Self-Made Millionaire Knew the Value of Hard Work

"The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does." 

(Napoleon Hill)

A few years after we bought our house, Rob and I had a small hole developping in the backyard.  It turned out the soil was eroding due to the eavestrough drain.  We hired someone to lengthen the eavestrough pipe and bury it underground.  On the appointed day, it was drizzling rain.  At the appointed time, the man never showed up.  Rob phoned him to inquire and his response was:  "You don't expect me to work in the rain!"  

Nothing replaces hard work.  Self-made millionaire Andrew Carnegie knew that.  The Scotsman immigrated to America in 1848 almost penniless.  By 1901. he was the richest man in the world.  How did he establish his empire?  

As a teenager, Carnegie worked at a textile mill. Later, he worked as a telegrapher.  At 18, he became a personal secretary of a top manager of the railroad.  At 30, he was already the head of the Pittsburgh railroad.  In 1861, Carnegie invested in oil.  By 1873, he helped build the the steel business.  By 1900, he was making $40 million dollars in profits.  In the Gospel of Wealth (1889) Carnegie had written: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced."  Keeping to his word, he donated $350 million of his profits to worthy causes, including $60 million to build 3000 libraries across North America and the United Kingdom.

http://www.gettyimages.ca/photos/andrew-carnegie?excludenudity=true&sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=andrew%20carnegie

Think & Grow Rich: Words of Wisdom for All

"Desire, faith and persistence can propel one to great heights if one an suppress negative thoughts and focus on long term goals." (Napoleon Hill)

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie challenged a young Napoleon Hill to interview 500 self-made millionaires (Thomas Edison, Henry Ford) to find out what their secret to success was.  The purpose of the assignment was not so much to find out how these successful businessmen made their money, but what made them tick.  The result was Think and Grow Rich, the entrepreneur's bible, a book which sold 5000 copies in the first six weeks and over 100 million copies as of 2015.  

Here are the principles outlined by Napoleon Hill that all 500 self made millionaires exhibited, summarized  at http://www.businessinsider.com/napoleon-hill-think-and-grow-rich-2015-7:

1.  Burning Desire:  You have to want to achieve your goal more than anything else.

"Wishing will not bring wishes, but desiring wishes with a state of mind that brings an obsession, then planning ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognize failure, will bring riches."

When my husband and I decided to adopt a baby, I was on a mission.  Nobody could stop me.  I put blinders on.  I blocked out all of the horror stories I had heard about couples not getting babies and I focussed on the success stories.  I prepared myself by attending workshops and retreats and reading books about the subject.  After seven months on Beginnings Adoption Agency list, we had a bouncing baby boy.  

2.  Faith:  Believe in yourself!

"Riches begin in the form of thought.  The amount is limited only by the person in whose mind the thought is put into motion.  Faith removes limitations!"

As Henry Ford once said:  "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."  If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will.  When we were waiting for a baby, I saw successful adoptive couples and said:  "If they can do it, so can we!"

3.  Auto-suggestion:  Use affirmations to reach your goal.

"Your ability to use the principle of auto-suggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession."

Send your subconscious mind phrases which support your goal.  Repeat aloud positive mantras.  In an effort to find a baby to adopt, I handed out over 400 business cards.  My networking led me to an elderly man at the local pool.  Every time I saw him, he would say:  "Linda, I'm going to show up at your door on Christmas Eve with a bundle of joy in my arms."  That was a daily affirmation.  I'm sure it helped my confidence.  The man at the pool proved to be a prophet:  two days before Christmas Eve, we brought home our baby boy.

4.  Specialized Knowledge:  Gain experience and continue learning.

"Successful men, in all callings, never stop acquiring specialized knowledge related to their major purpose, business or profession.  Those who are not successful usually make the mistake of believing that the knowledge acquiring period ends when one finishes school."

Signing the adoption papers was not the end of our adoption journey.  Rob and I take it one year at a time.  There is no manual about open adoption to follow.  As a baby, Thomas heard the world "adopted".  As a five year old, we told him who his birthparents were.  As a high school graduate, his birthparents came to his ceremony.  Thomas will always have a relationship with his birthparents.

5.  Come up with ideas and visualize your success.

"Whoever you are, wherever you may live, whatever occupation you may be engaged in, just remember in the future, every time you see the words 'Coca-Cola', that its vast empire of wealth and influence grew out of a single idea."

I used to visualize myself holding a baby.  

6.  Organized Planning:  Take Action

"Opportunity has spread its wares before you.  Step up to the front, select what you want, create your plan, put your plan into action, and follow through with persistence."

Friends from our old church were given a baby boy to adopt, only to have the baby taken away after 3 or 4 days once the birthmother changed her mind.  They were devastated.  But they got right back on the horse and soon after adopted a healthy baby girl.

7.  Decision:  Defeat procrastination with decisiveness

"People who fail to accumulate money, without exception, have the habit of reaching decisions, if at all, very slowly, and of changing these decisions very often."

It took me nine months to potty train Thomas.  He was forever in pull ups.  I wasn't messing around with my second child.  Jacqueline went right into underwear and was potty trained within a week.  

8.  Persistence:  Don't stop until you get what you want.

"Riches do not respond to wishes.  They respond only to definite plans. backed by definite desires, through constant persistence."

My sister was required to run a mile in 8 minutes as part of getting a Physed degree at McMaster University.  She was in top physical condition, working at Lady Fitness at the time, but she couldn't run against a clock.  She tried for three years, but failed, and was kicked out of the program.  Two years later, she was offered re-entry into the program if she succeeded.  She trained for six months with a trainer and made the run in 7 minutes, 50 seconds.  Today, she has her B.A. and B.Ed.

9.  Power of the mastermind:  Surround yourself with the best.

"A group of brains, co-ordinated in a spirit of harmony, will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery."  

You tend to become like those you surround yourself with.  

10.  The Mystery of Sex Transmutation:  Choose a compatible partner.

"Sex desire is the most powerful of all human desires.  When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, willpower, persistence and creative ability unknown to them at other times."

Behind every good man is a good woman.

11.  The Subconscious Mind:  Master positivity and dismiss negative emotions

"Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy the mind at the same time.  One or the other must dominate.  It is your responsibility to make sure that positive emotions constitute the dominating influence of your mind."

Read the bestseller The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

12.  The Brain:  Associate with other smart people and learn from them

"Every human brain is capable of picking up vibrations of thought which are being released by other brains."

13.  The Sixth Sense:  Trust your gut.

"No matter who you are, or what your purpose is in reading this book, you can profit by it without understanding the principle described in this chapter."

Always trust your instincts.  They are usually right.

Think and Grow Rich (1937) has sold over 100 million copies courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_and_Grow_Rich.

How Andrew Carnegie Built the Architecture of American Literacy

"A library is the best possible gift to a community for it gives people a chance to improve themselves." (Andrew Carnegie)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie

The United States had 1689 of these buildings while Canada had 125.  They were known for their turrets, columns and arches, "the architecture of American literacy".  

                                

Former Carnegie Library in Washington DC courtesy http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/how-andrew-carnegie-built-the-architecture-of-american-literacy/381953/.

Andrew Carnegie, an immigrant from Scotland to the United States, had been denied access to a Pittsburgh library was he was a boy (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/06/andrew-carnegies-letter-to-editor.html).  After accumulating his wealth in the steel industry, he vowed to use it to educate those less fortunate.  Between 1893 and 1919, Andrew Carnegie donated $1.3 billion to finance the building of libraries dotting the American landscape.  Carnegie's legacy reached every state in the contiguous United States except Delaware and Rhode Island.  The majority, however, sat in what is now the Rust Belt (Indiana had the most at 165) and California.   

The castle like Carnegie Library in Braddock, Pennsylvania courtesy http://andrewcarnegie.tripod.com/photoalbumCL-AllegCo.htm.

"It was an expectation in communities across the country -- if you didn't have a library somehow you weren't supporting culture...What Carnegie did was simulated the desire for libraries in communities across the country," explains Wayne Wiegand, professor emeritus of library studies at Florida State University (http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/how-andrew-carnegie-built-the-architecture-of-american-literacy/381953/).

The St. Petersburg, Florida Carnegie Library reflects the local architecture courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_libraries_in_Florida.

Many Carnegie libraries are known for their architecture.  While architects and librarians argued over the design of the buildings, Carnegie sided with the latter.  "Architecture was to be avoided.  Architecture was what was going to make the library expensive."  Like a true Scotsman, Carnegie wanted to preserve costs.

The plain design of the Ritzville, Washington Carnegie Library courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritzville_Carnegie_Library.

Carnegie's secretary, James Bertram, sent a pamphlet to communities planning the construction of a Carnegie library titled "Notes on the Construction of Library Buildings".  The pamphlet contained a crude design for six different templates; built into every design was a community centre or auditorium.  Ironically, the growth of each library's book collection crowded out its community centre.

Greenville, Ohio Carnegie Library featured both an auditorium and a range of classrooms for the city's students courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenville_Carnegie_Library. 

Today, libraries are once again oriented around services to the community.  Close to 800 Carnegie libraries are still in use while 350 have been re-purposed as offices and cultural centres.  Sadly, 275 have been razed or destroyed.  Some, as in the case of the Cambridge Library in Southern Ontario, sit vacant, their massive columns standing testament to the Architecture of American Literacy.

Galt Carnegie Library in Cambridge, Ontario courtesy http://publish.uwo.ca/~gbushel/carnegielibrariesofwaterlooregion/waterlooregioncarnegielibraries/galt.html.

Nobel Prize Winner Ernest Hemingway Read A Great Number of Books

"He read everything around the house, all the books, all the magazines, even the AMA journals from dad's office downstairs.  Ernie also took out a great number of books from the public library." (Marcelline, sister of Ernest Hemingway)

Growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway used to read everything he could get his hands on.  His older sister, Marcelline, said that their bookshelf was filled with authors like Shakespeare, Scott, Stevenson, Dickens and Thackeray.  Periodicals such as National Geographic, Atlantic Monthly and Harper's were on the bookshelf at the family cottage on Walloon Lake in Upper Michigan.  

Hemingway also visited the public library on a regular basis.  By the turn of the last century, libraries had sprung up in many towns and cities across the United States, thanks in large part to the generosity of Andrew Carnegie.  Books were starting to come down in price with Little Leather Library, the book of the month clubs and paperback publications.  

Hemingway translated his long hours of reading into a successful writing career, penning seven novels, six short collections, two non fiction works and endless articles.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.  

The year before, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Oak Park Library, he wrote:  "I was at sea or I would have sent you a message telling you how much I owe to the Library and how much it meant to me all my life."    

Hemingway worked as a correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly at the time of this photograph courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway#Cuba_and_the_Nobel_Prize.

Carnegie's Lifelong Pursuit of Knowledge

"Carnegie and Franklin both credited their success to self-education (both spent their spare moments reading any books they could get their hands on)."

Rags to riches millionaire Andrew Carnegie dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge.  While he only had a couple of years of formal education, he was constantly educating himself and claimed that this pursuit was the key to his success.

In his Scotland hometown, Carnegie used to visit the library where he would listen to the poetry of Robert Burns.  Immigrating to America, Carnegie wrote a letter to the editor protesting the fact that he couldn't borrow books from the library, a letter which gained him entry to the library.  As a telegraph deliverer he paid visits to the theatre where he lingered to watch productions of Shakespeare.  With his Pittsburgh Library card he borrowed essays written by Charles Lamb and Thomas Macaulay.  

As a teenager, he joined the debating club and pondered questions like "Should the judiciary be elected by the people?"  Carnegie explained:  "Much of my reading...had a bearing on forthcoming debates and that gave clearness and fixity to ideas." (www.artofmanliness.com/2012/03/28/andrew-carnegie-financial-lessons/)

As a businessman, first with the railroad, then in iron and steel, Carnegie poured over Pittsburgh papers as well as the New York Daily Times.  The entrepreneur started writing books sharing his business strategies like The Gospel of Wealth and The Empire of Business.  Like Benjamin Franklin, Carnegie knew that improving himself included educating himself.  "Carnegie and Franklin both credited their success to self-education (both spent their spare moments reading any books they could get their hands on)." (https://richstudents.wordpress.com/tag/carnegie/)

Carnegie amassed a fortune only surpassed by John Rockefeller.  He believed in the mantra:  "The man who dies rich dies in disgrace." (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande01.html).  Carnegie started building libraries which he called "instruments of change" and "temples of learning".  One of the first libraries, a beaux arts building in Washington D.C., the inscription read "Dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge."  In total, Carnegie gave $60 million for 2500 libraries in North America and the United Kingdom, all in the name of educating both rich and poor.

For more information, read Andrew Carnegie's Letter to the Editor at  

http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/06/andrew-carnegies-letter-to-editor.html.

http://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie-turned-his-fortune-into-a-library-legacy

Carnegie's Letter Leads to Hill's Bestseller Think and Grown Rich

"Armed only with a letter of introduction from Carnegie, Hill set out to interview 500 people of the caliber of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, William Wrigley Jr. and Charles M. Schwab." (Marelisa Fabrega)

The Scottish-American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie challenged the up and comer Napoleon Hill:  interview 500 businessmen and find out their secret to success.  "Armed only with a letter of introduction from Carnegie, Hill set out to interview 500 people of the caliber of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, John D. Rockefeller, George Eastman, William Wrigley Jr. and Charles M. Schwab." (http://daringtolivefully.com/napoleon-hill-success)  It took him 20 years, with many bumps in the road, but Hill reached the finish line; and he came away with the bestseller Think and Grow Rich.

Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room log cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia in 1883 to a life of poverty and illiteracy.  At 9 years old, his mother passed away.  Young Napoleon was angry.  Enamored with the outlaw Jesse James, Napoleon was known to wear a six shooter in his belt and terrorize the mountainside.  

His father soon remarried and his stepmother saw his potential.  She challenged young Napoleon to use his imagination for writing and spent the next year tutoring her stepson.  The new Mrs.  Hill offered to buy Napoleon a typewriter.  "If you become as good with a typewriter as you are with that gun, you may become rich and famous and known throughout the world." (http://www.success.com/mobile/article/rich-man-poor-man)

Napoleon rose to the challenge.  He found that he had a way with words and by 15 years old, he was a freelance reporter for mountain newspapers.  Soon he was writing for the Bob Taylor magazine where he was challenged to get an interview with Andrew Carnegie.  But it would not be as simple as picking up a telephone and placing a call.  Napoleon wrote not one but 50 letters to the steel magnate.  Finally, tired of seeing the same request, and admiring his persistence, Carnegie granted Hill his request.  The interview changed Hill's life.

Carnegie outlined a plan for Hill to write a book about the secrets to financial success by interviewing successful businessmen.  The steel magnate drafted a letter which gained Hill entrance to the offices of America's most sought after businessmen.  Hill discovered that all of the men he interviewed had several traits in common:  a definiteness of purpose; a strong belief in themselves; and an uncanny ability to bounce back from failure and adversity.

The latter trait served Hill well.  In 1926, he and the editor of the Canton Daily News, had just run an expose revealing Prohibition era gangsters and their operation of bootleg liquor which they had been distributing to local schoolchildren.  In gangster style, the editor was gunned down in cold blood.  The gangsters waited for Hill at his house, but the writer did not make it home after his car broke down. A nervous Hill received an anonymous note telling him to leave town, which he did.

In West Virginia, Hill had to make a clean start.  It was there that he re-committed himself to finishing the project that he had started under the guidance of Carnegie.  He wrote a book, Law of Success, which after many rejections, was published in 1928. 

Almost a decade after his first book came out, Hill secured a publisher for his second book, drawing on his original interviews with businessmen, called The Thirteen Steps to Riches.  Initially rejected, Hill's wife pleaded his case and the publisher relented under the condition that the title be changed to Use Your Noodle to Win More Boodle.  Mercifully, the title was changed later to Think and Grow Rich.  Within three weeks, Hill's new book was sold out.  By the end of the Great Depression, it had sold millions of copies.  By Hill's death in 1970, it had sold 20 million copies.  Today, it has sold over 70 million copies.  It all started with a letter signed by billionaire Andrew Carnegie.

Napoleon Hill circa 1904 courtesy http://www.success.com/mobile/article/rich-man-poor-man.