Book excerpt: Your formula to build a strong sense of self-worth so that you can better recognize opportunity, take action on your dreams, and enhance your resilience. A lack of self-confidence is one of the greatest maladies of today’s world, one that is responsible for the rampant helplessness, lack of self-control, aimlessness, procrastination, and despair that characterize modern society. But as the venerable steel magnate Andrew Carnegie emphasized to Hill, “Confidence is a state of mind, necessary to succeed, and the starting point of developing self-confidence is definiteness of purpose.” The time for self-doubt and self-criticism is over. Your faith in yourself and your abilities determines whether you fail or succeed. Napoleon Hill’s Self-Confidence Formula enables you to boost your self-confidence through the application of Hill’s strategies for controlling your thoughts. By implementing these principles, you will not only be able to operate at a higher plane of thought and action—attracting more opportunities, gaining influence, and strengthening relationships—but you will also be able to instill this critical quality in others. Napoleon Hill’s Self-Confidence Formula gives you the keys to success and fulfillment by equipping you to: unlearn fears, insecurities, and limitations acquired in childhood and adolescence condition your mind to believe in the certainty of your success take bold, confident action on your definite chief aim conquer your inferiority complex through the mastermind principle build the self-reliance and self-esteem of today’s youth You are now on the journey to confident, purposeful living. As you implement Hill’s principles, you will cultivate a state of mind primed to accept the abundance reserved for you.