The Real Mike Griffin

On the December 11th post we wrote about “The Carnegie Wealth Secret.” Today we follow up with a little more about Carnegie.

Today’s Podcast Part 1

Today’s Podcast Part 2

Often today when “Think and Grow Rich” is mentioned it is somehow separated from Andrew Carnegie, who at the time he commissioned Napoleon Hill to write his formula was probably the richest man in the world.

“Think and Grow Rich” has Andrew Carnegie’s hands all over it. Carnegie became Hill’s mentor and introduced him to many of the wealthy – successful people of the day that Hill interviewed to collect the great ideas that he put into the book. Today we’ll talk a little about Carnegie and about the influence that his gift of libraries to communities all over the United States has had on the country — and this is important to help understand Carnegie’s motives in setting Hill on his life’s task.

Carnegie funded nearly 1700 libraries in the United States alone. He believed in giving to the “industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve and will be benefited by help from others.” This philosophy pokes through on the pages of Think and Grow Rich.

Carnegie credits libraries as a big part of his rise to success. While working for a telegraph company in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Carnegie borrowed books from the library of Colonel James Anderson. In his autobiography, Carnegie tells how Anderson gave opportunities to “working boys” (that some said should not be “entitled to books”) to acquire the knowledge to improve themselves.

Carnegie believed that anyone who worked hard in America could become successful. Hill carries that theme into his books where he talks about forming a vision of your objectives in your mind and that these thoughts are things – he also talks about the need to take action and work toward the objectives. Not work for the sake of work but, in the same way that thought is focused on the desired goal so action is sharply focused on the goal.

In the visioning process the steps that must be done, the action need, is sharply brought into focus. This is followed by the action envisioned on those steps. The idea and desire, the vision, the action – together these steps form the skeleton of Carnegie Wealth secret. When these are combined with the flesh that Hill provides in “Think and Grow Rich” you have a formula that cannot fail.

Keep it real.

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