Desire – The first Step to Riches

In Napoleon Hills Book Think and Grow Rich - he talks about the 13 steps to riches. Whilst there is an emphasis on money these steps can be applied to any area of life that you wish to create success in.


It is from this book that lots of well know quotes have been shared around the world. Quotes like “thoughts become things”, “What we think about we bring about” just to mention a couple.

In the introduction chapter Napoleon Hill says that he discovered that if we were all to realise the significants of our thoughts and the effect they have on attracting into our lives what we desire ( or don’t desire) there would be no need for rest of his book. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful – whether we pay attention to them or not.

I am sure we have all experienced the effect our thoughts have on our outcomes. I notice this mostly in my business when I am trying “too hard” to reach a certain goal. When I catch myself doing this I take a break, usually get out into nature and allow things to be for a while. I am always delighted by the flow that happens when I do this. It’s the energy in the “trying” that prevents the flow or the block.

The first step discussed by Napoleon Hill is Desire – he speaks about the need to have a “Burning Desire” – to me this is about getting very clear on what we want to achieve and then allow the passion we feel – the reason why we want it, to add fuel to it.

Have you ever had the experience of when you are doing something that you love you could do it all day long and you can loose all track of time? This is the passion that is required to add to the clarity to allow amazing results.

Let’s talk about getting clear for a moment – it is so important to get crystal clear about what we want to achieve – what by when! What is it that we want (the goal) and by when (the time frame) do we want it.

It is also really important to be clear about why we want to achieve a certain goal. It is the remembering why we want something that allows us to keep moving forward towards our goal until we achieve it.

Let me give you an example of this.

Both of my sons are very committed snowboarders – they both have different goals they want to achieve with their snowboarding, however both of them want this to be their career. They are so committed to their dreams of being professional snowboarders because they are passionate about their sport and they love the lifestyle of being out in nature and travelling the world. They know they have to put in hours and hours of time on snow attempting more and more difficult tricks to be recognised on the world stage and to live their dreams. I see them on some of the days the tricks don’t come off the way they want them to and how many times they “fall down” whilst attempting to perfect a certain trick and I see how easily it would be for them to become despondent, however they are so clear about where they are headed and what they wish to achieve and why they want it that they get back up and go after it again.

I am constantly inspired to see how committed they are to their goals; I have not doubt they will absolutely achieve them. They have the “Burning Desire” it takes to achieve such big goals.

Do you have a burning desire? What is that you want and why do you want it?