A Business executive was deep in debt and could not see any way out.
Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hands wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.
Suddenly an old man appeared before him.
“I can see that something troubling you”. He said
After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “ I believe I can help you”.
He asked the man his name, wrote out a cheque and pushed it into his hand saying, “take this money, meet me here exactly one year from today and you can pay me back at that time”.
Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.
The business executive saw in his hand a cheque for $ 500,000 signed by
John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world!
“I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed cheque in his safe knowing that it might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.
With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals, restructured his business and worked rigorously with full zeal and enthusiasm and completed several big deals. Within few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.
Exactly one year later he returned to the park with the uncashed cheque. At the agreed upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand him back the cheque and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.
“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried.” I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D Rockfeller” and she let the old man away by the arm.
The astonished executive just stood there, stunned. All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him.
Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.
I believe that all great achievements and success in life, and all changes for the better, have one powerful characteristic in common: The First Step. Take the first step, and the journey has a way of taking care of itself.”
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