The Achievement Mindset

The "Carnegie Secret" is a concept that Napoleon Hill studied extensively. Carnegie told Hill that the formula for success was so powerful that if learning how to apply it was taught to students, the time they needed to spend in formal schooling could be cut in half. This formula, Carnegie repeated, was used by all the leading businessmen and inventors of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Carnegie asked Hill to go out and confirm the application of the formula by the 500 richest Americans (and others).

Hill in his introduction to Think and Grow Rich refers to the "formula" as a conception which is the foundation of all success, and necessary to achieve the premise of the book. Hill describes the secret in every chapter but never states it plainly, believing its use is only available to those who possess a 'readiness' for the secret: a disposition Hill states as essential to the concept itself.

Hill spends a great deal of time in Think and Grow Rich discussing the life of inventor Thomas Edison, whose personal belief in the practical electric light is now legend; it is stated in the book that the great inventor personally put his stamp of approval on the formula as being necessary for the attainment of all achievement, including riches. However, personal belief alone is not enough for success, requiring "The Secret" of achievement for that all important next step.

One of the basic premises of the 'Carnegie Secret' or 'Carnegie Formula' is that whatever your mind focuses on will attract like-minded people to you. As one element necessary for Achievement, it can also lead to failure when internal focus is so strong that like-mindedness cannot be achieved; examples are all around us, and Hill pointed them out repeatedly in his writings.

Hill talked at length about the major importance of DESIRE in the lives of successful people to help achieve focus.

Hill's proposition was that if you have a desire that is great enough, literally nothing can stop you from achieving your aim(s) through the power of like-minded attraction; but only as long as this desire does not have selfishness as a component.

He offered six steps to 'fuel' desire so that it will become the 'motivating master' of those who use the formula. Riches are what Hill's teachings promise the reader; these riches can be in the form of money or any other result aimed for, if the person applying the formula uses focus and desire properly to achieve them.

Selfish use of focus and desire, Hill warned, often leads to poverty or far worse.

Thoughts Are Things

Hill spent most of his effort on describing to his readers and students the paradox that "Thoughts Are Things." In fact, the subtitle of the introduction chapter of "Think and Grow Rich" is "The Man Who 'Thought' His Way."

The ability of people to share thoughts underpins achievement, and Hill stated that this allows the success-oriented individuals to attract like-minded people in order to accomplish anything.

Most of the examples in Think and Grow Rich concern the great difficulty of creating and maintaining like-mindedness, and Hill termed this concept "The Master Mind". Hill's numerous examples of racism, prejudice, war, poverty, discouragement, and fear illustrated the significant barriers that existed in his time (and still exist today) as the road-blocks to Achievement through the coordination of like-minded individuals.

The Spirit of Giving

Hill stated many times in his writings that the success formula required a complete and total understanding of the spirit of giving. He named this concept "The Golden Rule". Many times he was quoted as saying "There is no such thing as something for nothing".

Hill was a devout Christian, and did not see any conflict between his success philosophy and his religious faith.

Acquiring the Carnegie Secret of Achievement, Hill said after his own books were in wide circulation, could only be had by those "ready" for it; this meant understanding the entire Philosophy including elements such as the Golden Rule, Faith, and Desire. Once ready, anyone could go on to acquire great wealth as it required only application of the formula.

The Creation of the United States of America

Hill never directly provided a written definition of the secret of Achievement, for he was adamant it would deprive people of the ability to learn it for themselves.

Hill's belief was that the US Constitution was one of the finest living examples of the Philosophy of Achievement in existence, and the same power was available to all; to which there is no doubt just as much disbelief in our times as in Hill's.

And yet the Constitution does exist, making Hill's claim all the more tantalizing that such a power is available to the average person; this claim alone is mainly responsible for the millions of copies of his books in circulation.

There is no hard-copy record of the Carnegie Secret in existence, beyond Carnegie's own stupendous fortune which still exists today as the Carnegie Foundation. Carnegie's wealth was so great in his time that its share of the US Gross National Product was far in excess of today's largest fortunes, rivaling the USA so much that is was once thought Carnegie could become "an Emperor in Washington".

And yet, Carnegie achieved this wealth as an individual, and not completely without controversy; but as a historical fact it is indisputable that one man was responsible.

On this basis, Carnegie's secret formula is considered by some to be a long lost secret, awaiting rediscovery.

The award winning BBC director, Martin Dunkerton, set out to put Hill's famous principles to work, and shows everyone how to do the same in the upcoming Blockbuster, "Millionaire: Awaken Your Secret."

The success secrets can be applied by all.

After I came home from my online business building "bootcamp", I decided I would put these principles to the test.

That is a subject for a future article!

By: Kate Loving Shenk

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How To Obtain A Workers Compensation Settlement

In my opinion, our justice system should not be abused by people who are just looking at to make a quick buck. However, there are times when people get injured and really deserve money for their injuries. I know because I was crippled on the job. I would be penniless today if not for my workers compensation settlement.

In my state, the worker's compensation commission is notoriously pro business. Those who are in charge of the commission avoid giving decent workers compensation settlements whenever they can. I was offered a pittance when a broken machine chopped off my hand. For my troubles, I was only offered $10,000 dollars and an early retirement.

The commission in charge of the settlement workers compensation in my state refused to even acknowledge the fact that my boss was negligent. After all, the factory I worked for did not have the necessary safety equipment. I had no choice but to hire a lawyer. I was a bit hesitant at first because I did not want the trouble of a lawsuit. However, it seemed like the only way that I had a chance of getting justice. Fortunately, it turned out that I was right. I never would have gotten a decent workers compensation settlement if I had not hired a job injury attorney.

It was a good thing that the juries tend to be pro-worker when I was trying to get a workers compensation settlement through the courts. The average members of a jury probably know what it is like to work under a negligent boss because they are usually taken from the working class. This means that they are more receptive to workers compensation settlement claims.

The opposing lawyers will usually try to scare you into settling out of court. They will argue that they are the best lawyers, which they are. Nevertheless, it is still possible to get a good workers compensation settlement through the courts, even if you are against very good lawyers.

You should not give in to whatever the industry bosses might say because you have a right to a workers compensation settlement for your injury. There is a good chance that you will get a settlement that is more generous than anything you would be offered if you have been wronged and you have a decent attorney. You have to make sure that you get a fair settlement if you choose to settle your claim outside of court.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/How-to-Obtain-a-Workers-Compensation-Settlement/139602

Oppression

It is observed that this philosophy becomes so much a part of the oppressors’ ideologies, that in most cases they are not aware of their guilt. Only when the ideology of oppression has been installed and established from early childhood, the distress patterns of adult oppression are internalized as the norm. Under such circumstances alone is it possible for a person or group to get manipulated into the oppressor’s role, or can a person or group remain in the oppressed role.

Class oppression ensures exploitation of the economically weak by the system of divide and rule. The division may be along lines of gender, age, race, physical ability, physical handicap, etc. Exploitation can be stopped legally, to protect the weaker group. Though race is sometimes identified with skin colour, the circumstances of race are not confined to colour. Racial discrimination refers to deliberate methods by which people belonging to particular racial or ethnic groups are placed in an inferior position.

Conditions of life, resources and opportunities available to the others are denied to the disadvantaged group, making their life even worse. To combat racism, social workers need to correct social policies and institutional practices, so that equal advantages are available to all. Internalized form of oppression happens within a group or class of people, who habitually discourage each other due to hopelessness. Among a group of blacks a white man can speak clearly to rid the group of their self-inflicted oppression of internalized racism.

Oppression and domination are present in the relationships that exist between individuals, social groups, classes and societies. These relationships of oppression and domination are rooted in society’s values of separation, hierarchy and competition.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Oppression/140240

Hegel

At Bern, for the first time, Hegel was left largely to himself to develop his ideas, without the hindrance of making his work acceptable to theology professors. Although scholars have noted that Hegel privately studied Kant while at Tübingen, Walter Kaufmann makes a persuasive argument that only at Bern did Hegel explore Kantian philosophy in any depth. His good friend Hölderlin was among those of Hegel’s generation swept away by the Kantian revolution. He doubtlessly expressed Hegel’s own sentiments when he wrote him in 1794, exclaiming that his free time was consumed by nothing else than Kant and the Greeks.

Hegel, too, spent the first two years at Bern mostly in scholarly seclusion, writing almost no letters, and traveling home not even once. During this incubation period, Hegel was concerned mostly with a critique of the religion he had spent five years studying. In his early manuscripts, he often compared it harshly with Greek civilization, and he began drawing on Kantian principles to strengthen his attack. In his early fragments on religion, he notes that “religion is the most important affair of our lives,” yet the natural religion of the ancients was far superior to the rigid formalism of Christianity in Germany.

Even at seventeen years old, Hegel was lamenting the pitiable fall of humanity from its previous splendor, praising the clarity and honesty of the Greeks’ investigation of the natural world, even as “in our day one predicts that a comet heralds the demise of a monarch, while the cry of an owl signifies the impending death of a man. During these two years, Hegel became increasingly hostile towards organized religion, his hostility perhaps intensified by the release of pent-up frustration following his years at the seminary.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Hegel/140633

Existentialism

Existentialists believe that existence precedes essence. This premise not only applies how to humans define themselves, but also to the philosophy itself, which though believed a modern line of thought, found its foundation in the twenty-five hundred-year-old words of Heraclitus. Though only a small batch of aphoristic fragments remain of his work, the fragments on valuation from the ancient Ephesian philosopher influenced not only the Greek philosophers that followed him, but also the school of modern existentialism. Heraclitus logically explored a world of subjective values, a concept near to the core of existentialist philosophy, and his early humanist ideals echo in the works of many existentialists, especially 19th century German existentialist, Friedrich Nietzsche.

Like existentialism, Heraclitus is often misunderstood and mistaken for pessimistic by proclaiming a world without absolute authority. Heraclitus and existentialism provide a view of existence where the very value judgment that decries their pessimism comes from the subjectivity of critics lacking any guide or grounds for such thought. Key to understanding both Heraclitus and the views of existentialism, is the insistence that no objective values exist. Heraclitus incepts the sentiment of modern existentialist philosophers that God-given objective values do not exist and humans place worth without the aid of an absolute authority.

Heraclitus and Nietzsche both find admirable an individual who creates a personal set of values in favor of the subjective values of society, and does this with logic, reason, and society in mind. Nietzsche conceived of the “overman” to express this Heraclitian ideal of an individual that knowingly acts without the aid of societal values or God.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Existentialism/141644

Kant And Religion

Kant had divided reality into radically distinct opposites of subjectivity and objectivity. The thinking subject may observe the world and study physical objects, but he will never get to an understanding of what the object is apart from human conception. All logical formulations to understand an object become themselves extensions of the observing subject; the subject merely finds that the harder he tries, the more he ends up investigating not the object itself, but his own conscious constructions of the object. The object as it is in-itself forever remains outside the realm of human knowledge and speculation. In other words, subjectivity and objectivity are essentially divorced, and can never be united.

Kant took this idea in many directions, particularly in the field of faith and morals. Kant argued that God as an object can never be known. Any argument for the proof of God would have to be drawn both from predicates not inherently contained in the idea of God, and principles established prior to sense experience—collectively, what Kant called synthetic and a priori judgments. Kant dismantled Anselm’s ontological proof, arguing that existence is not a predicate, and that positing pure existence does not ensure the actual existence of the object with any necessity. However, this opened the way to fuller freedom of the individual. Kant not only denied that any logical proof of God was possible, but he went further and asserted that no logical proof should be possible; if the human will is truly free and unfettered, than belief in God should never be a compulsion of logic.

Quite interestingly, the father of modern rationalism held that faith in God could only be a free, a-rational movement of the will.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Kant-And-Religion/142290

Plato’s Philosophy

It is used to justify that knowledge is already present in human beings and there is only a need to stimulate in order to cultivate such. Such illustration is in line with the belief that the soul is immortal and knowledge in previous life is carried over to the new life a human being have. In a human being’s new life, he must cultivate such knowledge in order to remember them.
The belief that the soul is immortal in connection with the discussion of knowledge has a great sense of being a myth but it does not necessarily follow that we cannot derive a coherent philosophical sense from it. Going beyond its literal interpretation, we can obtain that knowledge can be brought about by cultivating our souls. Our souls entail our humanity, our being human. It is the very core of our beings. In the soul lies the very essence of our existence, the primordial reality of our existence that we ought to live. Such cultivation can be seen in the process of reflection where we, human beings, try to get answers regarding questions in our experiences. As most philosophers agree, via reflection, we can attain wisdom and knowledge. Truth can be brought about by the process of reflection. This kind of interpretation can be obtained from the Recollection Theory, a view that via the process of reflection that entails cultivating our souls, we can arrive to truth.

The Recollection Theory as being a myth does not entirely rule out its effectiveness of being a concrete explanation to a certain prominent philosophical view. It only suggests that philosophy is a very rich body of knowledge. Such richness entails that there are many methods in which philosophers used to preach and explain their philosophical views. Using a myth is an art that banners beauty in a philosophical discussion. It only encourages readers and students to go beyond what is obvious and what is apparent. Symbolisms and metaphors are only tools to facilitate critical thinking.

Thus, the recollection theory as a myth does not rule out its being a good philosophical explanation, rather it is only an avenue for a great process of philosophical inquiry.

http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Plato--8217-s-Philosophy/150381