Outwitting The Devil

Colin's notes on Outwitting The Devil by Napoleon Hill

Ancient stories and spiritual texts have lived on well beyond their stone carvings and passed down traditions. They found a way to tap into human nature and embed a truth. Whether you view these stories as literal or a metaphor, let’s put this aside for a second. The fact that these stories have transcended time the way they have, it’s worth paying attention to. One of the most popular stories is about the hero’s journey and the fight between good and evil.

Take heaven and hell for example. Treating this as a metaphor is powerful. The more we stray away from virtue we descend our mind and body into their own version of hell. A hell that exists on earth. A hell that is manufactured by your own doing.

Heaven and hell both exist on earth. They lie on the spectrum of the discipline you have with your temptations.

Recently I stumbled onto a book that’s the name caught me by surprise with its bold and shocking title. It was Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Funny enough, it was mentioned in a song I was listening to.

So I cracked it open… and I couldn’t stop. It had me hooked! It reinforced my personal belief in spiritual metaphors. Outwitting the Devil doesn’t read like a typical book. This book was a mental exercise. It’s written as a thought experiment as Napoleon Hill is interrogating the Devil himself.

Napoleon breaks the Devil down by asking how he manages to operate, exist, and is able to capture people through this idea of becoming “drifters”.

Drifting is the reluctance to act, lacking a true purpose and connection within oneself. The habit of drifting allows someone to be completely controlled by external forces within their lives. To be unable to create control and dominance in one’s life through thought and action. They lose the power to be an independent thinker.

The devil controls 98% of people on the planet through fear… The difference is that 2% are acting within faith.

We live in a world controlled by fear.
Fear of poverty
Fear of criticism
Fear of ill health
Fear of loss of love
Fear of old age
Fear of death

Fear is the ultimate controller. It truly holds us back from everything we could be. The most dangerous thing you can do is to never move toward the potential that exists within you. Nobody wants to take their last breath knowing they never met the man they could’ve been. The devil claims this is within his own grips.

When we fear things, we hesitate, we make excuses, and we convince ourselves that it shouldn’t be done as it’s to our own benefit and will preserve us from any perceived negativity. The devil likes to catch people and turn them into drifters at a young age, as the younger, the easier it is to take control of one’s mind.

"Children are sent to school to make good grades and to learn how to memorize, not to learn what they want in life".

Coughing up information does not teach free thinking which is the devil’s biggest weakness. Embracing uniqueness and independence is what sets you apart from others. Unfortunately, 98% are never fully able to let that potential manifest itself in the world.

Eventually, these bad habits begin to be so commonplace in someone’s life they can become fixed and even permanent. This is known as the law of hypnotic rhythm. Hypnotic rhythm can work either for you or against you depending on the habit.

HOW TO BECOME THE 2%

DEFINITIVENESS OF PURPOSE - Have a lifelong goal of progress and never give into fear.
SELF MASTERY - Your discipline is your freedom.
LEARN FROM ADVERSITY - Mistakes will happen. It’s how you react to them.
CONTROL YOUR ENVIRONMENT - The people you are around will dictate your future.
TIME - Everything great in life will take time. Remove yourself from short-term thinking.
HARMONY - Balance is the key to staying aligned with your purpose.
CAUTION - Always act, but think beforehand.

Outwitting The Devil has profoundly changed my perception of fear within my own life. This acts as a foundation to bullet proof your mindset to act in love, faith, hope, and optimism. I hope you give it a read! I highly recommend it!

-Colin

You can purchase the book here!

“Remember that your dominating thoughts attract, through a definite law of nature, by the shortest and most convenient route, their physical counterpart. Be careful what your thoughts dwell upon.”

-Napoleon Hill