The Law of Success (interview with Mr. Carnegie) By Napoleon Hill

More than fourteen years ago I interviewed Mr. Carnegie for the purpose of writing a story about him. During the interview I asked him to what he attributed his success. With a merry little twinkle in his eyes he sad:
“Young man, before I answer your question will you please define your term ‘success’?”
After waiting until he saw that I was somewhat embarrassed by his request he continued: “By success you have reference to my money, have you not?” I assured him that money was the term by which most people measured success, and he then said: “Oh, well – if you wish to know how I got my money – if that is what you call success – I will answer your question by saying that we have a master mind here in our business, and that mind is made up of more than a score of men who constitute my personal stall of superintendents and managers and accountants and chemist and other necessary types. No one person in this group is the master mind of which I speak, but the sum total of the minds in the group, coordinated, organized and directed to a definite end is risk the knowledge gained from ten years of subsequent contact with the business world to enable me to assimilate that which he said and clearly grasp and understand the principle back of it, which was nothing more nor less than the principle of organized effort upon which this course on the Law of Success is founded.
Carnegie’s group of men constituted a “Master Mind” and that mind was so well organized, so powerful, that it could have accumulated millions of dollars for Mr. Carnegie in practically any sort of endeavor of a commercial or industrial nature. The steel business in which that mind was engaged was but an incident in the connection with the accumulation of the Carnegie wealth. The same wealth could have been accumulated had the “Master Mind” been directed in the coal business or the banking business or the grocery business, for the reason that back of the mind was power- that sort of power which you may have when you shall have organized the faculties of your own mind and allied yourself with other well organized minds for the attainment of a definite purpose in life.