Book excerpt: DALE CARNEGIE Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Let the other person save face. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.” Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest. NAPOLEON HILL Napoleon Hill, then a young special investigator for a nationally known business magazine, was sent to interview Andrew Carnegie. During that interview, Carnegie slyly dropped a hint of a certain master power he used—a magic law of the human mind, a little-known psychological principle—that was amazing in its power. Carnegie suggested to Hill that upon that principle he could build the philosophy of all personal success—whether it be measured in terms of money, power, position, prestige, influence, or the accumulation of wealth. That part of the interview never made it into Hill’s magazine, but it did launch the young author on a research journey that lasted twenty years. Think and Grow Rich is the result of Hill’s study of over five hundred self-made millionaires—a condensed, accessible explanation of his Law of Success philosophy, which includes thirteen steps to riches (financial, emotional, and spiritual).