesitation every time.”
The subconscious mind as a problem-solver
Hill believed the subconscious mind is a creative partner, always working behind the scenes to help solve problems and generate new ideas. Modern psychology refers to this process as — the phenomenon where stepping away from a problem allows your mind to continue working on it in the background.
Incubation works because, after you’ve consciously focused on a problem, your brain doesn’t just shut off — it keeps processing information without you realizing it.
This subconscious activity helps make new connections between ideas, often leading to creative insights or solutions when you’re not actively thinking about the issue. It’s why you might have your best ideas while taking a shower or going for a walk: your mind is free to wander and make associations that you might not have noticed before.
Research by dsupports this process through studies of creativity and problem-solving. Incubation works especially well when you’ve invested effort into understanding the problem or gathering information. After that, giving yourself space to step away — whether it’s through relaxation, distraction, or engaging in another activity — allows your brain to find new angles and solutions.
It’s again not really that mysterious, but a clever mental mechanism that makes breakthroughs happen when you’re least expecting them.
Sex transmutation: managing energy and focus
One of Hill’s more ideas is sex transmutation — the idea of redirecting sexual energy into ambition and creative drive. While there’s little hard scientific evidence specifically supporting this concept, it seems to have similarities with a concept called : channeling strong emotions, even negative ones, into productive actions.
Sublimation is what happens when you take raw emotional energy, like anger, frustration, or desire, and use it as fuel for something positive. For example, feeling angry and choosing to hit the gym instead of lashing out.
It’s not about suppressing emotions; it’s about redirecting their intensity into something that builds you up rather than tears you down.
More broadly, the principle of managing emotional energy is backed by modern productivity research. High performers often create routines that help them stay focused, minimize distractions, and channel their impulses into consistent action. Whether or not libido specifically plays a role, the real skill is learning to control your emotions and impulses and using that energy to focus on actions that benefit your financial, creative, and personal goals.
Fear: the ultimate saboteur
Hill argues that fear — of failure, poverty, criticism — is the main reason people never pursue their goals. Psychology backs this up. and can trap people in cycles of inaction.
Avoidance motivation is the tendency to steer clear of situations that might lead to discomfort or negative outcomes.
It’s the reason you might delay important decisions or avoid taking risks, even when the potential rewards are high. This motivation often stems from a desire to stay safe and avoid failure, which can keep us stuck in situations that don’t serve our long-term goals.
Cognitive distortions are irrational thought patterns that can magnify fears and limit our potential. For example, someone might catastrophize, assuming the worst possible outcome from taking a risk, or engage in all-or-nothing thinking, where they believe that failure in one area means complete failure.
These distorted thought patterns can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where we avoid taking action because our thoughts have convinced us of failure before we even try.
Fear clouds judgment, narrows attention, and keeps us in our comfort zones. Someone who fears financial instability may stay in a draining job instead of pursuing freelance work, even if they have the skills to do it.
Conclusion
Napoleon Hill may not have had access to MRI scanners or peer-reviewed journals, but many of his insights anticipated what Psychology would later confirm.
His ideas, when translated into evidence-based principles, offer more than just motivation — they offer a roadmap.
When I first picked up Think and Grow Rich, I didn’t expect it to line up so well with modern science. But looking at it through a psychological lens while stripping away the old-school language, you’re left with something surprisingly timeless:
“Success isn’t just about wishing hard — it’s about how we think, what we believe, who we surround ourselves with, and how we act when things get hard.”
For me, the biggest takeaway is this: you don’t need to follow every principle to the letter, but understanding why these ideas work makes them a lot more useful. When you combine a clear goal with the right mindset and behavior, that’s when things really start to move. And if you can build that on a foundation of self-awareness and evidence-based strategies? Even better.
