Carnegie describes living in a cockroach-infested New York room, hating his sales job, and becoming ill from worry and disappointment.

Carnegie quits his sales job and spends his evenings teaching adults public speaking, discovering the rewarding work restores his confidence.

Carnegie searches for existing books on overcoming worry, finds almost none, and decides to write one himself.

Engineer Willis H. Carrier mentally accepts the worst outcome of his failed gas system and clears his mind enough to fix it.

A chief physician presents data showing that anxiety directly causes seventy percent of all human illness.

Carnegie introduces a three-step framework: define the problem in writing, analyze it objectively, then take immediate decisive action.

Leon Shimkin introduces a pre-meeting memorandum requiring staff to state a problem's cause and preferred solution, cutting meeting times in half.

A grieving father conquers anxiety after two children die by spending hours absorbed in building a toy boat with his surviving son.

Robert Moore survives a Japanese attack that sinks his submarine to the ocean floor, forever reframing his everyday worries as trivial.

Mrs. Herbert H. Salinger's second husband cures her irrational fears by teaching her to calculate the likelihood of dreaded events occurring.

Carnegie presents Marcus Aurelius's principle that thoughts shape reality, drawing a firm line between rational concern and destructive worry.

Preacher Laurence Jones wins over a white mob planning to lynch him by passionately describing his mission to educate the Black community.

Harold Abbott loses his financial anxiety after encountering a cheerful, legless man wheeling himself along the sidewalk on a wooden platform.

Mary Cushman abandons her plan to kill herself and her daughter using gas fumes after hearing a hymn playing on the radio downstairs.

John D. Rockefeller retires on his doctor's orders, donates his fortune to establish the Rockefeller Foundation, and lives to ninety-eight.

Carnegie opens by tracing his own journey from an anxious young man to the author of a groundbreaking guide, establishing personal credibility and genuine empathy with his readers. He introduces his foundational technique through Willis Carrier's story: accept the worst possible outcome, then act to improve the situation. Carnegie builds urgency by presenting medical data showing that worry is a leading cause of physical illness, before offering a structured three-step analytical framework for defeating anxiety. Case studies from business, war, and everyday life illustrate how keeping busy, calculating real odds, and reframing problems all reduce worry to manageable size. The book's later sections connect positive thinking, gratitude, and religious faith as powerful complements to these practical tools, culminating in Mary Cushman's story of stepping back from despair through prayer. The pool ends with John D. Rockefeller as the ultimate cautionary tale turned triumph: a man who nearly worried himself to death but found peace and purpose by finally letting go.

Carnegie's core argument: how he discovered, developed, and proved that worry can be conquered.

Carnegie offers readers nine tips for using his book, including keeping a progress diary and rewarding family members for catching old habits.

Sir William Osler attributes his entire career success to living in day-tight compartments and focusing only on the present day.

Ted Bengermino collapses from nervous exhaustion recording war deaths until an Army doctor's hourglass analogy transforms his perspective.

Despite doctors warning that traveling will kill him, Earl P. Haney buys a funeral casket, sails around the world, and returns home completely healthy.

Frank Bettger discovers most insurance sales close on the first or second visit and doubles his profits by stopping unnecessary follow-up calls.

Treasurer Tremper Longman cures both his insomnia and his anxiety by working sixteen-hour days and leaving no mental space for introspection.

Frederick J. Mahlstedt calculates his odds of surviving a Normandy trench, builds a wooden roof for protection, and immediately sleeps soundly.

Author Booth Tarkington reacts stoically and remains in good spirits after doctors inform him he is going blind.

After publishers reject his novel manuscript, Carnegie places a stop-loss on his novelist dream and turns permanently to writing nonfiction.

J. A. Hadfield hypnotizes men and finds their grip strength triples when they believe they are strong, demonstrating how mindset shapes physical ability.

Attorney George Rona responds to a rude rejection letter with genuine gratitude for the feedback and receives a job offer by return post.

British nurse Edith Cavell refuses to express hatred or bitterness toward her German executioners before being shot by a firing squad.

Carnegie demands a newspaper retraction after a journalist criticizes his teaching methods, then later feels embarrassed that almost nobody read the article.

Biologist Charles Darwin spends fifteen years double-checking his facts on evolution before allowing The Origin of Species to be published.

Watching a train depart under a green signal light, Joseph M. Cotter decides to trust God to manage all the signal lights ahead in his life.

Carnegie sets the stage by offering nine practical tips for using his book actively rather than passively, signaling that genuine change requires committed effort. The pool moves through the book's early and middle sections via vivid case studies: Sir William Osler's philosophy of living in the present day, Ted Bengermino's wartime nervous breakdown, and Earl Haney's defiant round-the-world voyage with a funeral casket in tow. Business stories illustrate how systematic analysis of a problem produces real breakthroughs, while wartime stories show individuals using logic and faith to stay calm under mortal threat. The pool highlights Carnegie's personal moments of candor, including his embarrassment over demanding a newspaper retraction and his decision to place a stop-loss on his failed dream of becoming a novelist. Famous figures like Booth Tarkington and Edith Cavell demonstrate that acceptance and forgiveness are not merely spiritual ideals but practical strategies for inner peace. The pool closes with Joseph Cotter's green-light epiphany on a railroad platform, one of the book's most memorable images of surrendering anxiety to a larger guiding force.

Supporting stories and secondary techniques spanning all eight parts of the book.

Told he has two weeks to live, Edward S. Evans stops worrying entirely about the outcome and makes a swift and surprising recovery.

General Grant's crippling headache and nausea during the Civil War disappear the instant he receives General Lee's surrender letter.

Merle Oberon stops worrying permanently after realizing that anxiety is visibly ruining her appearance and threatening her entire film career.

Carnegie loses a finger in a childhood window accident but, by accepting the loss completely, grows up rarely thinking about it.

Actress Sarah Bernhardt cheerfully recites lines from a play on her way into surgery to have her leg amputated, then tours successfully after recovery.

Investor Charles Roberts discovers the stop-loss technique and applies it personally, telling a chronically late friend he will wait no more than ten minutes.

Carnegie discovers his adult education centers generated no profit on a very large investment and wastes months in guilty, unproductive worry over the mistake.

A hygiene teacher smashes a bottle of milk in the classroom sink to show students that dwelling on what is already spilled is completely futile.

Mary Baker Eddy reads about Jesus healing a paralyzed man, rises from a bed where doctors said she would never walk again, and walks.

Carnegie's student moves to Florida hoping to escape his nervous breakdown but discovers that only changing his mental attitude brings genuine recovery.

Restaurant owner William Falkaber chases his cook with a gun in a fit of rage and dies of a heart attack caused by his own anger.

Abraham Lincoln listens to Secretary of War Stanton's public criticism, arranges a meeting to understand the complaint, and acknowledges Stanton was entirely correct.

Frederick Taylor proves a steel worker loads four times more pig iron per day by resting thirty-four out of every sixty minutes.

Ira Sandner's chronic insomnia disappears the moment a doctor advises him to simply rest in bed without worrying about whether he actually sleeps.

Kathryne Holcombe Farmer reads Carnegie's book before publication, studies it for three months, and recommends treating it as a complete guidebook to a better life.

This pool focuses on the book's most striking turning points, opening with three stories—Evans, Grant, and Oberon—that prove the mind-body connection by showing how anxiety creates immediate physical damage and how releasing it can trigger near-miraculous recovery. Carnegie then moves into revelations about acceptance, including his own childhood loss of a finger and Sarah Bernhardt's cheerful march into amputation surgery, both illustrating that cooperating with the inevitable defuses rather than amplifies suffering. The pool captures Carnegie's most honest self-revelations, including his months of guilt over a financial blunder and his belated discovery that a student's move to Florida cured nothing until the student's mindset shifted. Later events draw on the book's sections on criticism, rest, and sleep to show that counterintuitive thinking—welcoming harsh feedback, resting more to achieve more, and stopping the fight for sleep—consistently yields the best results. These turning points collectively demonstrate that the book's deepest insights come not from willpower but from a fundamental shift in how individuals perceive and relate to their worries. The pool closes with Kathryne Holcombe Farmer's testimony, affirming that Carnegie's principles genuinely transform lives when applied as a daily practice rather than a one-time read.

The book's most dramatic personal transformations, discoveries, and counterintuitive breakthroughs.