The Carnegie Secret to Success

In his best-selling book of all time, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill mentions in his first chapter that he will refer to The Carnegie Secret many times throughout the book. He said he wouldn’t tell you what that secret is, but when you’re ready, it will jump off the page and into your brain. He said: When the Student is ready, the teacher will appear. The doors will open. The lights will turn green. The ideas will come. The money will come. People will be there to help you.

Since 1970 we have been teaching the principles of success that Andrew Carnegie commissioned Napoleon Hill to study and share with the world. Napoleon Hill spent his entire life researching the most successful people of all time around the world.

Many, many times in our classes, workshops, talks, rallies, and at our Master Mind Alliance Success Club meetings we have asked this question to those in our audience who have read the book Think and Grow Rich,

What is Carnegie’s Secret that Napoleon Hill refers to in his book?
We got all sorts of guesses and some answers that came a little close.

HERE IT IS ——- CARNEGIE’S SECRET

1. Have a defined main purpose.

What is the most important thing you would like to achieve in your life? Try to define it in a paragraph, even if you have to keep rewriting it a hundred times until it is as clear as possible. It has to be the most important thing in your life. Mahatma Gandhi’s main ultimate purpose was to achieve India’s independence from its British rulers. He was successful. Dr. Martin Luther King’s was equality and an end to oppression for blacks. Dr. Jonas Salk’s was to find the cure and the end of polio. Thomas Edison’s was the incandescent light bulb. What’s yours?

If you currently don’t have what you think is a defined primary purpose, then have a defined primary purpose to find your defined primary purpose.

It has to be something you want so much that you think about it all the time.

2. Be willing to bet your entire existence to achieve it.

Do not give up. There are many beginners in life, but very few finishers: when the going gets tough, they give up. A person with a defined main purpose never gives up, no matter how long and difficult the road is; instead, they become more determined. Jack London was rejected over 600 times before he finally sold his first piece of writing. In fact, Thomas Edison failed more than 9,999 times before perfecting the incandescent light bulb, and more than 5,000 times before perfecting the world’s first phonograph record player. There will be times when everything inside of you will tell you to give up, to stop trying, but if you hang in there, eventually you will, you must succeed. Quitters never win, and winners never quit.

Persistence is the power to endure despite everything, to endure. It is the ability to repeatedly face defeat without giving up, to keep going even in the face of great difficulty or danger. Persistence means striving to overcome all obstacles, to do whatever it takes to reach your goals. You win because you refuse to be discouraged by your losses. Those who win are those who endure.

3. Keep intensifying your desire.

There are many “firemen” in life who will come and try to put out the fire of desire. They’ll give you all sorts of reasons why your idea or goal won’t work and tell you to drop it, forget it, or “can’t do it.” You have to become an arsonist. An arsonist sets fires. Every morning when you wake up you have to relight and rebuild the intensity of your fire of desire. You have to eat it, sleep it, walk it, talk to it, and focus on it until it becomes a red-hot, burning, burning, obsessive desire that will eventually wipe out all opposition you’ll face throughout each day. If you don’t, your sizzle of desire will fade to nothing. I’m not suggesting that you stop talking or seeing your family and friends; What I’m saying is stay focused day and night, seven days a week. This will bring into play: THE LAW OF HARMONIOUS ATTRACTION. Your burning desire becomes a magnet. You will attract what you need; the ideas and plans, the money you need and the people you need to help you. They will eventually gravitate towards your desire.

4. Have the determination and perseverance of a bulldog that will eventually crush all opposition.

Expect lots of trouble, adversity, and discouragement along the way. Go around it, go over it, go under it or dig a hole through it, but never go back. Make your Defined Primary Purpose the dominant thought in your mind. It is a known fact that people who have had a great achievement have formed the habit of making an “obsession” of their Higher Defined Purpose. Andrew Carnegie said to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket. Andrew Carnegie’s main ultimate purpose, which he wrote down at an early age and kept in his desk, was to earn as much money as he could in a lifetime and then, in the end, establish the Carnegie Foundation to donate it all to worthy causes. Even after his death long ago, the Carnegie Endowment continues to donate millions each year to help humanity.

I have been teaching the Science of Achieving Success course since 1970. There were many times when I taught the course to up to ten different groups a week. Some in major hotels, some in large corporate training rooms, at the YMCA, in hundreds of real estate and insurance offices, in prisons, halfway houses, and for many groups of sales and marketing people.

In all of my classes (there were ten separate 4-hour classes in the course), I always told my students at the end of the first class, “For your homework this week, I want you to read the first four chapters of Think and Grow Rich.” (I always had stacks of the book there to sell.) As you read each page, write a list of all the things the author tells you to do and the things he tells you not to do, then I want you to carry that list with you every day and keep checking your list and keep doing the things the author told you to do, what actions you took as a result of reading the book, and what results you got.

At the beginning of class the following week, I always began by asking, raising your hand, how many of you read the first four chapters of Think and Grow Rich? About 2% would raise their hands. The rest did not take the time to read it. Then I would ask the 2% how many of you read the first four chapters and made the list I told you to do of all the things the author told you to do? Usually about three hands went up. I asked each of them – How many items do you have on your list of things the author told you to do? The first person said three. The second person said nine. The third person said – 90 items

I asked the person who had ninety on their list to come to the front of the classroom.

I told the others: You paid good money to take this course because you wanted to be more successful. How can you expect the results you hoped for if you are not willing to take notes and put into practice what you are learning?

I then asked the lady to read from her list of 90 items. And the class was amazed at how powerful and important the things on her list were.

I asked the class – How many of you are speed readers? All kinds of hands went up. So I told them about an incident when I was at a party and someone asked me what I do for a living. I told him that I teach a course based on the book Think and Grow Rich. He said, “That’s a book we teach at our speed reading school.” I then asked him, “What were the most important lessons you learned from the book?” He tried to think and then said, “I don’t remember that book very well.” I later found out that he was a speed reading instructor. I thought to myself: There’s a guy who can read 10,000 words a minute and not remember a thing.

Think and Grow Rich is so powerful that it is the kind of book you have to read very slowly and carefully, many times until it becomes part of your life and habits. I have been reading the book every year since 1970. Every year I take it off the shelf and let it push me to reach my new goals for the year.

CARNEGIE’S SECRET TO SUCCESS
excerpt from the book
Course “The Science of Achieving Success”
By Rick Gettle © 2006