Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Emotionalized Auto-Suggestion
Feed your written desire-statement to the subconscious so it acts on it — by reading it with strong emotion/feeling, not as flat words.
Read your written desire-statement aloud morning and night — but the words do nothing unless you MIX FEELING with them. Charge them with burning desire, see and feel the money already yours, and repeat until the belief runs by itself. Emotion is the yeast; flat repetition is dead.
What it is
The chapter that explains why the Six Steps’ twice-daily reading works. Hill’s distinctive teaching on auto-suggestion is not the repetition itself but the emotion attached to it: the subconscious mind, he insists, recognizes and acts upon only thoughts that have been well mixed with feeling.
So when you read your written statement of desire, “the mere reading of the words is of NO CONSEQUENCE — UNLESS you mix emotion, or feeling, with your words.” Hill’s image: emotion is like yeast in bread — it is what makes the thought “rise” into action.
The practice is therefore deliberate emotionalized repetition of a definite statement, not mechanical recitation.
The Method
From Chapter 4, “Auto-Suggestion”:
- Use your written statement of desire (from the Six Steps): the exact amount, the date, what you’ll give in return, and the plan.
- Read it aloud, twice daily — morning on rising and night before sleep — the same schedule as the Desire chapter.
- Mix emotion with the words. This is the operative instruction: do not read mechanically. “Your subconscious mind recognizes and acts upon only thoughts which have been well-mixed with emotion or feeling.” Charge the words with the feeling of wanting and of already having.
- See and feel yourself already in possession. As you read, “concentrate your mind upon that money” and form a mental picture of yourself already holding it, feeling it as real now — not merely picturing it coolly.
- Persist until belief is automatic. Repeated emotional reading is meant to “burn” the desire into the subconscious until the conviction operates without effort. (Hill notes results require sustained practice; a few cold readings do nothing.)
- Back it with a burning desire. Hill is explicit that intensity of desire is what supplies the emotion; lukewarm wanting cannot be faked into the words. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are from Hill’s Auto-Suggestion chapter, short fair-use quotation; the steps describe his method faithfully.)
Source & Lineage
Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich (1937), Chapter 4, “Auto-Suggestion: The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind.” Hill drew the term and the threshold-of-sleep timing from the wider autosuggestion tradition (notably Émile Coué) but added his own emphasis: a specific, money-definite statement charged with burning desire, rather than Coué’s deliberately general, effortless, will-free formula. → (hill napoleon).
Common refinements
Reading it like a grocery list. Without feeling, Hill says it is “of no consequence.” Emotion is the active ingredient.
- Faking emotion over a goal you don’t want. The feeling must come from real desire; choose a goal you actually burn for.
- No mental picture. Pair the words with seeing/feeling possession now, not abstract hoping.
- Quitting early. It’s conditioning over weeks/months, not a one-shot spell.
- Confusing it with Coué’s effortless method. Don’t strain to force belief by willpower — but do supply genuine feeling. Hill’s version is emotional, not forceful.