How Does The 6 Ghosts Of Fear Impact Your Success? Chapter XV (The End)

byEdwinBernard

9.2K followers

Updated 4 years ago

Let me begin with a quote by Napoleon Hill from the last page of this book:

"Life is a checkerboard, and the player opposite you is time. If you hesitate before moving, or neglect to move promptly, your men will be wiped off the board by time. You are playing against a partner who will not tolerate indecision!"

In this last chapter of Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill teaches us how to take inventory of ourselves to find out how many of these "GHOSTS" stand in our way. And also how to negate these fears.

What are the 6 Ghosts of Fear? They are THE FEAR OF:

1. Poverty
2. Criticism
3. Ill Health
4. Loss of Love of Someone
5. Old Age
6. Death

Heavy stuff indeed. I assume you have or will be reading the book. Hence, I will only briefly be going over each of them.

Fear Of Poverty

The road to riches and poverty go in opposite directions." Riches" is defined not only financial, hut also well-being, spiritual, mental and material. It all starts with DESIRE as discussed in Chapter 2.

We have a choice to choose poverty, contrary to general thinking. If we happen to be in a poor state, we do not have to choose to remain there.

Since we are all members of Wealthy Affiliate I am going to assume we are beyond choosing poverty. We have chosen riches in our future.

Napoleon Hill left it to this last chapter to address the elephant in the room. Why did he focus o money when riches can be measured in so many other ways. In fact there are riches that cannot be measured in terms of dollars.

Can you relate to what millions of people who say, "Give me all the money I need and I will find everything else I want."

Remember this. When you are out of a job, and have no means to have the money you need, how do you feel? Doesn't that negatively affect your whole being? Unless you happen to be a hermit; in which case you would not be a member of Wealthy Affiliate.

the fear of poverty has the following symptoms:

• Indifference
• Indecision
• Doubt
• worry
• Over-cautious
• Procrastination

The fear of poverty is the most destructive fear. I am going to leave it at that.

Fear Of Criticism

How many wrong decisions have you made in your life because of the fear of criticism? It is human nature to want the approval of others. We need to be very self-assured and confident to make decisions that are criticized by others.

An ongoing example of how criticism is used is by politicians, They criticize their opponents more than displaying their own virtues and qualifications. So says Napoleon Hill.

Our economy is driven by the fear of criticism. New products and fashion are regularly updated so that the consumer will want to buy this new stuff for fear of being criticized for not being current. This fear is artificially created by the manufacturers of these products to drive sales.

The symptoms of criticism can be defined by the following traits:

• Self-Consciousness
• Lack of poise
• Personality
• Inferiority complex
• Extravagance
• Lack of initiative
• Lack of ambition

Sadly criticism is used mistakenly to change the behavior of others for the better. In fact, it has the opposite effect in the long run. In reality, constructive suggestions given with a good heart can help the receiver to make changes in their lives for the better.

Parents and employers, and sometimes friends, are most guilty of doling out negative criticism and then expecting positive results.

Fear Of Ill Health

The fear of ill health can either cause an illness that was not there, of if there, can make it worse. The mental state controls our health in so many ways we do not understand clearly.

It has been said by doctors that 75% of patients who visit them are because of imaginary illnesses. And if they weren't physically ill to begin with, they eventually got ill because of their fear of illness.

Negative mental states caused by other factors can be the genesis of the fear of ill health. Fear of ill health can often stop us from exercising that results in getting over weight, leading to real illnesses.

There is no cure for hypochondria. Sadly, the hypochondriac often wallows in self-pity.

Fear Of The Loss Of Love

This can lead to paranoia which accelerates the possibility of losing the love which one is so worried about loosing.

Often this can be related to the lack of self-esteem and self-confidence.

Symptoms of this fear are:

• Jelousy
• Fault finding
• Efforts to buy love

Fear Of Old Age

I feel that since Napoleon Hill wrote this book, this fear is not as dominant today. The main reason being that people are living longer. Age 60 is more like how 40 was 80 to 100 years ago.

With the technology available today, age is not a factor to become successful assuming that one's health is still good.

The biggest factor that comes into play is when old age is combined with the fear of poverty. The fear of poverty can be amplified when one gets older. However, it is possible to overcome poverty in old age as long as one's faculties and health are in good shape.

The opposite is also true. If one is old and in poor health, it is hard to avoid this fear. Therefore, it behooves us to instill a healthy lifestyle long before we reach old age.

Fear Of Death

Death is inevitable. The older we get, the more we can worry about death. The best way to overcome this fear is to replace thinking about death with occupying our minds with constructive and positive thoughts.

If we have done the things to stay healthy, avoid being poor and not getting mentally ill, the fear of death can be greatly minimized. There should be no place for worry.

Best Defense Against These Fears

These fears can be classed under two categories:

1. The disaster of destructive thinking
2. Susceptibiity to negative infuences

In the final analysis, it all comes down to mind over matter. We need to instill the mental discipline to overcome these fears.

The best way to inoculate us from these fears is to recognize we all have the quality of will power that we need to put under constant use.

We start of by recognizing that we and every other human being are by nature, lazy, indifferent and susceptible to all suggestions which harmonize with our weaknesses.

With this understanding we have to build a wall of immunity in our minds against negative influences.

By far the most influential are the negative influences of other people. It is uncanny that our friends and family say things to us to discourage us from pursuing actions to achieve our dreams.

Let's face it. If we achieve our dreams, they get left behind. And they rather that not happen to them. Hence, they use the power of fear to keep us where we are.

It takes a lot of will power and determination to counter these negative influences. To help us along our journey to overcome these fears, Napoleon Hill poses a list of questions we must ask ourselves and answer truthfully. In this way we will be able to take inventory what areas in our lives we need to work on to overcome these fears that can hold us back.

This is extremely important so please do not miss this step.

Absolute Control

Do you know what is the ONE THING that we have ABSOLUTE CONTROL over? There is NO gray area in answering this question. The answer is:

OUR THOUGHTS!

It may not be easy, but we decide to put thoughts into our minds that are positive and not negative. When our minds are filled with uplifting thoughts and ideas, there is no room for the negative.

How can we control our thoughts? With self-discipline and HABIT. This returns us to the crux of this book. We must develop the good habits to help us achieve our goals through following the lessons taught in each of the chapters.

Read the 55 well oiled excuses people use for not being successful. See how many apply to you. Be honest please. They are under the section:

55 Famous Alibis By Old Man IF! .

There is one IF we need to adopt. I present it verbatim below:It is the greatest of them all:

"If I had the courage to see myself as I really am, I would find out what is wrong with me and correct it."

Think and Grow Rich gives us the Master Key to achieve our goals. With that in mind, we cannot have any excuses for failure, moving forward. The world wants to know only one thing.

Have You Achieved Success?

It is up to each one of us to write the answer to this question when we do.

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My Parting Shots

Friends, I have thoroughly enjoyed spending a part of my time during the last 15 weeks reading and sharing my thoughts on Think and Grow Rich, as well as reading the thoughts you have shared with all of us.

Some members have stated that this was like a Master Mind group. I felt honored to hear those words.

It is my fervent belief, that Wealthy Affiliate provides us with everything we need to create a successful online business. Kyle's recent message about the improvements we can expect on this platform later this year, validates this thought.

Let me ask the question. If we all have the knowledge to succeed why is it that some do and some don't?

The answer is quite simple but profound. We did not have the tools to teach us how to develop the HABITS for success. Now that we have gone through this book, for some, multiple times, we have no more excuses for not succeeding.

If you agree, then I feel that this effort was well worth our time.

You can access all the posts I have created in connection with the Think and Grow Rich Book Study from the original post shown below:

Think and Grow Rich - Could Be Worth A Million Dollars To You!

The discussion area under each post will have comments made by other members on the related Chapter that can be helpful towards a better understanding of the topic.

Thus comes the end of this book study. I wish you much success in your online marketing journey and life in general.

Cheers!

Edwin