The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Think & Grow Rich’

Today I’m going to expand on Napoleon Hill‘s Invisible Counselors and my Invisible Mentors technique, but before I do that, I’d like to say that a few weeks ago I attended a networking event where Anna Rossetti, CEO, CPI Card Group was the guest speaker. She told the audience that today, having one mentor is not enough, we need a team of mentors (Personal Board of Directors) to help us get to where we need to go. I smiled when she said that because I have been building my Board of Mentors, and I plan to Build a Board of Invisible Mentors as well.

Image via Wikipedia

We’ve talked in detail about how to choose Invisible Mentors, so today I’d like to deal with the next logical step. Please also read “What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors” to understand how Napoleon Hill used his Council of Invisible Counselors. This process involves a lot of research so let the Public Library, Google and Yahoo be your friends. Just a reminder, an invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing and studying them from a distance.

For each of your five invisible mentors find all the information that you can on them:

• Identify and secure biographies and autobiographies on your invisible mentors
• Conduct a video search to identify videos by or about them
• Conduct research to identify speeches and presentations given by and about your invisible mentors
• Read all the information that you have collected
• Identify themes that emerge
• Who were their mentors
• Who gave them their big break
• What are their philosophies
• In what way are they similar and dissimilar to you
• What did you discover that was very surprising to you
• What did you discover that wasn’t surprising to you
• How do they solve challenges
• How do they generate ideas
• For each invisible mentor, identify 10 great ideas from the information that you read about them
• Combine the ideas you extracted, among invisible mentors and identify new ideas
• How can you apply the new information to your work and life
• When you feel as if you know your invisible mentors, refer to “What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors” and try to follow the Invisible Counselor Technique that Napoleon Hill perfected
• Now that you have read the information, processed and played with it, map out a strategy to get to where you need to go
• Implement the strategy and fine tune as necessary

After you have amassed and read all this new information on your five invisible mentors, you will discover that your body of knowledge has expanded tremendously. With your Board of Invisible Mentors in place, or what Napoleon Hill called his Council of Invisible Counselors, whenever you find yourself in difficult situations, you have more information to draw on to solve them. Because you know these people who you have studied, you are able to think like them and anticipate how they would respond in a variety of situations. You can also find invisible mentors on The Mentors page.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed.

For an electronic copy of Think and Grow Rich, please click here.

Resources to Have in Your Library

Books of Famous Speeches
Books about people who have changed the world
Books about the great inventors of our time

Resources to Refer to

Famous People Their Lives
Biography.com
Biography Online
Famous Speeches

Related Articles

What Did Napoleon Hill Omit? Invisible Counselors vs. Invisible Mentors

Adventures in Learning: DIY Mentoring Program (theinvisiblementor.com)

Book links are affiliate links.

The Internet has been abuzz over the past few weeks with Napoleon Hill‘s Invisible Counselors, but is this technique different from Invisible Mentors? Are people going to turn The Invisible Counselor Technique into a fad like “The Secret” movie where viewers thought they could visualize a goal and have it manifest without taking action, instead of taking the time to do things the correct way. Is there really an easy way out?

This post is my reaction to the concept of Invisible Counselors. Please refer to Vishen Lakhiani’s original post “Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People.” It’s a great post and the video is a great complement to the written information in the post. See the video below. What critical component did Napoleon Hill omit in his technique?

If you cannot view the video click here. I got a copy of Think and Grow Rich because I wanted to go to the source to present the facts to you, and I wanted to better understand Invisible Counselors. Many people have said that Think and Grown Rich was one of the books that had a profound impact on their life. I wasn’t one of those people, and I didn’t enjoy the book when I first read it. However, I thought that Earl Nightingale did a nice summary of the book. I am at the point where I am ready to re-read Think and Grow Rich and see if my reaction is different seven years later.

The Invisible Counselor is discussed at length in Chapter 14, “The Sixth Sense: the Door to the Temple of Wisdom.” I must preface my comments by saying that I do believe in the power of the subconscious mind and the sixth sense. Here is what the book says about Invisible Counselors.

“While I was passing through the age of “hero worship” I found myself trying to imitate those whom I most admired… I followed the habit of reshaping my own character by trying to imitate the nine men whose lives and life works had been most impressive to me. These nine men were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napoleon Bonaparte, Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie. Every night, over a long period of years, I held an imaginary council meeting with this group whom I called my “Invisible Counselors.” [I added in the last name of Hill's nine Invisible Counselors]

The procedure was this. Just before going to sleep at night, I would shut my eyes and see, in my imagination, this group of men seated with me around my council table. Here I had not only an opportunity to sit among those whom I considered to be great, but I actually dominated the group by serving as the Chairman.

I had a very definite purpose in indulging my imagination through these nightly meetings. My purpose was to rebuild my own character so it would represent a composite of the characters of my imaginary counselors….

These meetings became so realistic that I started to be fearful of their consequences, and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny. I was afraid if I continued them I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences of my imagination….

I began to add new members to my cabinet. Now it consists of more than 50, among them Christ, St. Paul, Galileo, Copernicus, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Voltaire, Bruno, Spinoza, Drummond, Kant, Schopenhauer, Newton, Confucius, Elbert Hubbard, Brann, Ingersol, Wilson and William James….”

In the technique, Hill called on each of his nine Invisible Counselor and was very specific about what he required from them. For example,

“Mr Darwin, I wish to acquire from you the marvelous patience and ability to study cause and effect without bias or prejudice so exemplified by you in the field of natural science.

Mr Carnegie, I am already indebted to you for my choice of a life work, which has brought me great happiness and peace of mind. I wish to acquire a thorough understanding of the principles of organized effort, which you used so effectively in the building of a great industrial enterprise.

My method of addressing the members of  the imaginary cabinet would vary according to the traits of character which I was most interested in acquiring at the time. I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care. After some months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by the discovery that these imaginary figures became, apparently, real.”

Please click here to read Chapter 14 on page 134 of the electronic version. What Napoleon Hill refers to as Invisible Counselors are what I call Invisible Mentors. From the cited text from Think and Grow Rich, the nine Invisible Counselors are people who Hill admired, and he imitated them, which suggests that he studied them, which is exactly what I advocate for your Invisible Mentors. I suggest that you become so steeped in your Invisible Mentors that you could ask and answer “What would Invisible Mentor 1 do in this situation?” You can also find invisible mentors on The Mentors page.

Below is an Invisible Mentor slide that I created over seven months ago. After I finished viewing it today for inclusion in this blog post, I realized that I have to update it because my views have expanded, because my knowledge has grown, which is a good thing. How has your knowledge changed in the past six months?

Many people viewing the video “The Most Controversial Personal Growth Technique Ever,” may think that they can use the technique to mentally call on successful people to answer their questions, or generate great ideas without any initial work. Hill spent decades studying successful people so his subconscious mind had a place to start. From my previous posts on generating creative ideas and creative problem solving, the process is preparation, incubation, illumination and verification/implementation.

So what did Napoleon Hill Omit? Hill did not omit anything from what I have read from Think and Grow Rich, the video neglected to mention that when Hill started using the Invisible Counselor Technique he used nine people whose lives and life works had been most impressive to him. To me, that means he had studied these people. This is a major omission from the video. Also, he practiced the technique each night over a long period of years. This also suggests that Hill practiced the technique until he mastered it. Statistics floating around suggest that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill.

This is an important lesson to always go to the source if you are able to, otherwise you’ll never know what critical piece of information you are missing. What are your thoughts on Invisible Counselors? Which five of Hill’s Invisible Counselors would you choose as Invisible Mentors? Now that you are familiar with Invisible Mentors from reading this blog, would you chair an Invisible Mentor Council Meeting? And if yes, what would you hope to achieve?

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed.

For an electronic copy of Think and Grow Rich, please click here.

Further Reading

The Sixth Sense: The Door to the Temple of Wisdom – The Thirteenth Step toward Riches

Napoleon Hill Did This, And You Should Too

Napoleon Hill’s Weird “Invisible Counselor Technique” and Why it Inspired (and Scared) So Many People