This post is part of my series on re-reading Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich every day as an otaku.

Chapter 7: Organised Planning

Chapter 7 had a questionnaire to be completed once a year. It’s probably not the best out there, but I believe that it doesn’t need to be. It’s just a way to have a structured, regular check-up on your goals.

SELF-ANALYSIS QUESTIONNAIRE FOR PERSONAL INVENTORY #1

1. Have I attained the goal which I established as my objective for this year? (You should work with a definite yearly objective to be attained as a part of your major life objective).

I have not attained the goal I established this year, mostly because I didn’t bother setting a goal after failing last year’s goal of finishing my novel. I guess my implicit goal this year has been to pass all of this semester’s exams and to develop better habits. I have made some progress on that. On the other hand, I haven’t found a systematic way to get myself to write every day. I feel like if I could find a good how-to guide or book to write light-novel style stories, which I could re-read every day, then that would be advantageous. Unfortunately, if there are such books, they have not been translated into English, so I will need to either machine translate a Japanese resource or cobble together something with the existing English language resources. Basically, even if it’s not perfect, I want a formula that I can follow and then tweak afterwards as need be.

2. Have I delivered service of the best possible QUALITY of which I was capable, or could I have improved any part of this service?

Yes, I am satisfied with most of my writing this year, even though it has been rather sparse. As for the novel I have been editing, it’s no good, so I have decided to start a new project. Also, I have realised that I have no interest in Virtual Reality and Isekai anymore because there is no built-in end to the story, unlike, say, a detective mystery, which must end when the culprit is revealed, or a romance story, which ends with the couple getting together. I am not saying that’s how they should end, but it’s how they usually end, in a satisfying way. Basically, I didn’t know how to end my story, so this time I want to outline extensively, and I want something which has a built-in ending. The genre I have chosen is the time-loop story, where the story ends once the main character finds out how to escape the time-loop after having learned a lesson or grown in power.

3. Have I delivered service in the greatest possible QUANTITY of which I was capable?

No, unless I am writing every day then I am not writing enough. Again, I need something a little bit more structured than saying “Write 1k words everyday” on my to-dos

4. Has the spirit of my conduct been harmonious, and cooperative at all times?

I have been a bit more antisocial this year admittedly. However, I think it’s because the people I met with last year mostly had different goals than mine. I want to build an otaku master mind group, but it’s not going to be this year, because I have to build some skills of my own to offer to such a group, or else they would have no reason to be in it.

5. Have I permitted the habit of PROCRASTINATION to decrease my efficiency, and if so, to what extent?

Perhaps not wanting to start a master mind group right now is also a form of procrastination.

6. Have I improved my PERSONALITY, and if so, in what ways?

I think I have gotten better at not arguing with people, whether it be online or offline. It is liberating not to feel like I have to convince anyone of things.

7. Have I been PERSISTENT in following my plans through to completion?

Well, everyday I do about half of the habits which I have set up to develop but those which are the core of my daily plan; anki and novels, don’t get enough attention in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I don’t know what else I can do for anki, except try to get back onto doing it.

8. Have I reached DECISIONS PROMPTLY AND DEFINITELY on all occasions?

I have been pretty decisive this year, and taken responsibility for my work. Although I still do end up not doing everything which I promise to myself and others, I have come to reconcile for now I should just focus on doing what I can.

9. Have I permitted any one or more of the six basic fears to decrease my efficiency?

The six fears are poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love of someone, old age, death. I won’t say which but one of them did affect me.

10. Have I been either “over-cautious,” or “under-cautious?”

I feel like I am being a bit under-cautious regarding some health issues I have had which I won’t reveal here. As for over-cautiousness, no I don’t think so.

11. Has my relationship with my associates in work been pleasant, or unpleasant? If it has been unpleasant, has the fault been partly, or wholly mine?

It has been alright. No major issues.

12. Have I dissipated any of my energy through lack of CONCENTRATION of effort?

Yes, unfortunately.

13. Have I been open minded and tolerant in connection with all subjects?

Yes

14. In what way have I improved my ability to render service?

I have experimented with certain tools such as converting speech into text for some blog posts. Maybe I should use it for some of these blog posts too to save time.

15. Have I been intemperate in any of my habits?

I have been overeating a bit. The problem is that I eat my meals at irregular time. Sorting this out is not a top priority for now. I have tried calory counting, and it works but not with this schedule.

16. Have I expressed, either openly or secretly, any form of EGOTISM?

Yes, and I will continue to do so, because if I don’t look out for my interests then others certainly won’t, at least not in a way that pleases me.

17. Has my conduct toward my associates been such that it has induced them to RESPECT me?

Yes, I have done what I have agreed to do and no more.

18. Have my opinions and DECISIONS been based upon guesswork, or accuracy of analysis and THOUGHT?

If I don’t have the data then yes it’s been based on guesswork. I have been looking at more and more information helpful to me though.

19. Have I followed the habit of budgeting my time, my expenses, and my income, and have I been conservative in these budgets?

My time? Yes. My budget? No.

20. How much time have I devoted to UNPROFITABLE effort which I might have used to better advantage?

Too much.

21. How may I RE-BUDGET my time, and change my habits so I will be more efficient during the coming year?

I don’t know. I have experimented with time-boxing and alternating between tasks according to a timer. This worked for a bit until it didn’t. I am still going to do it for now. At least if I can manage 1 hour of anki per day that would be good. I have also started to give different tags for my habits on habitica so that I don’t get overwhelmed by my habits.

22. Have I been guilty of any conduct which was not approved by my conscience?

No, not really. I guess maybe giving in to some requests by others.

23. In what ways have I rendered MORE SERVICE AND BETTER SERVICE than I was paid to render?

I have not.

24. Have I been unfair to anyone, and if so, in what way?

I have not been unfair to anyone.

25. If I had been the purchaser of my own services for the year, would I be satisfied with my purchase?

Probably not.

26. Am I in the right vocation, and if not, why not?

I am not, because getting work to write what I want to write, is a lot easier said than done.

27. Has the purchaser of my services been satisfied with the service I have rendered, and if not, why not?

They have been satisfied enough.

28. What is my present rating on the fundamental principles of success? (Make this rating fairly, and frankly, and have it checked by someone who is courageous enough to do it accurately).

4/10.

End of Self-analysis Questionnaire

The problem I have with this chapter is how it glorifies the employer-employee relation, and the employee-customer relation (i.e. what he calls capitalism). I have been a customer and an employee and honestly both of those positions suck. I feel like the attitude we are forced to have in public with everyone is the attitude that servants had towards their masters in the medieval era. Honestly, I am not sure I would call this society harmonious which is why this pent up vitriol surfaces up on the internet. Having said that as an individual person, I don’t see much use of arguing about what economic system is the best, since it is out of your hands, whatever the system you should look to how you can survive and thrive in it. At least I don’t see myself escaping society into the woods or the jungle or the mountains or the desert to live with animals.

Really, the question is at what point do you stop being superficially nice to people. I felt the same when reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, when I realised I would never be able to do it, because I can only pretend to like someone for so long before their presence becomes unbearable. And yet in business, as opposed to personal life, you need to be able to put up with others who are also trying to put up with you by showing a smile. I think the key here is to not apply this stuff to personal relationships as opposed to professional ones. Is that hypocritical but necessary? Maybe but not if you view your personal and professional life as separate to a reasonable extent. Unfortunately, increasingly people don’t have a personal life, which makes me wonder if people like Hill are to be blamed for this disappearance of a personal life into the professional, but then again, maybe it was inevitable. To put it bluntly, if you have no money, you can’t go anywhere, and you have nowhere to invite people to.

Chapter 8: Decision

Analysis of several hundred people who had accumulated fortunes well beyond the million dollar mark disclosed the fact that every one of them had the habit of REACHING DECISIONS PROMPTLY and of changing these decisions SLOWLY if and when they were changed.

The gist of this chapter is that courage, or the ability to tolerate uncertainty, is necessary to be decisive, and if you listen to people’s opinions all the time, then, unless you are very lucky, you will second-guess yourself and change your decision before it can bear any fruit because you can’t tolerate the uncertainty. The truth is that nobody knows what the future holds, and so generally speaking, within reason, it’s better to just stick to your decision.

Close friends and relatives, while not meaning to do so, often handicap one through opinions and sometimes through ridicule, which is meant to be humorous. Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes with them all through life because some well-meaning but ignorant person destroyed their confidence through opinions or ridicule.

Generally speaking, I have found that it is true that it’s better to keep my goals to myself. Or at least I have not found it helpful. Most people are not really interested in your goals anyway, so if you excitedly relay your grand plan to them and they do not care, that can be painful. Instead, it’s better if you have it written somewhere no one else can see it. Of course, if you think they could and would be helpful, that’s another story, but don’t expect them to help you unless you have something to offer them in exchange.

This chapter again goes on about the master mind group idea, which is in perfect harmony with your goals, but I wonder if, for most people, such a supportive group is just a matter of luck. As a substitute for this kind of friend group, people are turning to AI. Alternatively, you can speak with people whose job it is to help you, but they won’t really care about you any more than a bot, so you will need to try to be unemotional about it as well, for example, if you get some feedback on your writing saying that it’s no good for X and Y reason, it’s better to look at this objectively rather than fall into despair and conclude that you should stop writing and start some other project instead. The biggest problem is that access to these people is limited, though, and often locked behind money, and it’s not always clear whether the advice they give actually helps you.

I watched the Hell Mode Anime, and surprisingly, I liked it enough that I am going to try reading volume 3. The first season of the anime adapted the first two volumes. What I liked about the protagonist was his calmness and decisiveness to get better and better despite being reincarnated as a serf. The gradual rise was very satisfying to watch. Does he have cheat powers? Yes, but all powers and abilities are cheat powers, and they would be useless if the protagonist just gave up. Another thing which is remarkable is how entertaining the story is despite having poor production values, with CG animation frequently used for the monsters which the protagonist summons.

I watched the movie adaptation of “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas,” because I was looking for an anime film which was tragic, but it wasn’t the sad scenes which made me sad. One thing which TGR (Think & Grow Rich) constantly emphasises is that you need other people to achieve things, you can’t do it by yourself, and in order to get that cooperation, you need to be able to provide something in exchange. Movies like these promote very conventional views, which might brush against otaku who are loners, because a lot of activities which otaku do are difficult to incorporate into a group setting. For example, you could read novels together in a group, but whether it is reading or writing novels, it is fundamentally something which you do alone. Those light novel authors who write one volume a month are commendable for their effort, but there is little doubt that they must live lonely lives to be able to dedicate themselves to their work like that. All that said, it was their decision, just as this anime is about the protagonist deciding for himself, not to be a loner. To see the fruits of our decisions, we must stick to them and only change them slowly. Even though it is not in our hands when and how we will die, it is up to our choices how we live, so I think this story has a beautiful message.

Chapter 9: Persistence

“EVERY FAILURE BRINGS WITH IT THE SEED OF AN EQUIVALENT ADVANTAGE”

I think the problem with this belief is that it can lead people to become less empathetic to others and to pretend that they are doing others a favour by berating them, even though, in reality, they just do it because it feels good to berate others. It’s the worst when two people who are already down start looking down on each other.

On the other hand, if you can look at it this way for your own life, if you believe “I am the kind of person who can turn failure into opportunity,” then that might be more useful than being paralysed by despair, and therefore failing to maintain any discipline because of a lack of motivation.

I watched the anime adaptation of All You Need is Kill, which is about two characters stuck in a time loop where if they die they get sent back to the morning. One criticism of time loop is that it’s inevitable that the characters will find a solution given enough loops, I think that’s stupid, because seeing them figure out the solution to the loop through persistence is what is so satisfying, but at any rate it is perfectly plausible for characters to get permanently stuck inside the loop with no way out, so it isn’t really a valid criticism anyway. In this movie, they still resort to the idea that the time loops are limited just to placate some of those unfounded criticisms. I think the best thing about time loop stories is that they definitely can cultivate a sense of persistence.

According to TGR is caused by: Definiteness of purpose (knowing what one wants), Desire, Self-Reliance, Definiteness of plans, Accurate Knowledge, Cooperation, Willpower, and Habit. And basically, being stuck and having to escape a time loop led the characters of All You Need is Kill to acquire all these to have a chance at all to escape.

I am ten episodes into Moshidora. A story about a highschool girl using advice from Drucker’s The Practice of Management to get her school’s baseball team into Koshien Stadium, where the National High School baseball tournaments are held. The novel which this anime was adapted from was a best-seller in Japan, and it was adapted into a film and manga as well. The message of the anime is that principles from business management can be applied to voluntary organisations like a high school club as well. I got an ebook version of the Drucker book, apparently there is an audiobook but no one has uploaded it online yet. The anime was kind of rough I am not going to lie, and I think the problem laid in trying to directly mix educational content with narrative content. Neither is more valuable than the other inherently but they can be at the expense of each other. Nevertheless, the premise has intrigued me so much that I have started reading a machine translated version of the novel (there is no official translation despite this being a best-seller in Japan). Despite this being a high school baseball anime there was no romance, or if there was any, it could be said it was Minami’s persistence to take her high-school baseball club to Koshien.

According to TGR, there are four steps which lead to the habit of persistence:

1. A Definite Purpose backed by a burning desire for its fulfilment.
2. A definite plan, expressed in continuous action.
3. A mind closed tightly against all negative and discouraging influences, including negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances.
4. A friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage one to follow through with both the plan and purpose.

Minami’s definite purpose is her burning desire to take her team to koshien to make her childhood friend happy. She plans to use this book by Ducker on management, which doesn’t even apply directly to baseball, but still serves as a fountainhead for ideas to improve her team. The important thing is to have a plan and then refine it while putting it into place, rather than waiting for the perfect plan to act. Her mind is closed against the negativity and lack of ambition of the club’s members and coach. Her friendly ally is her bedridden childhood friend, who shares her goal and desire.

In the anime, at least, Minami, did not face major obstacles, and people were surprisingly willing to follow her tough advice without much backtalk. Perhaps things may not be as easy in real life but that is not the point, nor is that an excuse to do nothing, this is just an ideal of how things should go. For instance, Minami decides to interview new recruits to the baseball club and those with vague reasons, like improving their fitness, are excluded, yet we don’t see anyone hating her or hating the baseball club for suddenly becoming more selective, even though it’s a voluntary club. The point of that scene, however, is that you need people who believe and are invested in the goal you are aiming for, if they have a different goal then it’s not going to go well every time yours and their goal are not perfectly aligned.

Finally, I will leave this blog post with a machine-translated version of the first page of the novel, which will give you a good idea of Minami’s character.

## Prologue

Minami Kawashima became the manager of the baseball team in mid-July of her second year of high school, just before summer vacation.

It happened suddenly. Until shortly before, Minami had never imagined she would become the baseball team’s manager. Up until then, she was just an ordinary high school girl who didn’t belong to any club activities. She had no connection to the baseball team whatsoever.

However, due to unforeseen circumstances, she ended up becoming the baseball team’s manager. As a result, even though it was an awkward time—right before summer vacation of her second year—she joined the baseball team.

As manager, Minami had one goal: “To lead the baseball team to Koshien.” That was why she became manager.

It wasn’t something vague like a dream. It wasn’t even a wish. It was a clear goal. A mission. Minami didn’t *want* to lead the baseball team to Koshien. She *decided* she would lead them there.

But having decided that, she didn’t have any concrete ideas about how to achieve it. As mentioned, she had lived a life completely unrelated to the baseball team. So she didn’t really understand not just the baseball team, but even what a manager does.

Yet Minami wasn’t worried about that at all. She simply thought, “It’ll work out somehow.” That was the kind of person she was. She acted first, before thinking.

It was the same when she became the baseball team’s manager. Before thinking “how can I lead the baseball team to Koshien?”, she first decided “I will lead the baseball team to Koshien.” And once she decided, she stopped thinking and immediately took action.