Chapter 2 - Desire Answers

1) According to the most important person in your life, you, what is the greatest achievement of any person that inspires you?

There are many people who inspire me; personal, professional and family members have had the greatest impact. However for the accumulation of wealth I can think of no better example than Andrew Carnegie. Born in poverty in Scotland, he moved to Allegheny Pennsylvania at the age of thirteen. The first year in the new world Andrew started as a bobbin boy, changing spools of thread in a cotton mill 12 hours a day, for 6 days a week.  At the age of eighteen Andrew Carnegie had risen to the prestigious position as the superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Thomas A. Scott, the owner of the railroad, became a mentor to the young upstart. With the help of Scott, Andrew Carnegie invested in the railroad business. Having so much success by the time the Civil War broke out, he was appointed to the post of Superintendent of the Military Railways and the Union Government's telegraph lines in the East.

Carnegie helped to open rail lines into Washington D.C. After the defeat of Union forces at Bull Run, he personally supervised the transportation of defeated troops. No matter what level of success he achieved, his compassion for soldiers and the everyday citizen stayed with him his entire life.

After the war, seeing the vast opportunity in the steel business, Carnegie began to amass his fortune. His two main influences on American industry were introducing cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails for railroad lines and vertical integration of all suppliers of raw materials. Carnegie Steel was the largest steel manufacturer in the World. He was instrumental in working with Charles M. Schwab and J.P. Morgan to create the largest company in the World. He sold his steel company, with his influence and the direction of Schwab combined with the finances and steel companies owned by Morgan, US Steel Corporation was created.  This resulted in cutting costs by reducing duplication and waste, thus lowering prices, producing in greater quantities and raising wages to workers.  Again, Carnegie exemplified a great corporate leader, never forgetting about the backbone of the company, the workers.

As much as his rise to financial greatness is impressive, his work after creating and selling Carnegie Steel to US Steel Corporation solidified an ever lasting legacy. Carnegie spent his last years doing extensive philanthropy works. He established 30000 libraries throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking countries.  Andrew Carnegie donated $2 million in 1901 to start the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) at Pittsburgh, $10 million in 1901 to establish the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and $10 million in 1913 to endow the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, a grant-making foundation. In today’s World, with the massive change in the value of a dollar, that translates to nearly a billion dollars. Will Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey ever approach this amount of giving? We have yet to see.

Of more importance to the readers of this blog is that he was the genesis of Think and Grow Rich, believing every person in the United States should learn the secret to success. Obviously the current movers and shakers of the World know this in one form to another. Let us ponder what would the World can be like if this book could be taught in some form in all schools? Whatever your mind can conceive, you can create is so powerful that if our country as whole believed this, the nightly news cycle would not be about doom and gloom. It would instead be about the great success that naturally flowing to us. That is what I am all about, starting a revolutionary paradigm shift, to take this country, and this World to a place of responsible abundance.  I am so proud of you for deciding to join me on this adventurous life’s work.

Chapter One Answers

      1)  Why does Napoleon Hill not just tell us the secret and teach us how to use it?

The secret is something that you must discover for yourself. If it was told to you, you would not learn. And maybe the secret is different for everybody. We all have unique personalities, so the secret and how we employ need to also be unique and true to the self, so your passion will also be fully employed.

2) What is your BURNING DESIRE? Why does it burn, what makes it hot? If you desire money merely for material goods, that is not lasting wealth. Describe you desire and why it is burning.

My burning desire is to empower myself, not just for myself, but for my family. Our lives are too important to waste. I am to be a better example for my daughter. It is not just wealth, is belief in success and seeing the brick walls that trap many people as merely questions that have answers. For example, we have been trapped by lack of money. The old me considered lack of money the cause of a disease that rots a family into anger and divorce.  It is not the lack of money or abundance that hurts families, it is imbalance. With marriage, there are fairy tale expectations, childhood dreams of the Game of Life. When these expectations fail to materialize, due to financial thermostats, that is the disease, that is what causes frustration, fighting, and can leads to drug and alcohol abuse. Money is only the root of all evil for those who don't have it. My thermostat is rising.  Money will be my vehicle to success, a tool to be more of what I am, a generous giving person, who will help as many people as I can rise above money being their handicap. The first time I read Think and Grow Rich, I was pondering on raising my expectations and believing things can change. I was driving my daughter, her BFF and brother home from a school function. I was at a stop light and saw a bill of unknown denomination on the ground. I told the kids what I saw and that if it was anything over $20, I was taking them all out for ice cream. It happened to be a $100 bill, just laying there in the parking lot waiting for someone to pick it up. We went out for dinner and ice cream. The mother of my daughter's best friend and brother said, with the sound of a cold in her voice, to just bring the kids home. I told her she had no choice, it was divine intervention. I gave $10 to our church and $10 to a woman waiting for a bus, with tow kids under tow

T. Harv Eker's Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, uses the analogy of a financial thermostat. We are pre-programmed by our parents and other influences to a financial thermostat setting. This is evident by the many people who win the lottery and blow it all, or the many that blow an inheritance. When there is too much money, the thermostat tells us to spend, spend, spend until we are back in line with our financial themrostat setting. When it is too hot, when you don't have enough money, you find a way to survive. The wealth is out there and you get exactly what you expect.

The goal is to changing our expectations. Job losses and the economy will always be in flux. When you loose a job your thermostat may be lowered until you end up in a shelter. Our job is to set the thermostat and keep it where it belongs. Currently much of our society has a precipitating thermostat, falling based on the mistake of letting Wall Street and politicians decide our individual fates. However, many people in our society just keep getting richer, their thermostats learned to ignore fluxing variables. This book and work, mostly mental, will cahnge my thermostat for good. Read T.Harv Eker's book, he does a great job of explaining the thermostat. Email me if you want to go to one of his awesome intensive seminars. I can give you the schedule and arrange for free tickets.

3)  What example most empowers you and why? Be sure to address, definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE.

The little black girl inspired me as she was overcoming all that society placed on her, being a child, being black and being small. However, it’s the story about Barnes becoming a business partner with Thomas Edison that was so amazing. It was not where he started; it was his state of mind.  More importantly, he acted on his desire and kept working enough to support himself until he was ready for what the Universe wanted to give him. He was cut off all the bridges to failure. He kept going, always believing until the Universe gave him what he asked for.

If Barnes would have read this book as we are doing right now, then just sat on his couch waiting for opportunity, he would have died very disappointed.  So along with desire, we need to act, even if it doesn’t flourish right away, keep going, keep working on ourselves learning and taking care of our personal needs. Don’t quit the day job until you have plan and enough desire to burn all of your bridges and accept the abundance of wealth waiting for you.

4)  After every chapter I will ask you to reflect on what is the Secret in this book. So what do you think the secret is so far?

I think the secret is finding what drives your desire and then lighting the fire and taking action. I also think anything we discover in this book can make us millions if with burning desire and  the right action.

Answers to Think and Grow Rich Blog

These are answers I wrote as I read this book. Feel free to read them and react. The more we interact the stronger we will be. The sum of our parts is never the value of our whole when our burniing desires light up the sky. Choose Your DESTINY and take CONTROL of TODAY and FOREVER.