(Excerpt From The Course: “Successercising – The Science Of Success Achievement”)
In his all time best selling book, Think and Grow Rich mentions in his first chapter that throughout the book he will be referring many times to The Carnegie Secret. He said he would not tell you what that secret is, but when you are ready, it will jump off the page and into your brain. He said, When the Student is ready – the master will appear. The doors will open. The lights will turn green. The ideas will come. The money will come. The 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 lifetime researching the most successful people of all times from around the world.
Many, many times in our classes, workshops, talks, rallies and in our Master Mind Alliance Success Club meetings we have asked this question to those in our audience who had read the book Think and Grow Rich, What is The Carnegie Secret that Napoleon Hill referred to in his book?
We got all kinds of guesses and some answers that were somewhat close.
Here is ——- The Carnegie Secret
1. Have a definite major purpose.
What is the most important thing you would like to accomplish in your lifetime? Try to define it in one paragraph, even if you have to keep rewriting it a hundred times until it gets as clear as possible. It has to be the most important thing in your life. Mahatma Gandhi’s definite major purpose was to win independence for India from their British rulers. He succeeded. Dr. Martin Luther King’s was equality and the end of oppression for black people. Doctor Jonas Salk’s was to find the cure and end for polio. Thomas Edison’s was the incandescent light bulb. What is yours?
If you don’t currently have what you feel is a definite major purpose, then have a definite major purpose to find your definite major purpose.
It has to be something you want so bad that you think about it all of the time.
2. Be willing to stake your entire existence on achieving It.
Don’t Quit. There Are Many Starters In Life, But Very Few Finishers – When The Going Gets Tough They Quit. A person with a definite major purpose never gives up – no matter how long and tough the road is; instead, they become more determined. Jack London was rejected over 600 times before he finally sold his first piece of writing. Thomas Edison actually failed over 9,999 times before he perfected the incandescent light bulb, and over 5,000 times before he perfected the world’s first phonograph record player. There will be times when everything in you will tell you to quit – 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 hold on in spite of everything – to endure. It’s the ability to face defeat repeatedly without giving up—to push on even in the face of great difficulty or danger. Persistence means taking pains to overcome every obstacle, to do all that is necessary to reach your goals. You win, because you refuse to become discouraged by your defeats. Those who conquer are those who endure.
3. Keep intensifying your desire.
There are many “firemen” in life that will come along and try to put your fire of desire out. They will give you all kinds of reasons why your idea or goal won’t work and tell you to give it up, forget it, or tell you “You can’t do it.” You have to become an Arsonist. An arsonist sets fires. Every morning when you wake up you have to re-light and re-build the intensity of your fire of desire. You have to eat it, sleep it, walk it, talk it, and concentrate on it until it becomes a red-hot flaming, burning, obsessional desire that will eventually mow down all of the opposition you will face throughout each day.
If you don’t, your Sizzle of desire will fizzle down to nothing. I’m not suggesting that you stop talking to or seeing your family and friends – what I’m saying is to keep 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 that which you need; the ideas and plans, the money you need, and the people you need to help you. They will eventually gravitate toward your desire.
4. Have Bulldog Determination And Perseverance That Will Eventually Mow Down All Opposition.
Expect lots of problems, adversities, and discouragement along the way. Go around it – go over it – go under it – or dig a hole through it – but don’t ever turn back. Make your Definite Major Purpose the dominating thought in your mind. It is a known fact that people who have had great achievement – formed the habit of making an “obsession” of their Definite Major Purpose. Andrew Carnegie said to put all of your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket.
Andrew Carnegie’s definite major purpose, which he wrote down at an early age and kept in his desk, was to earn as much money as he can in life and then, in the end, to set up the Carnegie Foundation to give it all away to worthy causes. Even after his death long ago, the Carnegie Foundation is still giving away millions every year to help mankind.
I have been teaching The Science of Success Achievement Course since 1970. There were many times when I taught the course to as many as ten different groups per week. Some in major hotels, some in large corporate training rooms, in the YMCA, in hundreds of real estate and insurance offices, in prisons, rehab centers, and for many sales and marketing groups of people.
In all of my classes, (There were ten separate 4-hour classes to 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 them.)
As you read each page, write a list of all of the things the author is telling you to do and the things he is telling you not to do. Then, I want you to carry that list with you every day and keep reviewing your list and keep doing the things the author told you to do. And then come back to class #2 next week and tell the class about the list you made, what actions you took as a result of reading the book, and what results you got.”
At the beginning of the class on the following week I would always start out by asking – By a show of hands, how many of you read the first four chapters of Think And Grow Rich? About 2% would raise their hands. The rest didn’t 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 make of all of 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 the 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 her list to come to the front of the classroom.
I said to the others – You people paid good money to take this course because you wanted to achieve greater success. How can you expect the results you hoped for if you aren’t willing to take notes and to put in practice what you are learning?
Then I had the lady read from her list of 90 items. And the class was surprised at how powerful and important the things on her list were.
I asked the class – How many of you are speed reader? All kinds of hands went up. Then 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 around the book Think And Grow Rich. He said, “That’s a book that we teach from at our speed reading school.” Then I asked him, “What were the greatest lessons you learned from the book?” He tried to think and then said, “I don’t remember that book so well.” I later found out that he was a speed-reading instructor. I thought to myself – There’s a guy that can read 10,000 words a minute and remember nothing.
Think And Grow Rich is so powerful that it’s the kind of book you have to read very slowly and carefully, many times until it becomes a part of your life and habits. I have been reading the book every year since 1970. Each year I pull it back off the shelf and let it fire me up for the achievement of my new goals for the year.
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Rick Gettle
President/Founder
The Master Mind Alliance Success Club International