Book: Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude

Overview
Published in 1960 and coauthored by Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude extends Hill’s earlier success philosophy by placing the idea of attitude at the center. Hill’s 17 principles of achievement are reframed through Stone’s sales-honed emphasis on mind-set, yielding a practical manual that blends psychology, ethics, and habit-building. The tone is direct and example-rich, aiming to translate aspiration into disciplined action.

The talisman of PMA versus NMA
The book’s core image is an invisible talisman each person carries, with Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) on one side and Negative Mental Attitude (NMA) on the other. Outcomes, they argue, hinge less on circumstance than on which side is turned outward. PMA does not deny obstacles; it interprets them as signals for learning, persistence, and creative response. NMA magnifies fear, excuses, and self-defeating habits. Choosing PMA is presented as a daily, deliberate act that activates all other success principles.

Definiteness of purpose and applied faith
Achievement begins with a clear, major definite purpose and a burning desire to realize it. Hill and Stone insist that belief is built by action: affirm a purpose, visualize it, and then reinforce it with steady steps that create evidence for faith. Autosuggestion, conscious self-talk, feeds the subconscious with purpose-aligned instructions, while imagination helps translate aims into concrete plans.

Accurate thinking, specialized knowledge, and initiative
The authors distinguish facts from opinions and urge readers to trace causes, not symptoms. Accurate thinking is paired with specialized knowledge gathered through study and association with experts. Personal initiative converts plans into momentum, and the habit of going the extra mile compounds goodwill, reputation, and opportunity over time. A Master Mind alliance, cooperation with people who share standards and complementary skills, multiplies intelligence and courage.

Learning from adversity and defeat
Setbacks are portrayed as neutral raw material that can be processed into advantage. Every defeat contains a seed of equal or greater benefit if examined without self-pity. The book highlights figures who transformed illness, poverty, or rejection into fuel for innovation and character. The authors praise inspirational dissatisfaction, allowing discomfort to sharpen purpose rather than erode confidence.

Habit, environment, and cosmic habit force
Repeated thoughts and actions harden into habits that either carry one forward or hold one back. The term cosmic habit force names the way consistent patterns are reinforced by natural law; align patterns with desired ends and results follow with increasing ease. Because environment shapes habit, readers are urged to curate their influences, associates, reading, conversation, work conditions, so that PMA is supported rather than sabotaged.

Practical tools and daily practice
To operationalize PMA, the book offers self-tests, checklists, and what Stone called self-motivators, short, present-tense reminders kept in view and reviewed aloud. Budgeting time and money, maintaining sound health, cultivating a pleasing personality, and exercising self-discipline form the daily scaffolding for larger aims. Controlled attention keeps energy focused on priorities instead of scattering it across distractions.

Ethics, service, and enduring impact
Integrity and the Golden Rule are treated as performance essentials, not moral ornaments. Long-term success depends on trust, fair dealing, and service that creates surplus value for others. The message is optimistic but sober: desire without discipline is fantasy, and talent without PMA corrodes into cynicism. The book’s enduring appeal lies in its promise that anyone can improve results by choosing PMA, defining a purpose, organizing knowledge, acting with initiative, and converting adversity into growth. It presents success as an internal system, thoughts, emotions, habits, and alliances, deliberately aligned to produce the outcomes one most values.