* book: Napoleon Hill’s Keys to Positive Thinking by Michael J. Ritt, Jr.

Michael Ritt provides 10 steps to PMA (positive mental attitude) based on his experiences knowing and working with Napoleon Hill for almost 20 years and with Clement Stone for almost 50 years. This is an easy-to-read primer to the subject of PMA as Ritt learned it from these greats in the field. Chapter 12, “A man who puts PMA to work every day”, summarizes the book by using Ritt’s observations from Clement Stone’s daily working life as examples of the 10 steps.

So why do you want PMA ?
Because it helps make you happy and guides you (p.20) to make the right choices.

* “The effects of PMA are automatic, but attaining it is not. ” p.12
* It “must become a habit” that rules you.
* You can make “a conscious decision to replace negative ideas and impulses with positive ones whenever they occur.” p.14
* When you think with PMA, by developing positive thoughts and eliminating negative thoughts, it works with all the other ingredients in your life allowing you to “direct your thoughts, control your emotions, and thus ordain your destiny.”

Definitions:
* PMA is “a confident, honest, constructive state of mind which an individual creates and maintains by methods of his own choosing, through the operation of his own willpower, based on the motives of his own adaptation” per Napoleon Hill. p.19
* PMA is “the right honest thought, action, or reaction to a given situation or set of circumstances.” per Clement Stone. p. 19
* “PMA is the right frame of mind that leads inevitably to the right actions and reactions.” p.20
* “PMA depends on the right attitudes which are feelings, moods. … your basic feelings toward yourself, another person, situation, circumstance, or thing.” p.19

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Ritt’s ten steps to PMA and resulting health, wealth, and success.

1. Take possession of your own mind with conviction.
* Autosuggestion: My mind is my own and I control it.
* Choosing a different thought will always produce a different emotional response. From Ask & It is Given p.92.
* Exercise: Practice changing your thoughts, any which way that you can, so that you feel just a little bit better. Eventually your skill will increase and so will your PMA.

2. Keep your mind on the things you want and off the things you don’t want.
* The real value of will power is when you use it to train your mind and your habitual thoughts. Then just allow your subconscious mind easily, effortless, enjoyable guide you toward your goals … rather than try to force them with will power, often unsuccessfully.
* What you think about comes about.

3. Live the golden rule.
* Benjamin Franklin started each day by asking “What good can I do today.”

4. Eliminate all negative thoughts by self-inspection.
* You need to replace a negative thought with something else. Otherwise it will keep sticking around.
* Counter negative thoughts “with an immediate and forceful antidote in the form of a concrete positive thought about yourself or the person or circumstance involved.” p.59.
* When a negative thought pops up “reject the thought and counter it with positive suggestion. The more often you do this consciously, the more often it will happen reflexively, until the negative thoughts simply stop coming.” p.63

5. Be happy! Make others happy!
* “To be happy, act happy.”

6. Form the habit of tolerance.
* Autosuggestion: I look for the good in others and accept & like them just the way they are.
* Every day do a good deed. p.78
* Learn by doing. “You can choose to act as though you were feeling whatever you want to feel. the intriguing aspect to this is that the feelings come trotting along obediently afterward.” P80

7. Give yourself positive suggestions.
* “To deliberate maintain a PMA, you must control the external stimuli your mind receives. There are three forms of control you can exert: suggestion, self-suggestion, and auto-suggestion.’ p.87.
* NINO – nourishment in, nourishment out.

8. Use your power of prayer.

9. Set goals.
* “You need to learn to set short- and long-term goals on a daily basis. Write your goals on a sheet of paper. visualize yourself achieving those goals. Constantly refer to them in an expectant, positive manner.” p.108
* “But it is worth the effort because as soon as you can name a goal, you can expect to enjoy many advantages. These advantages come almost automatically.” p. 152

10. Study, think, and plan daily.
* Think, quietly and daily. This is a source of wisdom. Your thinking can be guided by a goal or problem. Or, it can be unguided thinking where you let your mind wander to its own interests.

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