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Knowing Yourself

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The First Step in Personal Development

Without doubt, the greatest advance you can make in your Personal Development program is to Know Yourself, identifying your strengths and weaknesses.

In what areas of your life are you supremely confident (but not arrogant or prideful)? In what areas of your life are you insecure or lacking confidence? Knowing your strengths and weaknesses provides valuable insights with respect to where to most effectively focus your efforts in your Personal Development program.

Knowing Yourself

The first, and most important, aspect to a Personal Development Program

Napoleon Hill

Personal Philosophy of Success

In Napoleon Hill's companion books, "Think and Grow Rich" and "Law of Success", he has provided us with an idealized list of the most desirable character traits of the most successful people of his time as the foundation for his Personal Philosophy of Success. The reason the books, particularly "Think and Grow Rich", remain bestsellers is that the information they contain is just as pertinent today as it was when initially published.

Undesirable character traits can be identified and eliminated through conscious effort over time. It will be difficult, however, the first step to resolving an undesirable character trait is to identify it in the first place. Similarly, to manifest or strengthen desirable character traits in your life, you must first identify those traits desired. Easy enough to say, but how to you undertake such change?

Napoleon Hill's Character Categories

In his books, Napoleon Hill discusses a diverse suite of character traits identified in his examination and study of many of America's most successful business men and women, entrepreneurs, inventors, politicians and so on. Having identified these traits, he then incorporated them into his "Philosophy of Success" (or Achievement). The Character Traits he identified are as follows:

Personal Practice

Specific to the Individual

The following are traits identified by Napoleon Hill that I believe pertain to Personal Practice, how we act and behave:

  1. Specialized Knowledge - (Think and Grow Rich (TGR) - Ch. 5)

  2. Organized Planning - (TGR - Ch. 7)

  3. Habit of Doing More Than Paid For - (Law of Success (LoS - Ch. 9)

  4. Habit of Saving - (LoS - Ch. 4)

  5. Mental Programming - (TGR - Ch. 4)

  6. Goal Setting - (LoS - Ch. 2)

Practice Involving "Others"

The following is, perhaps, the most widely known aspect of Napoleon Hill's teaching from his "Philosophy of Success". He advocates creating a group of like-minded individuals having a common "Burning Desire", which can dramatically improve our level of success through the use of the:

Master Mind Principle - (TGR - Ch. 10, LoS - Ch. 1)

Character Traits

Those that Pertain to "Self"

The following Character Traits are those I believe pertain to our "Self" and are distinct from, although they influence, the manner in which we act. These 12 traits are aspects of our character and, through self assessment, we might identify areas in which we are weak and/or need improvement as part of a Personal Development program.


  1. Faith - (TGR - Ch. 2, 3)

  2. Persistence - (TGR - Ch. 9)

  3. Imagination - (TGR - Ch. 6, LoS - Ch. 6)

  4. Self-Confidence - (LoS - Ch. 3)

  5. Enthusiasm - (LoS - Ch. 7)

  6. Self-Control - (LoS - Ch. 8)

  7. Accurate Thought - (LoS - Ch. 11)

  8. Concentration - (LoS - Ch. 12)

  9. Decision / Decisiveness - (TGR - Ch. 8)

  10. Failure / Defeat - (LoS - Ch. 14)

  11. Mystery of Sex Transmutation - (TGR - Ch. 11, LoS - Ch. 10)

  12. The Golden Rule - (LoS - Ch. 16)

Those that Pertain to our Interaction with "Others"

Finally, the following four traits represent how we work with others.

  1. Pleasing Personality - (LoS - Ch. 11)

  2. Co-operation - (LoS - Ch. 13)

  3. Tolerance - (LoS - Ch. 15)

  4. Initiative and Leadership - (LoS - Ch. 5)

Identifying our Strengths and Weaknesses

Step 1 in Personal Development

This is the most difficult aspect of a Personal Development Program as you are, by definition, biased. If you are familiar with Napoleon Hill's Master Mind Principle and have a group set up, you might try to engage your Master Mind Group in a program of identifying each others strengths and weaknesses. Be forewarned, however, that such a proposed program would present considerable challenges as you would be entering a highly emotionally charged arena.

Another valuable resource would be to survey your immediate circle of family and friends. Again, be forewarned, there will be a high degree of trust involved here in that your family and friends must be confident they can provide the comments and insights critical to your evaluation without any backlash. Again, receiving commentary with regard to your weaknesses is never comfortable and you, in turn, must trust the people from whom you seek comments.

There are also a number of on-line and/or hard copy psychological surveys / evaluations you might try (for example, a DISC profile). A local psychologist might be able to provide a quick assessment or direct you to other resources for these purposes. Finally, you might resort to reading "Think and Grow Rich" and "The Law of Success" and undertaking a self-evaluation.

The Sum Total of your Thoughts

You Are What You Think - literally

An important fact to remember and ponder is that you are the sum total of your thoughts. Who you are and where you are today is the result of your thinking, which have developed into your core belief system, which governs how you react and respond to any given circumstance or situation. If you wish to change the manner in which you react or respond, you will need to change your thought process, and possibly aspects of your core belief system.

"Reality" is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality."

The Dancing Wu Li Masters

Resources

Additional Material

The following are possible resources for further reading and/or self-improvement.

Think and Grow Rich
Law of Success

Integrated Success Program - Self-Improvement Blogs

Integrated Success Program on Squidoo

Personal Development

Other Lenses of Interest

The following are a selection of additional lenses I have posted under the theme of "Personal Development". For more of my lenses, please refer to the more comprehensive lists below.
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Know Thyself

Step 1 in Personal Development

I have briefly discussed the concept of "Knowing Thyself" in this lens. It is relatively easy to write about, but very difficult to achieve.

I would greatly appreciate any comments or insights you might wish to pass along to others.

Leave your comments below!

  • LeanneChesser Mar 2, 2010 @ 11:21 am | delete
    I absolutely believe that "knowing thyself" is the foundation for personal development. I have taught for a while now that it's the place to start before you know where you're going in life and how you're going to get there. One of my favorite quotes is by Socrates, "To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom." I wrote about it on my meaningful quotes lens. I'm lensrolling this to that lens.
  • Dynamic1 Mar 2, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | delete
    It is, indeed, diffilcult to embark on a program of Personal Development if you don't have a starting point. Like so many truths, it is simple and self-evident, yet so often overlooked.
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Recommended Texts

Personal Development

The following are lenses for some of the texts recommended as part of the Integrated Success Program.
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Integrated Success Program

Further Lenses of Interest

The following is a list of other lenses available from the Integrated Success Program. These lenses represent additional information for some of the classic Personal Development texts available through the Integrated Success Program web-site. In addition, these lenses mirror some content on the Integrated Success Program blog.

Note, however, that there is considerably more material on both the web-site and the blog that has not been posted on Squidoo and, as such, are worth visiting for more information.
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Integrated Success Program

Available Resources

The Integrated Success Program consists of an integrated set of resources, comprised of a web-site featuring the original, classic texts of classic authors, a blog site with a wealth of supporting material, a Yahoo Group and a Forum to provide forums for discussing the myriad of topics under the "Personal Development" theme.

Please feel free to leave your comments on this site (above) and make use of the other resources provided. I would sincerely love to hear from you, your opinions (Pro and Con) on my posts, thoughts, opinions and interpretations. I would love to initiate a dialogue in either or both of the forums.

Your input will only serve to improve this site, as well as the other resources provided.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Integrated Success Program web-site
WALKER ENTERPRISES has gathered many of the worlds classic, most sought after personal development, self-help, self - improvement and /or New Thought texts providing inspiration, insights, methods and/or personal success philosophies dedicated to improving your life as the initial component of our INTEGRATED SUCCESS PROGRAM. The wisdom contained in these texts is timeless, explaining why they are still so much in demand.

Integrated Success Program Blog
WALKER ENTERPRISES has developed the Integrated Success Program Blog in support of its INTEGRATED SUCCESS PROGRAM web-site. The blog is intended to provide supporting and background information on the many authors and their respective texts, as well as to provide a forum in which to present opinions, reviews and commentary to, and from, those seeking such information.

Integrated Success Program Forum
This Forum is dedicated to Personal Development in support of the Integrated Success Program web-site and the Integrated Success Program blog. The web-site contains many of the classic personal development texts, including Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and "Law of Success", Charles Haanel's "The Master Key System" and the inspiration books of James Allen, including "As A Man Thinketh".

The Blog site provides a forum for distributing additional material, including YouTube video clips, articles and posts, pertaining to the broad field of Personal Development.

After exploring the content available in this forum, please visit the web-site and blog for further content.

Integrated Success Program Group on Yahoo
This group was created to discuss thoughts, opinions and interpretations originating, in part, from the classic personal development texts (James Allen, Charles Haanel, Napoleon Hill, etc.) and other related topics of interest (i.e. Law of Attraction, Creative Visualization).

Researching the power of the mind and, more specifically, the sub-conscious mind over the past twenty years has allowed me to discover of many gems of wisdom buried in these timeless texts, as well as more recently published texts. The recent release of "The Secret" has had the result of drawing considerable attention to the "LAW OF ATTRACTION", however, I believe the process underlying its application to one's life was missing from the movie.

Contrary to the hype attending release of "The Secret", the LAW OF ATTRACTION is not a recent discovery in metaphysics, nor has it been actively suppressed by the Church or hidden societies. It simply passed into relative obscurity through the passage of time. It has been, and remains, available to everyone who searches for it and is willing to actually apply it to their lives.

The formula is available, and is, in all likelihood, well known to most. In its simplest form, it was concisely summarized as follows:

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives;
he who seeks finds;
and to him who knocks, the door will be opened

Matthew 7:7 (Luke (11:9) NIV

In short, visualize your desired outcome, then take the appropriate action to receive its manifestation. ACTION is an integral, necessary part of the three part formula to realize (manifest) your desired outcome.

Integrated Success Program

The following are the most recent posts from my blog
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RT Walker

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Dynamic1

I have been a student of personal development for over 25 years, with specific interest in the ability and latent power of the mind, particularly the subconscious.... more »

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