Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash
One of the books I have enjoyed the most over the years is Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’. Referred to less frequently now in most works about success that I read, it remains in my view, one of the best guides for people in relation to achieving personal and professional success. The main aim of the book is to explain how our thoughts direct our actions and although this is a well known concept now, tuning in to what we want and directing our thoughts towards achieving that daily, is not so well known especially when you add his chapters on ‘how’ to do this.
He directly refers and with some delicacy, that if you temper your negative thoughts in life you can positively affect the outcome of your goals. This plus the fact that concentrating on what you want with determination, persistence and passion can achieve much better results. In the latter chapters he goes so far as to say that sitting in a meditative state and ‘tuning in’ to what you want actually connects you spiritually with other people’s thoughts and creates a magnet for success. Being continually positive and emanating that energy attracts people and things to you that will help you achieve what you want even to the point that you will be much more creative with your ideas and ‘reach’ a higher intelligence that will support you in life. This is the delicate bit, but he puts it well. Although this may be similar in principle to ‘The Secret’ what Napoleon Hill does is explain the science behind it AND tell you ‘how’ to do it.
For two days last week I attended a Retreat where we had a visiting speaker on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). I have long since acknowledged the validity of EQ and how relevant it is to success. Daniel Goleman in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence’ first introduced the concept to us. He is now exploring the belief that Spiritual Intelligence (SQ), also exists, something which I believe Napoleon Hill would have concurred with and I think he is referring to this very concept in the latter chapters of his book. Spiritual Intelligence is not automatically referring to religion or a belief in God but more about the following concepts: –
- Sense perception
- Feelings and emotion
- Intuition
- Wisdom and compassion
- Understanding and inner peace
- Love and freedom
- Depth and breadth of vision
- Healing and forgiveness
As I spend a lot of my business life using my intuition and perceiving things in others, I can relate to this. I also spend a lot of time teaching people about healing from the past and thereby achieving inner peace, so this too is important in my view. We may yet see a greater development of this theory and I for one will be behind the introduction of it and the exploration of how to tap in to it or develop it further. If you already recognise the importance of your own spiritual intelligence then you may want to read Napoleon Hill’s book. For now I suggest we keep a look out for SQ and wait to see who will develop the concept for the rest of us to use.
