Book overview – 10 key takeaways at bottom
Mrs. Carnegie got this book published in 1820, a year after Andrew Carnegie’s death at age 83. These are his words, a colorful kaleidoscope spanning 70 years of his life events.
Carnegie, a master storyteller, creates the imagery of how his proud Scottish family with high values, no riches, and only the hope to give their two boys a better future, borrows money for the journey to Allegheny, Pennsylvania, lives with relatives, steeped in hardship, and builds a new life.
This book contains love – love for his mother, reverence for his father, and affection for his brother; and half a century later, a new kind of love for his wife and daughter. It contains respect. Respect for his partners, collaborators, employees, competitors, nation, and humanity. It contains suspense. The bold risk-taking and drama of stepping in and making the decision to keep an entire network of trains running when the superintendent is nowhere to be found. It contains triumph – the triumph of his family’s good fortunes and his many business partners and ventures. It contains sorrow of the losses his partners take when they decline his offers and miss out on riches or when they are crushed by their stress into early deaths. Finally, this book contains bursts of laughter from good-natured humor and pranks of a hard-working man’s fully lived life. Altogether, the readers can extract wisdom on all fronts they are willing to see.
An added bonus is Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, his philosophy for the uses of wealth, and how to give it away in a responsible and sustainable way. This philosophy is the blueprint for the hundreds of millions he himself invested. The continuous contributions those institutions have made to arts, science, and literature and the service of people are evidence that the wisdom of his gospel of wealth he put in place is working as he intended.
What’s the core message?
Carnegie conveys a clear message that his success was a result of hard work and honesty in the pursuit of honor. His saintly father and heroine mother established these uncompromising rules to create a home where nothing of low form, underhandedness, deceit, or dishonesty could enter or breathe. The home was about living upright in every way. Simple foundations are all that’s needed to unfold an extraordinary life of creating, earning, and gifting wealth, livelihoods, and opportunities for joy and growth. An important part of Carnegie’s wealth creation was to make his partners, employees, and collaborators rich as well.
How do these concepts compare with points raised in other books?
Autobiographies are the authors’ impressions of their life’s accounts. They are as real as the author experienced. Yet the author’s driver’s seat account can be different than the outside look at the journey. While Carnegie shows humility in his account of life the book is light on conflicts he would have faced with the major captains of industry with whom he both collaborated and competed for business, social prestige, celebrity, and influence.
What the book does well.
The autobiography highlights what mattered to Andrew Carnegie, the proud Scot and wealthy American. I have summarized ten key points below.
What could have made this book better?
The personal journey of how Carnegie encountered challenges that tested his values and how he grew from them would have lent more useful lessons. He spoke of the tenants of business to serve clients and principles of relationships with his employees, but he remains quiet about the mechanics of interactions with his wealthy adversaries who competed for fame, celebrity, power, influence, and goodwill. How did he both collaborate and compete with the tycoons of his time with the likes of John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Charles Schwab, Thomas Edison, and others who also built fabulous riches?
Who would benefit from reading this book?
This is an inspirational rags-to-riches story worthy of absorption and contemplation for all who seek to fully engage with life to make any kind of impact. It will make them reexamine their goals, behaviors, values, and tools.
How it affected me – 10 key Takeaways
I marveled at the simplicity of foundational principles that made Andrew Carnegie the wealthiest man and an even more impactful philanthropist of his time.
(1) Loyalty Counts.
Carnegie was loyal to his family. He holds his mom as his heroine. His father died early but his mom lives until he is 51. His home was the crucible of solid values and character. His parents made the home a pleasant place for the two brothers and their friends. The values of the house forged a confident, diligent, and innovative Carnegie. Simple values, pure intentions, and devotion to each other built Carnegie’s wealth and philosophy.
(2) Mothers inspire goodness.
Carnegie’s love for his mother made him a champion of fairness. Her hardships and commitment planted empathy and compassion for hard work for men and women and he lived above the racial discrimination of his day. He was the first to give employment to women in his companies and supported the fight to free the slaves.
(3) Mothers are heroes.
Mothers are Carnegie bathes in the wealth of his mother’s care, calling it the wealth that millionaire parents’ children don’t know. He eloquently and repeatedly extolls the virtues of the facets of a loving mother, nurse, cook, seamstress, the overall goddess of unconditional love.
(4) Personal integrity is more important than legal contracts.
Carnegie valued the spirit of his contracts above the letter of the contract even when he lost profits in doing so. This cemented his goodwill with his employees, customers, and collaborators. He kept his word.
(5). Financial discipline is key to business success.
Carnegie ran his companies with great financial discipline. He had a more detailed accounting of his cost of production in the iron and steel production business than anyone else in his time and saved the profits so that he could invest his own capital for a large portion of the funds needed to expand the business. When market fluctuations wiped out other businesses, Carnegie stood strong.
(6) Frugality is a wise choice.
He was a frugal man and minded his money in business and in private life despised ostentatious displays of wealth in personal life. This is what allowed him to make large gifts to philanthropic causes.
(7) Innovation is the key to excellence.
Carnegie is innovative from start. He never attended college. Started work sweeping the floor in his messenger-boy days. Yet, his progress came from innovations. He learned the jobs, found areas of improvement, and filled the gaps. As a messenger boy, he learned all the businesses on his street and the names of the managers in the businesses. It allowed him to deliver messages faster than other boys. The pattern of learning continues throughout his life. When he was a telegram operator, he learned to translate messages by listening to the sounds of the transmissions. In one crisis, he kept the railroad operating when all other railroad traffic on rival lines was stopped. As a steel magnate, he was first to employ a chemist. It allowed him to buy what others thought was poor quality raw materials at a low price. In fact, it had rich minerals and allowed Carnegie to make premium steel and sell at a larger profit. His innovation was a result of his dedication to learning.
(8) Investing in people is more important than investing in a business.
Carnegie invested in people. He could see goodness in them. His good employees found their way to becoming partners in the business. Carnegie believed in making others rich as he grew his own riches. As partners, they maintained a tight financial bond with each other. No one was allowed to make financial commitments with everyone’s prior knowledge, thereby protecting everyone’s financial wellbeing. Carnegie’s friendships were real. He learned about his friends at the intimate dinners he hosted, first with his mother and then with his wife. He made peace between quarreling friends, a trait that gave him openings to making peace in international disputes between nations and initiatives like the establishment of the Hague tribunals for international justice.
(9) Faith manifests in actions here and now.
Carnegie grew up in a Christian home. However as he traveled around the world and examined religions of the east, he framed religion as the service to mankind, here, and now. Creating jobs and livelihood was a high form of religion to him.
(10) Continuous learning is the key to success.
Books, libraries, and reading were the rungs of progress ladders for young Carnegie who did not attend college. Access to books from a free library opened the doors to knowledge and curiosity. This is why he established libraries and gave them to academic institutions. He credited books for opening up his mind to art, science, literature, and music. Gift books and tools of knowledge to grow your loved ones.