ORIGINAL PUBLISHER S INTRODUCTION: THE STORY BEHIND THIS VOLUME For the first time Napoleon Hill gives you in THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH all seventeen Principles of Success IN A SINGLE VOLUME just as they were taught to him in person by Andrew Carnegie and other successful men who gave freely of their time and experience. Napoleon Hill tells you the secret of How to win riches... power... prestige. He tells how the average man may learn to use the secrets of America s greatest and richest men. Read the probing questions Dr. Hill asked of Andrew Carnegie. Profit by the philanthropist s frank, illuminating statements HOW HE MADE HIS MONEY. This inspiring writer made it his life s work to trace these answers. He found that other men agreed! At last Napoleon Hill knew he had made a sensational discovery: THAT THE APPLICATION OF CERTAIN FUN- DAMENTAL PRINCIPLES WOULD INSURE SUCCESS TO EVERY ONE WHO MADE USE OF THEM. The entire secret of success is written down in THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH. With illuminating pen and purpose, Hill writes from his
2 THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH intimate knowledge of and association with the world s wealthiest men. He found and gives you the true philosophy upon which all lasting success is built. In the Steel King s own words, Napoleon Hill records his personal interviews with Carnegie, setting down each question and answer. The entire law, consisting of seventeen steps, is condensed for the first time in this volume, and gives a master plan to win success. The theory that the road to wealth is hard and narrow is dead-as-a-doornail. You ll know it for the broad, smooth paved highway it is for those who apply the seventeen principles in the law of success. That promotion will look easy. That top job will not look so far away. If you, like thousands of other men and women, have dreams of retiring some day but find your goal as far away as it was five... ten... fifteen years ago... ACT NOW! Start by deciding how much money you need... for retirement... for a new house... a car... son s education. We take you now to the private study of Andrew Carnegie, where Napoleon Hill is taking his first lesson on success. The Publisher 1948
CHAPTER 1 DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE HILL: Mr. Carnegie, I would like to have you go back to the beginning of your career and describe to me, step by step, the principles of achievement through which you began, without money, without great influence and with but little schooling, and lifted yourself into a position of great affluence and wealth. Inasmuch as I am requesting this information in behalf of men and women who have neither the time nor the opportunity to acquire knowledge of the rules of success from those who have been successful, I ask that you forego all formalities and speak to me plainly and frankly, in terms that any person of average intelligence may understand. CARNEGIE: Very well, I shall describe the rules of personal achievement which have been responsible for my own accomplishments, but I do so on condition that you organize these rules of human relationship into a philosophy that will be available to every person who has the ambition to master and use it. What I am asking you to do is one of the constructive means
4 THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH I have for the distribution of my fortune. The money I have accumulated I will give away, in due time, through sources that will do the least amount of harm and the greatest possible good; but my real wealth that portion of it which I wish to donate for the good of mankind consists of the principles of personal achievement which I am entrusting to you. In lending you my aid in the organization of the rules of personal achievement, I do so with the understanding that you will carry on a continuous research until you shall have compared my own experiences with the experience of other men who have been recognized as successes in many fields of endeavor, in order that you may give the world a success philosophy of sufficient flexibility that it will serve the needs of all people, regardless of their calling or purpose in life. A sound philosophy of individual achievement must present a clear understanding of the principles that bring success and those that lead to failure. HILL: Your conditions are accepted, Mr. Carnegie, and you may rest assured, Sir, that I will never stop until the job has been finished, regardless of the time required. Your faith in my ability to do the job is all the inspiration I need to insure my carrying on until I finish. Will you begin, now, and give me an understandable analysis of all the principles of success which you have used in your personal advancement? CARNEGIE: To begin with, let me state that there are seventeen major principles of success, and every person who attains the objective of his major goal, in any undertaking, must use some combination of these principles. We shall name, first, the most important of these principles. It stands at the head of the list of the seventeen principles of
DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE 5 achievement because no one has ever been known to succeed without applying it. You may call it the principle of Definiteness of Purpose. Study any person who is known to be a permanent success and you will find that he has a Definite Major Goal; he has a plan for the attainment of this goal; he devotes the major portion of his thoughts and his efforts to the attainment of this purpose. My own major purpose is that of making and marketing steel. I conceived that purpose while working as a laborer. It became an obsession with me. I took it to bed with me at night, and I took it to work with me in the morning. My Definite Purpose became more than a mere wish; it became my Burning Desire! That is the only sort of definite purpose which seems to bring desired results. Emphasize, through every means at your command, the vast difference between a mere wish and a burning desire that has assumed the proportions of an obsession. Everyone wishes for the better things of life, such as money, a good position, fame, and recognition; but most people never go far beyond the wishing stage. Men who know exactly what they want of life, and are determined to get it, do not stop with wishing. They intensify their wishes into a burning desire, and back that desire with continuous effort based on a sound plan. It is necessary that they induce other people to co-operate in carrying out their plan. No great achievement is possible without the aid of other minds. Later on I will explain how successful men go about inducing others to give their co-operation. HILL: Before you achieved the object of your Defi nite Major Purpose you had to have the use of money, a large amount of it, as operating capital. How did you manage to procure so huge an
6 THINK YOUR WAY TO WEALTH amount of money, starting, as you did, without money of your own? I wish you would answer this question in detail, Mr. Carnegie, because nearly every person arrives at the point, sooner or later, at which he might rise to great heights of achievement, if only he had the capital with which to make the right start. CARNEGIE: The first step from poverty to riches is the most difficult. It may simplify my statement if I tell you that all riches, and all material things that anyone acquires through self-effort, begin in the form of a clear, concise mental picture of the thing one seeks. When that picture grows, or has been forced to the proportions of an obsession, it is taken over by the sub-conscious mind, through some hidden law of nature which the wisest of men do not understand. From that point on one is drawn, attracted or guided in the direction of the physical equivalent of the mental picture. I shall come back to this subject of the sub-conscious mind many times before we finish, as it is one of the vital factors in connection with all outstanding achievements. Speaking of my own experience in taking the first step toward the achievement of my major purpose in life, I can describe it very clearly, in a few words. First, I knew that I wanted to go into the making of steel. I whipped up that desire until it became a driving obsession with me. By this I mean that my desire drove me day and night. Then I took the next step in carrying out my major purpose, by selling my idea to another workman. He was a friend of mine who had no money, but he did have the mental capacity to recognize the value of my idea, and the courage to join with me in carrying it out. Between the two of us we induced two others men with vision, courage and initiative to become interested in our plan for the making and marketing of steel. We four men formed the nucleus of a Master-Mind group
DEFINITENESS OF PURPOSE 7 which we later increased until it consisted of more than twenty men the men who helped me acquire my fortune, to say nothing of having made fortunes for themselves through our joint efforts. Through the combined enthusiasm of my Master-Mind group, we induced other men to supply the money necessary to carry out our idea. I will explain the Master-Mind principle in detail later on in our conversation. What we are concerned with now is the starting point from which I took off in pursuit of my major purpose. HILL: Am I to understand from what you say, Mr. Carnegie, that Definiteness of Purpose gives one the benefit of a natural law in carrying out an objective? CARNEGIE: I wish you to observe other men who have been successful, as you go about your task of organizing the philosophy of achievement, for you will learn from them that each of them began, as I did, with a definite purpose and a definite plan for carrying it out. And another thing you will observe in connection with successful men, if you look closely enough, is the fact that they are succeeding with effort apparently no greater than that being used by others who are not succeeding. It has long been a mystery to some people why men with little or no schooling often succeed, while men with extensive schooling are failing all around them. Look carefully and you will discover that great successes are the result of understanding and the use of a positive mental attitude through which nature aids men in converting their aims and purposes into their physical and financial equivalent. Mental attitude is the quality of mind which gives power to one s thoughts and plans. Remember this fact, and stress it in organizing the philosophy of individual achievement.