The late Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the most flexible men I have ever known. He could be all things to all men with the greatest of ease, and it has been said that this trait of flexibility was his greatest asset and the one thing which made him the most successful politician who ever occupied the White House.
I have seen men come into President Roosevelt’s office roaring like lions and after he got through with them they walked out like lambs. One day a very prominent banker came to see the President. He was as mad as a “wet Hen” because a member of the White House staff had kept him waiting what he thought was “too long.” Before he was even seated he started right off to air his peeve by saying, “My time’s important, and I don’t like to have it wasted by flunkies.”
Roosevelt turned on that million-dollar smile of his and said, “Well, I know just how you feel, for my time is also important, or I am fooling a lot of the people very badly.” The caller smiles, apologized to the President, and said, “I would give a million dollars if I had your flexibility.” And he probably would have done so gladly.
Hardly a day goes by without experiences in everyone’s life which could be blown up to great magnitude of unpleasantness if one does not have the flexibility with which to neutralize them.
There are more than thirty individual traits which, when combined and applied, give one a pleasing personality. Flexibility is a “must” in this group, for without it no one can get along harmoniously with others at all times under all circumstances.
I was destined to learn, during the twenty years of labor I put into the research in organizing my success philosophy, something of the importance of flexibility. I need flexibility on many occasions in order to adjust myself to the need of money. And I needed it in order to convince the five hundred or more top-ranking businessmen and industrialists who collaborated with me in creating the philosophy that their time was wisely spent in helping me.
Flexibility is the answer to almost every unpleasant circumstance with which we meet, and it can best be made to serve during these emergencies if we remember that every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit. You can very well determine whether or not you have flexibility when adversity overtakes you. If you have it, you will begin at once to look for that “seed of an equivalent benefit” instead of allowing yourself to be thrown off balance by fear, self-pity, anxiety, or resentment.
In order to remain flexible during the early part of the depression which began in 1929, I wrote books. I had no idea of having them published. I wrote merely to maintain my flexibility. However, three of my friends adjusted themselves to the circumstances in a different manner. One of them jumped off a high building, one shot himself to death, and the third “solved” his problem with an overdose of poison. My financial losses due to the depression were as great as those of any of my three friends, but I had one asset which, unfortunately, they did not possess.
One thing I have learned from life’s experiences stands out in my mind above all else as a great blessing. I have learned that no experience and no material loss are important to anyone as long as he remains in contact with Infinite Intelligence and keeps sufficient faith in himself to be guided by this Divine source of power. This, too, is flexibility applied, and it often carries convincing evidence that experiences we sometimes regard as irreparable adversities turn out to be blessings instead. For it is true that an all-wise Creator has provided that none may experience a loss of any nature whatsoever without the potential of an equivalent gain in one form or another.
Flexibility gives one the capacity to recognize that whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve. And it also gives one the wisdom to recognize that TIME is the great universal healer which can cure most human disappointments and frustrations, and the courage to recognize that strength, physical and spiritual, grows out of struggle.
Source: Success Unlimited. September 1955. Vol. II, No. VII.