Why I picked it up
I'm obsessed with Bob Proctor. Not "read one of his books" obsessed — I mean I buy everything the man puts out, full price, no questions asked. His audio tapes, his video tapes, his YouTube clips, all of it. So when I saw Thoughts Are Things, I didn't research it, I didn't check reviews, I just bought it. Turns out it's not solely his — it's co-written with Greg Reid. That alone didn't bother me. What did bother me is what was actually inside.
The problem: it's stories, not a system
Every chapter follows the same pattern. It opens with a story about someone wealthy — usually someone who failed at something first — and then the rest of the chapter is just quoting that person. Rinse and repeat, chapter after chapter. For a book with "thoughts" in the title, it barely gets into how thoughts actually work. It's anecdotes about millionaires and billionaires, not a framework for how to think.
You might also like
That's the real gap for me. I don't need more proof that rich people exist and have interesting backstories. I need something I can actually apply on Monday morning. This book never gave me that "oh, I'm going to do this differently now" moment. There's no step-by-step, no practical mechanism — just inspiration by proxy.
What I took from it anyway
Even a book that misses still teaches you something if you're paying attention:
- Author loyalty isn't a filter. I'll still buy anything Proctor puts out, but I've learned to separate "I trust this person's body of work" from "this specific book will move the needle for me." They're not the same test.
- Judge a book by its mechanism, not its stories. The books that actually changed how I operate gave me something to do — a way to reframe a decision, a habit to install, a lens to run problems through. If a book is 90% anecdote and 10% takeaway, I'm not getting my time back.
- Go back to the source. Proctor's earlier book, You Were Born Rich, is the one that actually changed how I thought about wealth and about thinking itself. It's been around since the late '90s, and it holds up. If I'm choosing between the two, I'm rereading that one before I ever touch Thoughts Are Things again.
Who should actually read this
If you're just starting out — genuinely at the beginning of trying to understand Law of Attraction thinking, or trying to believe wealth is even possible for you — this could work as an on-ramp. It's not hard to read, and hearing the same idea repeated through different wealthy people's stories can help it stick for someone brand new to the concept.
But if you've already read in this space — Proctor, Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, or any of the classic thinking-into-wealth authors — skip it. You already know the stories, you already know the frame, and this book won't hand you anything new to operate with.
My actual recommendation: start with You Were Born Rich if you want the real Bob Proctor experience, and pair it with Think and Grow Rich if you want the category's foundational text. Thoughts Are Things is fine as a beginner's warm-up. It's not where the real value is.
0 Comments
Log in to comment
Not a member yet? Join the community
Pick a meme
KlipyHave a great take?
Drop your email — we'll send a magic link so you can post it. No password.
Not a member of the community? Join today.
Join the community →