In the first decade of the twentieth century, a young journalist was dispatched to conduct an interview with a, by then, famous giant of industry.
Considering just 1% of business owners today are millionaires, to be a billionaire back in the early 1900’s is nothing short of astounding.
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish steel baron based in the US. He’d become famous not just for his wealth, but by the fact that sixty people in his employment were millionaires in their own right.
How they’d achieved such personal wealth in Carnegie’s employ had remained somewhat of a “secret”.
It became known as “Carnegie’s Secret”.
The story goes that the young journalist, a man by the name of Napoleon Hill, was scheduled to meet with Mr. Carnegie for an hour. Allegedly, the meeting lasted considerably longer, “days” according to some sources and at the end of this time Carnegie gave Hill an ultimatum to, on his sponsorship, research the most successful people and the most spectacular failures of the generation and document the difference as a testament to what really creates success in life.
Carnegie was apparently unimpressed by how poorly formal education equipped young people to successfully navigate the world (oh how far we have come). He allegedly sensed Hill was the man to have the persistence and determination to bring the Carnegie “secret” to the world.
A “secret” that had enabled the Scot to dominate the steel industry.
In the interview, Hill asked Carnegie “To what do you attribute your great success?” To which Carnegie responded, “A Master Mind.”
Hill later said: “Carnegie was a man of imagination. He first created a definite purpose and then surrounded himself with men who had the training and the vision and the capacity necessary for the transformation of that purpose into reality.”
Carnegie is reported to have been part of several Master Minds full of “executives” collaborating in a unique alliance to generate wealth and personal success.
Given sixty on his payroll were millionaires and Carnegie himself attributed his entire fortune to the “power” he accumulated through the “Master Mind Principle” and Hill’s subsequent publication of his years of research into Carnegie’s “secret”, “Think & Grow Rich”, which is credited in creating more millionaires than any other written media, and, according to Hill, the likes of Ford, Wrigley, Rockerfeller, Edison, Rooseevelt and Gilette all generated their wealth through the “Master Mind Principle”, you’d have thought business owners all over the world would be actively participating in one today.
Sadly, it’s not the case, because:
- a) very few people know what a Master Mind is
- b) very few people know how to facilitate one
- c) consequently, a “real” Master Mind based on Carnegie’s philosophy is as rare as rocking horse dung.
But what’s the crux of the Carnegie “secret”?
Hill explains it with an analogy to batteries. Citing the fact that a group of batteries will always provide more energy than a single battery, he also points out that “a single battery will provide energy in proportion to the number and capacity of the cells it contains.”
He goes on to explain the “brain” works in a similar manner (Hill confuses the brain with the mind, they are not the same thing). He concludes: “A group of brains coordinated (or connected) 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.”
Consequently, “the Master Mind Principle holds the secret of the POWER wielded by people who surround themselves with the minds of other capable individuals.”
To the average man on the street, the average business owner, the average “thinker” yielding “average” results, to those immersed in mass consciousness without even knowing it, the premise of Carnegie’s “secret” seems peculiar, weird or even “psycho-babble”.
But to those of us who’ve experienced the power of a Master Mind and the long list of those who credit it with generating seven zero’s or more in their bank account, it’s proven by its yield.
And results are the only yardstick worth measuring in entrepreneurial life.
“Entrepreneurial Elite” is built on the principles of Carnegie’s “secret”.
It’s not a “meeting”, it’s not a “seminar”, it’s a not a “networking opportunity”, it’s a Master Mind, the bringing together of people of a “certain mindset” who’ve achieved a certain level of success, under the stewardship of a highly experienced Master of Coaching, to leverage the power of the collective and the “third mind” principle, with a specific purpose of accelerating the business growth and personal success of every member of the alliance.
It’s my flagship entrepreneurial group, my closest inner circle and I’ll be pouring everything I have into every member of it – because by their commitment to their success…
they deserve nothing less.
Christian Simpson is the UK’s leading coach and mentor to business owners and entrepreneurs. For COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS to tried, tested and proven entrepreneurial success strategies, click here
