Think and Grow Rich “The Brain”
A Broadcasting and Receiving Station for Thought: The Twelfth Step toward Riches-Napoleon Hill
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the continuing weekly series on Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. At this point, a lot of the work of this book is synthesizing other parts of the book into a more coherent whole. Last week, we examined the chapter dealing with the subconscious mind, which bound together thoughts of faith and autosuggestion, and this week, we focus on that marvel of marvels in this great universe: the brain. When this book was originally written in 1937, scientists were only beginning to understand the potential of the brain.
By the 1970′s, research culled together by Tony Buzan in Use Both Sides of Your Brain among other books shows just how limitless the potential of the human mind really is. He points out that, despite the dominance of such supercomputers as Watson which appeared on Jeopardy! and famously defeated its two greatest champions with ease, that the human brain is capable of calculations and thought processes that dwarf that of the greatest supercomputer.
However, how to we access the power of the brain? We know that we can affect the brain through studies of subconscious thought and mind mapping, but these ways still only tap a little bit of the power of the brain. Buzan talks about the famous expression that humans use only about 10% of our brain, and he points out that the actual rate is closer to 1%. This is in part because of ways that we have been taught that use the most arduous ways to learn, namely the rote process and learning to read by only focusing on the words on the page rather than the total experience of learning.
Napoleon Hill saw a world where we were beginning to understand how our brains really worked, and how the neural connections that we make affect our brain patterns for the rest of our lives. Buzan expanded this to point out just how many great thinkers found a way to find a synergy to their thought patterns, so that Einstein was able to solve one of the biggest problems of the universe through the theory of relativity inspired by a daydream about traveling toward the sun on a beam of light. Michelangelo’s rough sketches for paintings and sculptures looked more like architectural blueprints than artists’ renderings. It was only through realizing the great power of the way the different parts of the brain work together that they were able to accomplish great things that have stood the test of time. Now that we know more about how the brain works than we did 75, 40, or even 10 years ago, one can only imagine what can be accomplished if we put these principles to good use.
What do you do to enhance your thought? If you like what you read, please leave your comments below and share with your friends using the buttons above.
Tags: Napoleon Hill, research, the brain, Think and Grow Rich, Tony Buzan, unlimited, Use Both Sides of Your Brain
This entry was posted on Saturday, May 7th, 2011 at 12:18 am and is filed under Business, Personal Development, Steve's Book Club. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 7th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Hi Steve
I love it that you mention Tony Buzan! He lives in England and I knew him via a client of mine! I absolutely love his mind-mapping books and use his concepts every day in my business and my life. I teach others how to mind map which we all do naturally as children. No brain works in an orderly list. that is why the medical profession has chosen to name a condition – ADHD because children are being taught to think and learn in lists instead of mind mapping as they were born to do. Our brains are wired in an ADHD way. I taught brainwave feedback techniques in my clinic in London, UK and it helped children so much who had “learning difficulties”. I believe our educational system has learning difficulties and need major overall since our world has become totally ADHD with all the information we are asked to deal with daily.
and, our results in life totally mirror our thoughts which was the main message of Napoleon Hill.
regards
Clare
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May 7th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Thank you for your reply, Clare! Of Tony Buzan’s work, I’ve read Think and Grow Rich and Speed Reading, but I haven’t read any of his mind mapping books. Then again, he does mention mind mapping in each of those. His writing shows someone who is very optimistic and amazed by human potential. I’ll bet it was really amazing to get to know him and pick his brain. I know that, as far as some of the things he points out in his books about reading, that my mom taught the junior church group for the longest time, and she said that kids put their finger on the page and felt guilty about it, but what they should have been taught was not to stop doing that, but to try to expand what they look at when they read. It really is important to focus on how learning works in order to realize one’s potential, and a lot of the research wasn’t there yet in Hill’s day, so I felt it was good to show what the next generation had learned.
May 8th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Hi Steve,
The mind is the universe’s biggest mystery and also the most powerful tool. So many things can be accomplished and so much left to explore and discover.
Thanks for your postings!
May 9th, 2011 at 12:03 am
Wow, Steve! This is such a powerful post! It’s absolutely awe-inspiring to really grasp the idea of how much more we can take advantage of our brain power. You touch on some key points here — I think that taking advantage of our brain has to do with being holistic with it (i.e., connecting different fields together) and consistently learning new things.
I’ve read that learning completely new things challenges our brains sufficiently enough to prevent Alzheimer’s, but the idea is that we have to get back to that feeling of being a kid again. We need that openness and willingness to learn from scratch.
Currently, I’m trying to challenge my brain by learning acrobatics! My body has never moved in these ways before and there’s that extra element of fear that I have to surpass in order to throw my body into a flip or try to do a handstand. It’s been an amazing experience so far! =)
How about you, Steve? =) How have you been optimizing your brain power? =)
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May 9th, 2011 at 3:35 am
Hi Steve,
This is an amazing and powerful post! My husband and I love to discuss about the power of the brain, and the fact that we only actually use a very small percentage of it. Now, Buzan’s figure of 1% is astonishing – which only proves how our brain’s potential is unimaginable!
It’s always exciting to get involved with ‘mind-expanding’ activities, like reading certain number of books in a year (which I intend to do by the way
).
Personally, I believe that my biggest challenge now is looking for ways to overcome procrastination, and to train my brain to do Single-handling (single-tasking) effortlessly. I am working on a post about the dangers of multi-tasking. Most of the studies presented are just mind-boggling, to say the least (given that I was a multi-tasker for a long time).
Thank you Steve, this post is just amazing!
- Rowena
p.s. I just wanted to say I am excited for Samantha, learning acrobatics! Sam, share more photos and teach me flexibility tips =)
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May 10th, 2011 at 11:34 am
Thank you for your reply, Gary! It is truly amazing what the human brain can do.
May 10th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Thank you for your reply, Samantha! It is interesting to find out what we can do to build our brain. One thing that I’ve found interesting is the way that learning one thing can help in other ways. For example, what really helped me learn to play guitar was actually math, and figuring out the relation between the notes and the vibrations. It is through combining things that we learn how to deal with so many other things.
May 10th, 2011 at 11:43 am
Thank you for your reply, Rowena! I couldn’t agree with you more about the problem of procrastination. However, I think that with multi-tasking, there is good multi-tasking and bad multi-tasking. In The Other 8 Hours, it talks about the difference between head activities and body activities, and what you do is find ways to match them up, such as listening to an audio while driving, or reading while doing laundry or taking public transportation. This way, your down time becomes up time, and we can save so much time, which gives us more of an opportunity to grow and build.
May 10th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Very enjoyable post Steve – I’ve long been a fan of Napoleon Hill – have his books on my shelf, and I even get weekly motivational emails from the foundation. Thanks so much for sharing this important passage – great way to start the week.
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May 11th, 2011 at 1:56 am
Hi Steve
Your post made me think of my parents who in their 70s and 80s are still walking their dogs for hours, reading, learning Japanese and other new skills. They are a great role model to me to never give up on learning new skills and exercising the brain.
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May 11th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Thank you for your reply, Marquita! I’m glad that you liked it. I do a post on Think and Grow Rich every Friday on one chapter of the book. I will be finished with the series in two weeks.
May 11th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Thank you for your reply, Anne! It really is amazing to see what happens when people stay active. I know that I did a couple of internships at retirement homes for seminary, and there were quite a few people who amazed me when they started talking about events in their life, and I did the math and realized that they were in their 80′s, 90′s, and even 100 or more. There were people who were 100+ who didn’t look a day over 70 and vice versa, and I think that the difference is that they continued to challenge themselves and find purpose. I’m glad to hear that your parents have done the same.
In Use Both Sides of Your Brain, Tony Buzan talks about different ways to stay mentally active after 40 to keep brainpower strong. I think that his books are an extension of what Napoleon Hill wrote about because of the advances in research in the brain from 1937 to 1974 (when the first edition of Buzan’s book was published) and beyond.