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(Book) Magic Ladder of Success - Napoleon Hill

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(Book) Magic Ladder of Success - Napoleon Hill

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True success, and true happiness and fulfillment in success comes from getting through the trials, and struggling, and persisting, and growing, and becoming the person you're supposed to be... But the very first step is the definite aim. You have to have a definite aim, something you are searching for, something you're looking for, something you're trying to move towards.

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Transcript:

Hey, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Today I'm going to be talking about The Magic Ladder of Success. This is a book that was written by Napoleon Hill in 1912. Wait, it was 1912. I'm pretty sure that's what I said before. Yes. No, I lied. In 1921, Napoleon Hill wrote this book called The Magic Ladder of Success. I actually bought this copy of the book off eBay for $10,000 because it is rare. It's the only copy I've ever seen. And so, I'm bringing it today to you guys on this podcast's episode. We're going to go over the 16 rungs of The Magic Ladder of Success Napoleon Hill wrote about in 1921.

I think you guys can get a lot of value from this. Even if you just master one, or two, or three of these rungs, it'll help you get closer to the goals that you are trying to achieve, whether it be in business, sports, relationships, whatever it is you're trying to be successful in. I hope this episode is going to help you to start taking these principles from Napoleon Hill, and weaving them into your mind to help you be more successful in all areas of your life.

Okay. A couple other things. For this episode, I want you guys to make an intention before you start listening to it or watching it, of just looking at the thing that you're trying to achieve. You're going to learn this is the very first rung of success is your definite aim. What is the thing you want? If you don't have that yet, I want to make sure you sit down and you figure it out.

In fact, the very end of this book, the very last thing he says in here, which is so cool, is going to be what I'm going to lead with. So, this is the intention I want you guys to have. Again, this is right before the end of the book, right before he goes to the ad promoting his magazine. He says, "It may not be a good plan that if you finish your work of this book by writing out your definite aim and the plan by which you expect to attain it."

So, the big key is on this ladder, all you guys want success in something, what is your definite aim? So, if you get one thing from this whole entire episode is what is the thing you want? I don't care what it is for you. Some of you guys it's to win a two comma club award. Some of you guys, you want to grow a business. You want to raise money for a non-profit. You want to make money. You want to lose money. No, I'm guessing you don't want to lose money, but you want to lose weight.

Whatever your thing is, what is your definite aim? What's the thing you want and what's the plan you have to get it? And then after you have that plan thought through, then I want you to take it through these rungs of the ladder success to see what things you're missing, because my guess is if you're not there yet, there's one, or two, or five, or 12 things that you're not doing right yet. If you're aware of it now, now that we're aware of it, you can make those changes, those tweaks you need to actually be successful. So, again this episode, we're going to go deep into the magic ladder of success, walk you through all the principles, and I want you to look at what things you're missing, what things you need to tweak and change so you can actually get the goal that you are looking for.

All right, this episode today is actually brought to you by one of my new companies I'm about to launch called Secrets of Success. This is going to be my personal development mindset, all sorts of cool things we're talking about in that company, that business over here. So, if you enjoy this stuff I want to make sure you go and subscribe. So right now, the site's not live, but there is a page. If you go to secretsofsuccess.com/magicladder, you can actually download this PDF right here, which is the PDF what we're talking about during today's episode. So, there's the sponsor, go get on the list, that way you get the PDF and a whole bunch of other cool things. Again, secretsofsuccess.com/magicladder. Also, on top of that, please, if you enjoy this episode, ready to review it wherever you're watching. If you're on YouTube, drop a comment down below. Let us know.

If you're on the podcast, please go to the podcast, drop some comments. I want to hear what they are. And if you are somewhere else, maybe you're on your phone and you're listening to this right now, take a screenshot of the episode and go and post it on socials, and tag me on it. Let me know your favorite thing about this episode, what you learned, what you wish I would've talked about, anything you want me to cover in the future, because I do look at those things. I read all the people that are tagging me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, different places. So, make sure you do that, and that way I know what to give you guys so we're creating the best stuff for you possible. And the last thing before we jump into this, if you have any questions or comments, or things you want me to talk about, you can also go to marketingsecrets.com.

Scroll down on that page. There's a spot where you can submit your questions. Those come directly to me. I can look at those and potentially cover them in a future episode. So, with that said, let's jump right into this episode of the podcast. All right everyone, this is Russell and I'm excited for today's podcast episode. We were talking about a book written by Napoleon Hill that I actually bought on eBay for $10,000. And you're going to be like, "Russell, this book is like 30 pages. Why would you spend $10,000 for it?" And it's because, first off, Napoleon Hill is my favorite author. Second off, I am literally scouring the country trying to find all the first edition everything from Napoleon Hill. In fact, I'll tell you guys some really cool interesting stories about that today. And this is a copy of a booklet that I found that I hadn't seen before.

I actually had owned this copy of the book, the Magic Ladder of Success, which is really fat and big, and was published I think in 1930. And this one was published like a decade earlier, and it's like the precursor to this. In fact, this is actually based on a presentation that Napoleon Hill gave. He traveled around the whole country giving presentation. This is before Think and Grow Rich, before Law of Success, before all that stuff. It was when he was first kind of developing these thoughts and this methodology, and his philosophy of success. And it's an early version of that. And so, when I found this, I was like, "This is really, really cool to read." In fact, when you open up, it starts by saying this is the transcript/cleaned up version of a presentation he did all around the world, so hundreds of thousands of people actually saw this presentation before Think and Grow Rich, which is kind of cool.

And so, today I actually read this entire book. I have a whole bunch of notes and things. We're going to go over it, we're going to talk about it. But one of the fascinating things for me, two weeks ago I had a chance to fly out to the Napoleon Hill Foundation. And it's been cool because as I've been getting more and more obsessed with Napoleon Hill, as you can see behind me, collecting all of these books, and courses, and magazines, and everything I can find that he's ever published or put out there, it's taken me on this journey to a whole bunch of cool places. And we had a chance finally go out to the Napoleon Hill Foundation and look at all these cool things. And so, we had a chance to go, first off, meet Don Green, who's the head of the foundation, but then also go to the archives and see all the original ... The manuscripts for Outwitting the Devil.

And another book that has not been launched or published yet. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it, but it's another unpublished Napoleon Hill book in the same series, part two of the Outwitting the Devil book that no one's ever heard of. Anyway, and they're actually shipping me the manuscript this week, which is crazy. We'll talk about that later on another episode. Here's all these open loops. This is what I do. There's a 1,000 open loops. But anyway, it's really cool. One of the things we saw, which was really cool is, in one of the glass cabinets there were his lecture notes, Napoleon Hill's lecture notes. So, he was at a hotel, this was on hotel stationary, and he was writing down his notes that he was going to give on his talk. It was like, "First thing I'm going to talk about this, and then this, and this, and tell this story."

And so, I got pictures of me holding his notes from a presentation he gave. And this is cool because, again, this book came from a presentation he gave all around the world called Magic Ladder of Success. And so, I'm going to talk about that. In fact, I doodled out while I was reading the book, the whole Magic Ladder of Success, and I had one of our designers design one for you guys. And if you want this at the end, I'm going to give you guys a link where you can go and download a PDF version this. You can print it out, hang on your wall so you can look at the 16 ladders of success. This is basically success at the top rung of the ladder, and these are all the things you got to do in order to be able to be successful, which is kind of cool. And if you've read a lot of success, or Think and Grow Rich, other ones, you noticed that these steps aren't the exact same steps in his other books.

And it's because, this is again, this was early on in his career, he was still developing these ... His thoughts, his methodologies, what he wanted to teach on. And so, this is one of the earliest versions which was kind of fun. So, that's what we're going to talk about today is the Magic Ladder of Success, how you guys have success in your life, in your business, whatever you're trying to do by following the same principles Napoleon Hill taught from all around the country. Now, one thing he said in this book at the very intro that I think is interesting, and I wanted to share this with you guys before we get into this podcast episode, and this video.

He says, "To the purchasers of this book, greetings from the author. If you merely purchase this bit of paper printers ink inviting of a book, you're not going to get your money's worth. But if you have purchased the sum total of knowledge that I have gathered and classified during my walk down the valley of the shadow, if you have purchased that, which I have learned from mistakes and failures, heartaches and disappointments, if you have purchased my services covering a period of more than 20 years, during which I have earnestly and diligently getting ready to write this book, then you will get your money's worth, full press down and running over. One reading of this book will do but little if any good. Reading it over and over until every idea in it becomes your own. Then put these ideas to work. Use them in all you do, and the small sum you invest in this book may easily prove to be the most important turning point in your life." And I think this is true. This is why I'm so obsessed with the books, by the way.

Tony Robbins, he coined a phrase called decade in a day, where you can take a decade of an author's life and they put it into a book you can read in a day. For example, this one he talked about, this is 20 years of his stuff put into this book that I was able to read in about an hour. So, with that said, this podcast episode I want you to look at the exact same way. This is me taking 20 years from Napoleon Hill's life, he put it down into a book that you can now read. I'm going to give it to you guys in 15, 20 minutes. And that's kind of the game plan. Does that sound good? Okay. So, to begin this, we're going to start on the bottom rung of the Magic Ladder of Success. And the bottom rung, and if you've studied Napoleon Hill, all he talks about this in almost every one of his courses, books, podcasts, I guess no podcast back then, radio interviews that have been turned into podcasts, things like that.

But the very first step is the definite aim. You have to have a definite aim, something you are searching for, something you're looking for, something you're trying to move towards. He said in here, in this book, he said that after serving I think like 17,000 people, he said, "I found that only 5% of people have an actual aim. Other 95% are just followers." So, only 5% of people are leaders who actually have an aim. And I'm going this direction, I'm trying to accomplish this thing. And it could be anything. It could be in sports, it could be in business, could be in your family life, could be in your relationship. But an actual aim of this is the thing I'm going for. In his looking, it was only 5% of the people. And that was back in 1910 or 19 ... Whenever this book was written.

I think today people are even more lost now than back then. So, I would say that number's probably less. But the first thing was having a definite aim. And after you have a definite aim, then a definite plan to actually achieve that aim. You can't say, "I want to lose 20 pounds and that's my definite aim. That's it." No, it's like you have to have, "My definite aim is I want to lose 20 pounds." And then the definite plan to actually get that is, "Okay, I'm going to do it by following this diet plant, this person, this ..." Whatever that thing might be. So, it's definite aim and then definite plan, those are the two things that are successful for the first rung of the Magic Ladder of Success. After you have a definite aim and a definite plan, then it takes you to the next step, which is self-confidence.

So, not only you have to have the aim and the plan, you have to actually have belief that you can do it. You have to have self confidence. I think I can actually do this, right? It's interesting. I always tell people that my head job as the head cheerleader here at ClickFunnels is just to get you guys to believe that it's actually successful, because it's not hard. It's been proven over, and over, and over again. I think we're two or three days away from passing 2,000 people that won a two comma club award. The only difference between you and them, if you haven't hit it yet, is because you lack self confidence. "I believe they can do it, but I don't know if I could do that." So, I'm their biggest cheerleader for you. I know you can do it. I have self-confidence you can do it. But that's the second rung of the latter is self-confidence.

Do you actually think you can do it. So, after you've got the definite aim, definite plan, then you go to self-confidence. The third rung of the ladder is initiative. Are you actually going to go and do the thing? How many of you guys have had ideas where you're like, "I'm going to do this thing, I have a plan to go and do something," but then you don't actually do it? "I want to be a state champ." When I was wrestling in high school, tons of people, "I want to be a state champ, I want to be a state champ." They didn't have the initiative to actually go and do the actual work. "I want to make a million dollars. I want to lose weight. I want to do whatever the thing is," do you actually have the initiative to do the things you need to do to actually be successful? So, we have definite aim, definite plan, we got self-confidence we can actually do it.

And then next is, do we have the initiative where we actually go out there and start taking the steps necessary to be successful? Rung number four is imagination. It's not only to have an initiative to go do the steps when you do, but then you have imagination, which be creative. We have to figure out new ways to solve the problems. In this book, he starts sharing a whole bunch of examples like Edison. He had initiative, he wanted to figure out how to create the light, but then he had to use imagination. Like, "Well, how's this going to work? I got to think through it." Because there wasn't a plan on here's how to build light bulb. He had to have imagination. He talked about Christopher Columbus had initiative, but he had imagination. Like, "How am I going to do this? How am I going to create this thing?" Gutenberg with the printing press, he had initiative, but he had imagination. "How are we going to do this?" Wright brothers, over, story, after story, after story. And then he says, "The two keys are having initiative and imagination. Those two things together unlock the next level."

He says, "These two qualities are the main reasons why the 95% of adult people in the world have no definite aim in life, which in turn is the reason why the same 95% constitute the followers in life." The initiative and imagination is the next thing that unlocks that leadership. Rung number five is action. You hear this so much in personal development, you hear this in the business world, you got to take action, you got to take massive action to go out there and actually do the thing. It's similar to initiative. Initiative gets you started, action is the momentum that keeps it happening. Taking action on the idea despite fear and all the problems that come up when we're trying to do anything, it's blasting through that and actually doing the action we need. One of the really cool stories that Napoleon Hill shared here inside the book talking about action, which I thought was so powerful.

He said, "A few years ago I went out to a Chicago public parks and I interviewed seven of the so-called down and outs, fellows who lie around sleep with newspapers over their faces while work is plentiful and wages are high. I wanted to catch a glimpse of their particular alibi." I love he called it an alibi. "I knew they had what they believed to be a reason for being without work. And with some small change in a pocket full of cigars I got pretty close to these fellows. And what do you supposed they told me? Every mother's son of them." It's a weird phrase we don't use in America anymore, but apparently back then they did. "Each of them said substantially this, 'I am here because the world would not give me a chance.'" So, think of it because the world would not give me a chance.

"Did the world ever give any person a chance other than that which they went out and created by the use of their imagination, self-confidence, initiative and those other qualities mentioned in the latter? We are not to argue the point that if there is no action, all education in the world, all the knowledge that ever came from the best colleges or universities on the earth, all the good intentions, plus all the other qualities mentioned in this magic ladder would not be of any value whatsoever." And so, action is the key. Getting action after you have all these things. He earlier in the book talked a lot about this, the fact that there's so much knowledge. There's knowledge in encyclopedias, and books, and everything, but just having the knowledge doesn't help you be successful. It's taking the knowledge and actually turning it into something. A couple of quotes from the book, he said, "There's a great deal of knowledge carefully classified and stored away in well-edited encyclopedias, but it represents no power until it's transformed in organized, intelligent, directed effort."

So, just having knowledge isn't the key. Just reading a million books isn't the key. It's reading books and then applying the thing, taking the action, doing the next step. He says, "There's no power in college degrees, nor an education which these degrees represent, until it's classified, organized, and put into action." So, our job is, as you're learning, and consuming, and you're listening to podcasts, you're studying, you're reading books, you're watching this video, or listening to the audio, or wherever you bumped into this at, the key is not just the accumulation of knowledge, it's the accumulation then turning that into actual action. That's how you have success in any aspect of your life. Okay, let's continue to move up the rungs of ladder. Number six now is enthusiasm. Not just saying, "Oh, I'm going to have to go do this thing."

We joke, some of my friends, we tease them and call them Eeyore, because it's like the donkey. "Okay, I guess I'm going to do it." Those people rarely have success in life. The people that have success are like, "Oh, this is going to be hard. Okay, if I have enthusiasm, I'm excited, I'm going to go do the thing and be successful." So you take action, but not action with dread, or remorse, or tiredness, or whatever. It's doing it with enthusiasm. Like doing, "Okay if I'm going to go accomplish this definite aim, my chief purpose, the thing I'm going after, I'm going to do it with energy and excitement. I'm going to go and attack it." So, rung number six is enthusiasm.

Rung number seven now is self control. He talks about the importance in here of being able to control ourselves. Control our anger, control our frustrations, control those things, because as you were going on this path and moving towards being successful in area, whatever area of life you're looking to be successful in, there's going to be things come up. And if you can't have self-control to be able to stay focused, to be able to keep doing the thing you're supposed to be doing, to continue to take action, to not get frustrated, mad or angry, all those kind of things, if you can have that self-control it's going to help you be more successful. One of the quotes I loved he said in here, "No person's ever became a great leader of other men until he first learned how to lead himself through self-control. Self mastery is the first stepping stone to real achievement."

So, the question for you is do you have self mastery? Do you have self-control? Are you able to control your thoughts and all the things? We're in this constant battle in our mind. We want to go do something, but our mind's like, "But it's easier to go and watch Netflix. But I want to go run and lose weight. Oh, but it's easier to go to Krispy Kreme and get donuts." There's this mental battle that we're going through every single day, every single one of us. And learning how to control our mind is one of the big keys to success. We're going to continue to move up the Magic Ladder of Success. Rung number eight, he says it in more words than I'm going to say it, so I'll say it his way first.

He said, "Rung number eight is the habit of performing more work and better work than you are paid to perform." I like to call this principle the principle of over delivering. Whenever you are in any circumstance or situation, you always want to do more than you're paid for. He talks a lot about this in Think and Grow Rich, he talks about it in the Laws of Success. This is one of the principles that he goes deep in all the time. It's just like, look, you want to be successful in life? Always do more than you are paid for. Always over deliver. If someone pays you 50 bucks an hour to do something, give him $100 an hour worth of effort. And if you do that, over time people will continue to look at your value and it'll increase.

And so, he says, "The habit of performing more work and better work than you're paid for," which again I say is hashtag over deliver. Always over deliver in all aspects of your life. If you over deliver in your relationships, you're going to have good relationships. If you over deliver in your marriage, you're going to have a great marriage. You over deliver with your kids, you're going to have a great relationship with your kids, over deliver in your job, in your sports, your athletics, your business, or whatever it is serving your customers. If you're over delivering in every single aspect, that's how you're going to be able to help guarantee your success.

So, that is rung number eight. As we start moving up, rung number nine is an attractive personality. Oh, this sounds interesting. If you've read any of my books, all three Dotcom Secrets, Expert Secrets, and Traffic Seekers, I talk about this concept called the attractive character. The attractive character's all about who are you putting out there in the world that's going to attract the right people to you? And in this book he talks about an attractive personality. He said the same thing that people aren't going to want to work with you if you're always depressed, or sad, or not putting those things out there. If you look scary, if you're not keeping yourself clean, things like that. So, you have to look at that. If you want to attract people into your life to help you to reach your goals, you have to have an attractive personality.

Doesn't mean to be good looking, that doesn't matter, but an attractive personality where you're ... That you're nice to talk to, you're pleasant, you're not angry at people all the time. People can have conversations with you, looking at your life and figuring out how can I have an attractive personality? And studying people who do have attractive personalities. A good book that is in this book obviously, but another one to go deeper onto, if you want to go deeper on that, is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. How do you do that? If you understand those principles of how you present yourself, it's how you, and like Dale Carnegie said, it's how you win friends and influence people, which is a big step in the ladder of success. Okay, rung number 10, accurate thought. This is one that most of the world struggles with. Every time they hear any knowledge or information, they think it's the truth. And sometimes it is, but oftentimes it's not, especially today.

Think about it, Napoleon Hill wrote this back way before the internet, way before computers, back when there were just typewriters. And before we were having all the social media where everyone and their dog has an opinion. Everyone's telling you what they think, and anybody can publish anything. It's insane. And most people are looking at all that stuff, and taking it all as truth, or everything's false, or whatever, and they don't have accurate thinking. For us to be successful, we have to have accurate thought. Okay, so Napoleon Hill says it's the difference between separating between mere information and actual facts. What is the actual truth? It's important for us to get to the actual truth so we're not just making decisions based on information, which could and usually is not correct. And so, we got to figure out for ourselves how do we create a way to make sure that we have accurate thoughts?

How do we fact check ourselves? What are our sources? Where do we look to? What are the things we can do to make sure that the choices we're making based on information we're given are correct? And it comes down to really having accurate thought, and not just taking things that face value, but studying, learning them out, testing, trying things. One of the biggest things I've learned in my life that, when I hear something and I'm not just always going to be like, "Oh, this is true," I'm going to take it and think through it. I'm going to test it out, and if it works then okay, this is a good thing. And the Bible talks about how this is the principle of the seed. You have a seed, is this a good seed or bad seed? I don't know. Only way to know is to plant the seed and see if it grows.

If it grows, it's like, oh, this is a good seed. Same thing is true with information coming to you. Don't just take everything as this is the truth until you've planted it, you've watered it, you've tested it, you've seen what's happened. If it grows up into something good, it's like, okay, that is true, therefore I'm going to continue to use that for the rest of my life. So, accurate thought is a huge key because if you're getting the wrong information and looking at it as truth, and you're running in the wrong direction, you'll never get to the outcome you're looking for. So, accurate thought is rung number 10. Yes, rung number 10.

All right, rung number 11, concentration. Are you able to concentrate long enough to actually get the project or the thing done? Can you focus enough to, despite all the distractions? And back again, this is ... I keep quoting what year, but let me make sure I have the right year. The year that this book was published is 1921. So, 1921. How hard was it to have concentration? Probably not hard. They had telephones, I'm assuming, they had ... I don't think they had TVs in their houses. And he was focused on concentration then. They didn't have texting, and Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram, and YouTube, and Skype, and Slack, and Zoom, and text messages, and DMs, and instant messages, and Snapchat, and all the chaos.

And he was concerned about concentration back then. Today it's even worse. How in the world do you get concentration so you actually focus and get things done? Right now I'm in a room with a whole bunch of walls and a bunch of books, and nothing else. There's a computer, but even when I'm on the computer I try to turn off the internet so I can focus and actually get things done. What is it you're doing to be able to make sure you can concentrate on the goal at hand so you can actually be successful? Because there are a million things that are fighting for your attention every single second of every single day. And if you're not careful and you give into those things, you're never going to get to the finish line of what you're trying to accomplish. So, concentration is key.

After concentration, the next rung up the ladder is persistency. And persistency is going to lead into the next as well. Persistency though, is continue to try, and to try, and to try. It's not a one time thing. Success is not something that most people stumble upon immediately. If you were to watch a movie and you watch this hero's journey, and the when, when he tried something he just had success, what would you think about that? You're like, "This movie's really boring. He tried and the very first time he tried it was successful." Persistency is what helps you to grow, it helps a character in a movie to grow, and develop, and become something amazing.

And the same thing's true for you. Your goal of getting success is not to make this an easy path to the end, it's for you to grow and to become something different, become something better. The whole thing, when we're trying to be successful in any area of our life, it's like this process of us trying to become who we're supposed to become. And so, persistence is part of that goal. It's the growth process, trying and failing, and trying and failing until, as you continue to be persistent, that's when you show up. I think a lot of times God gives us these desires, these goals, or things we're pursuing, and he wants to say, "How persistent, how bad does he really want this?" He wants to see, and he's testing us. If He just made it simple then you didn't earn anything.

True success, and true happiness and fulfillment in success comes from getting through the trials, and struggling, and persisting, and growing, and becoming the person you're supposed to be. So, rung number 12 is persistency, which leads us to rung number 13, which is failure. One thing he said here was interesting. He said that, "This brings us to the lucky 13th rung of the latter, which is failure." He says, "Do not stumble on this rung. It is the most interesting rung of all because it deals with the facts that you must face in life, whether you wish to do so or not, and shows you as clearly as you might see the sun on a clear day how you can turn every failure into an asset. How you carve every failure into a foundation stone upon which your house of success will stand forever." He also says that, "Failure is the only subject on the whole ladder which might be called negative. And we shall show you how and why it is one of the most important of life's experiences."

Failure is the key. Persistency and failure, these two rungs, they go hand in hand. We got to persist, and then we're going to fail, we're going to persist, we're going to fail. And that process of failing is how we get things closer, and closer, and closer until eventually we're successful. Again, it's very rare that someone goes and they have success in the first try. So, they set really low goals. The bigger goal you have, the more failure's going to become part of it. And most people are so scared of failing that they're never willing to even try. Where, understanding that failure is one of the steps of success. And it's like, okay, I'm going to fail. That's okay. I'm going to go through the process. I'm going to fail and be like, "Oh, I failed. What did I learn from this? How can I grow from this?" I think people who have been athletes a lot of times have more success in most aspects of life because they've had to fail over, and over, and over again.

As a wrestler, I stepped on the mat hundreds of times and I didn't win every match. I lost a lot of matches. But I went out there, I lost a match, I came back. We looked at the film, we figured out, "What did I learn? How did I fail? What do I need to do differently?" We persisted, and we went and figured out a new plan, we came back and we tried again. And then I'd succeed or I'd fail, and if I fail I'd go back to the drawing board and keep trying. And eventually through that process, that refiners fire became so good that I was able to beat most people. And so, a lot of times athletes who've had a chance to go out there and they know, hey, if I step on the mat, or on the court, or on the field, whatever their thing is, that if I lose, I'm not a loser. I just have to go watch the game film, and learn, and then practice and become better.

People who have gone through athletics, a lot of times that's more real to them. So, they transition to business or other areas of their life. It's easier for them to have success than those who have never had a chance to fail. And so, if you haven't had a chance to fail in the past, it's one of the keys is understanding it's okay. Just because you failed doesn't mean you're a failure. But the process, the plan that you had tried before failed. Okay, cool. That's okay. Come back and retweet the plan. Re-figure it out, and between persistence and failure, persistence and failure, over time is how you actually find success. So, that is rung number 13 is failures.

Now, as we move to rung number 14, this is tolerance and sympathy. This is starting to look outward, not just for yourself, and you should have tolerance and sympathy for your own failures and mistakes, but also for the people that are around you. Now, one interesting thing about the Magic Ladder of Success, you'll notice, is that Napoleon Hill, one of his core principles in Laws of Success and Think and Grow Rich is the power of a mastermind. And he doesn't talk about a mastermind here. He hadn't developed that principle, that concept yet in his thoughts and his writings. But this is, I believe, part of it, talking about tolerance and sympathy towards the people you're around. If you're working towards a goal, chances are it's not just you. There's other people on this journey with you, and how do you have tolerance and sympathy for them, and the struggles and frustrations they're having as well? By doing that, it helps you get more people to come, want to help you along your journey as well.

Okay, we're getting close to the end of the success ladder. Number 15 now is work. Actually going out there and doing the work necessary to be successful in this process. You'll notice that something every four or five rungs are about the progress, making progress. There's action, there's initiative, there's work, it's doing the actual thing. And it's interesting, as you look through this ladder, every three or four rungs it's kind of brought up in different version of that. But I think it's important because most people think that if I don't ... They're hoping that they're just going to think and grow rich, but it's think and grow rich but in the process your thoughts have to become actions. And this is where we're talking about step number 15 is work. Going out there again and doing the work to be successful. If you notice Napoleon Hill's writings, he always likens things back to nature.

How are things happening naturally in nature? And then how does that relate back to us? And in this principle he talks about, again, he says, "All nature's laws have decreed that nothing may live which is not used. The arm which is tied to one's arm and removed from active use will wither up and perish away. So it is with any other part of the physical body, disuse brings decay and death. Likewise, the human mind, with all of its qualities, will wither up and decay unless it is used. This is wrong. The mind will not decay but the brain, the physical agent through which the mind functions will decay unless it is used. Every picture which reaches the human brain through the five senses, embeds itself upon one of the tiny brain cells where to wither up and die through disuse, or to become vivid and healthy through constant use."

So we got to work, keep putting these motions in process to make our muscles grow, our mind grow, whatever it is that we're trying to work towards. And then this brings us to rung number 16, the top. The last one before success. And this is the Golden Rule. And the Golden Rule's interesting because Napoleon Hill, I think back in 1912, back in the early years, people talked more about this. The Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is a biblical principle, it's a biblical statement, but we don't talk about it nowadays. But it's such a heavy thing in Napoleon Hill's mind. He actually launched a magazine called Hill's Golden Rule. When I was at the Napoleon Hill Foundation, he had a Golden Ruler I actually got to hold it, I got pictures of me holding ... This is the Golden Ruler that Napoleon Hill carried around with him everywhere to remember this principle of Hill's Golden Rule, and the Golden Rule, it's such a key thing.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And so, it's the last step on the ladder here to success is the Golden Rule. And I can't tell you all the details, but the Outwitting the Devil book, the part two of that book, I won't tell you the title yet or anything because I don't want to ruin the surprise when you get to find out about it. But in this book it talks about Hitler, and how Hitler was one of the most successful people of all time. He says he followed all the laws of success except for two, and I won't tell you all of them, but one of them was the Golden Rule. And he says that's why Hitler was successful in doing what he did, but ultimately not successful in life, because he missed one of the Golden Rule, or one of the rungs of the ladder.

And one of them was the Golden Rule, do unto others as you have them do unto you. And when you start looking at this as a filter through all the choices and the actions you're making in life, it keeps you on the straight and narrow path of success, and harmony, and mental ... Not being stressed, and all those things, when you start looking it through that lens of the Golden Rule. And so, this book, the Magic Ladder of Success, you guys, I doodled it out here as I was going. I wanted to map it all out, and I decided to give you guys something really cool is I had my designers design this PDF you can take and you can print out, have it on your wall, put it in your books, in your notes, whatever it is. As you're watching this podcast interview, you can take notes along the whole thing if you want. And I will put this up for free for you guys. You can go and download it secretsofsuccess.com/magicladder, M-A-G-I-C L-A-D-D-E-R.

We'll make sure that the PDF is there for this right there, that way you can download it and have it with you as you guys are taking notes, or thinking through these principles in your life. Now, I'm going to continue to make videos like this going through different books, specifically Napoleon Hill books. I'd love to do part two of this one going from the Magic Ladder of Success. Again, this one was published 1921 to 1930. He published a bigger version, the Magic Ladder Success right here, which goes even deeper, and there's more principles, more stories, and I think he's changed some of the rungs around based on how his philosophy had evolved over almost a decade period of time. But again, make sure that you are subscribed to this channel, if you're on the podcast make sure you're subscribed to podcast. That way, as I bring you guys other episodes, other things about these topics, you have a chance to get them as well. And there you go, Magic Ladder of Success.

All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast talking about Napoleon Hill's Magic Ladder of Success. Again, so many cool principles, so many great things. I hope you guys got ton of value from this. If you did, please share this video or this podcast episode with somebody who you love and you care about, especially someone who's trying to have more success in life. It could be in business, could be in sports, athletics, it could be in a relationship, whatever it is these principles from Napoleon Hill are timeless and they're things that can help serve you and serve them. So, please share this with anybody you can. On top of that, if you have any questions you want me to answer about this book, or about Napoleon Hill, or about any of the cool things we're talking about during this episode, again, if you go to marketingsecrets.com, there's a link there where you can submit your questions. I get those links directly to me, and I'll try to answer them on a future episode here on the channel or on the podcast.

With that said, you guys, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you all. Go study Napoleon Hill, he is the man. So many good principles and so many things I've learned from him. I'm going to continue to bring you back more cool Napoleon Hill stuff in the future, if you like it. So, if you do like it, let me know in comments down below. That way we know that this is stuff you want to hear more about. So, with that said, thank you guys so much. Appreciate you listening in and we'll see you guys on the next episode.

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