BeCarnegie arrived in America at twelve unable to afford a single book. Colonel James Anderson opened his personal library of four hundred volumes to the working boys of Allegheny every Saturday. Carnegie was there every week and read every one of them. Self-directed learning was the skill that made everything else possible. The man who does not read works for the man who does, and he decided very early which one he would be. That was the Be.
DoCarnegie moved from bobbin boy to telegraph operator to secretary at the Pennsylvania Railroad, treating every job as a school. In 1875 he built his first steel plant near Pittsburgh with borrowed money, living by one rule: watch costs and the profits take care of themselves. He built the first vertically integrated steel company in history, controlling everything from raw material to finished product. In 1901 he wrote the price on a piece of paper and sent it to J.P. Morgan, who said yes without negotiating. The sale was $480 million. That was the Do.
HaveCarnegie gave away approximately ninety percent of his fortune, around $350 million, funding 2,500 libraries across the world along with Carnegie Hall and Carnegie Mellon University. He did not do it out of guilt. He did it because a retired merchant once opened four hundred books to a poor boy on a Saturday in Allegheny, and that boy resolved that if wealth ever came to him he would do the same for others. What he truly has is not the steel or the money. It is the promise kept. That is the Have that cannot be taken.