"Carnegie" Recommendation - Carnegie's Life

Recommendations

——Compiled by "Carnegie: The Road to Success Series"

Dale Carnegie is a famous American adult educator. He used psychological knowledge to explore and analyze the common psychological characteristics of human beings, and created and developed a unique adult education method that integrates speech, salesmanship, life skills, and intellectual development skills. There are more than 1,700 Carnegie Adult Education Institutions in the United States, Carnegie International Adult Education Institutions and their branches all over the world. Not only celebrities and businessmen, leaders from all walks of life, but also military and political dignitaries, cabinet members, and even There have been several presidents, numbering tens of millions of people, who have influenced several generations of this century.

Carnegie did not solve the deep mysteries of the universe. However, his philosophical influence and educational practice derived from common sense have benefited millions of people. These philosophies are as old as civilization and as concise as the Ten Commandments. They help people learn how to live in the world, help people gain self-esteem, self-respect, courage and confidence, and help people overcome the weaknesses of human nature, bring into play the strengths of human nature, and develop human potential. Perhaps he did more than other philosophers of this era in terms of intelligence, career success and happiness in life.

Carnegie's world-renowned works include "The Weaknesses of Human Nature", "The Strengths of Human Nature", "The Glory of Human Nature", "A Wonderful Life", "Happy Life", "Great People", "Breakthroughs in Language", and "A Positive Life" written by Carnegie's protégé Dr. Arthur Pell, which explains Carnegie's theory; "Written for Girls" written by Carnegie's wife Yao Lesi Carnegie based on her husband's philosophical model; Carnegie's sister Dorothy •Carnegie compiled "Tips of Wisdom" based on the famous quotes and warnings collected by her brother, which constitutes Carnegie's complete book on how to conduct life and embark on the road to success. They are not only Carnegie adult education textbooks, but also excellent conversational materials that are endlessly interesting and beneficial. Today, his translations are available in almost every country in the world; several of his works, such as "Human Weaknesses", "Human Strengths", and "Language Breakthrough", have become the second best-selling books in the history of human publishing after the Bible.

Carnegie's life

Dale Carnegie was born on November 24, 1888 and died on November 1, 1955 at the age of 67. He married twice in his life. His first wife, a French countess, married him in 1921 and divorced ten years later. His second wife, Yao Lesi Carnegie, married him in 1944. She was his disciple and heir to his career, and gave him a girl named Dana.

Carnegie was a simple and humble man. He is caring, friendly and loyal: he has strong beliefs, abundant energy and perseverance to pursue his ideals. He was born in a poor farming family in Missouri, USA. His father was a diligent farmer; his mother was a devout Christian who worked as a teacher before marriage. Carnegie's childhood was like that of other farm boys in the Midwestern United States, helping the family with chores, driving cattle, and milking cows; he also once picked strawberries and cut weeds for others, earning five cents an hour. In that era without agricultural machinery, he and his father did heavy farm work together. However, the rivers flooded every year and destroyed their crops, often making their year's hard work go to waste and the whole family lived in poverty.

If there is any difference between Carnegie's childhood and that of a farm boy in Missouri, it is that he was greatly influenced by his mother. His mother encouraged him to study and hoped that he would become a missionary or a teacher in the future. However, the poverty of his family forced the young Carnegie to work hard for education. In 1904, after graduating from high school, Carnegie studied at Warrensburg State Teachers College in Missouri. By this time, his family had sold the original farm and moved to near Warrensburg State Teachers College. Carnegie could not afford the cost of living in the town, so he lived at home on the farm and rode to school every day. He was one of the five or six students among the 600 students in the school who could not afford to live in the town. At home, he milked cows, felled trees, fed pigs, and studied hard under the kerosene lamp, a bit like the ancient Chinese proverb: head cantilevered, conical thorns. Although he received a full scholarship, he still had to work in various jobs to earn the necessary study expenses. This made him feel ashamed and developed an inferiority complex. Therefore, he wanted to find a shortcut to get ahead. In school, people with special influence and fame are baseball players and those who win debates and speeches. Knowing that he had no talent as an athlete, he was determined to win the speech contest. He spent months practicing his speech, but failed again and again. The failure brought him disappointment and discouragement, and even made him contemplate suicide. However, the next year, he began to win. ,

His original goal was to earn a degree in school and then return to teach in a school in his hometown. But in the year when he was about to graduate, he discovered that a classmate of his class was selling correspondence courses for an international correspondence school during the summer vacation, and the money he earned every week was four times higher than his father's hard work. Therefore, after graduating in 1908, he rushed to Denver, where the International Correspondence School was headquartered, and was hired as a salesman; later he went to South Omaha to sell ham, soap and lard for the Armor Company. Although his promotion work was very successful, in 1911, he went to New York to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. A year later, he felt that he did not have the talent for acting, so he returned to the sales industry and worked as a salesman for a car company.

But none of these jobs met his ideals. He was troubled by the fact that he could not realize his dream of writing novels in college and could not achieve a great career. He believes that he should live a meaningful life, which is more important than making money. He decided to write books during the day and teach at night schools to earn living expenses. He wanted to teach a public speaking class at night school because he believed he had some training and experience in public speaking in college. These training and experiences eliminated his cowardice and inferiority, gave him the courage and confidence to deal with people, and increased his ability to deal with people. So he persuaded the president of a YMCA in New York to allow him to hold an evening public speaking class for business people. From then on, he began his lifelong career in adult education.

(to be continued)

Author: Carnegie

Translator: Fang Ming (October 1987)