Wishing you a happy New Year! The best way I can think to ring in 2025 is a reminder of the fundamentals.
Here are the first five laws of Napoleon Hill’s masterpiece, The Law of Success, which he considered the foundation of success in all matters. I wish I had learned about them a decade earlier.
Law 1—A Definite Chief Aim
It all starts by creating a Definite Chief Aim, which is the singular thing you want to accomplish.
Success is impossible in the absence of an overarching goal because the goal becomes the criterion by which success or failure is judged. This is why many people avoid setting goals. They think by not setting goals, they are protecting themselves from failure.
Which is true, but they are also cutting themselves off from the possibility of success.
A good Definite Chief Aim is a simple declarative statement about what you want to do.
Elon Musk’s Definite Chief Aim is to colonize Mars. That is quite simple and declarative. Warren Buffett’s Definite Chief Aim was to become the greatest investor of all time. Donald Trump’s Definite Chief Aim since losing the 2020 election has been to win the 2024 election in order to see his original vision for making America great again become reality.
Don’t overcomplicate this.
Just write down what you want to do in the simplest possible terms.
Law 2—Self-Confidence
Self-confidence is not God-given.
It is earned by repeatedly proving to yourself that you deserve to have it, one choice at a time. But here’s the big secret: everyone fakes it before they feel it. It never happens in reverse.
No one has ever waited until they felt confident to begin acting like it.
The act precedes the reality.
Creating a DCA you’re inspired by goes a long way toward developing the confidence to pursue it. Beyond that, it’s a matter of imagining what someone who could do what you want to do would look and act like, then embodying the image you imagine.
Make the choice today to begin showing up exuding confidence and watch the world move out of your way.
Law 3—Habit of Saving
Okay, so now you know what you’re trying to do and you know how to show up every day to pursue it.
The next step is beginning to gather the resources you need to take it to the next level. The easiest way to do this is to choose some amount of money you are going to save each week or month, then, well, saving it. For me, transferring that amount over monthly works.
But there are great apps like Acorns or Robinhood that will help you automate this habit.
Law 4—Initiative & Leadership
Initiative begins with the decision to happen to life rather than allowing life to happen to you.
This law is probably the rarest to be deployed. Most people sit back and wait for opportunities to find them. To give yourself a shot at actually reaching your DCA, you have to place the success or failure of that mission squarely on your shoulders. This means rejection most of the time.
But the world needs people who take it upon themselves to do important things regardless of whether they get paid or benefit from doing so.
The reason leadership is paired with initiative is because taking initiative turns you into a leader by definition.
If you are taking initiative to do a thing, then the thing isn’t yet being done. That means if you do it well, people will follow in your footsteps to get the same results. This turns you into a leader, whether you like it or not.
You will not find a successful person who never took initiative.
Those people don’t exist.
Law 5—Imagination
The fifth law in the foundations of the Law of Success is imagination.
It is true to say that your mindset is the only limitation to your potential. Imagination is the muscle that expands your mindset. You can imagine whole new products or variations on existing products or innovate a framework to solve a problem.
In fact, you can imagine literally anything.
Take a moment to look around you.
How many things that you see began as an idea in the imagination of some human being? Your computer and phone, your desk, your clothes, your glasses, your window frames, your flooring. The entire social world that we live in was conceived in the mind of some enterprising ancestor of ours who did the work to make it a reality and eventually turn it into a standard aspect of your modern life.
And like all muscles, imagination grows through use.