Each of us has locked within us all that is necessary to achieve wealth and greatness. It’s merely a matter of learning to use these hidden assets, of investing them so to speak, so we can cash in on them.
The tragic thing is that so many go through life without ever putting them to use. Sometimes, trouble and adversity is necessary to make people use their resourcefulness and brain power to achieve success.
A bookkeeper lost his job as Christmas was approaching. He had no money to buy his ten-year-old son a gift. Instead of merely despairing, he went to work making the boy a gift.
Using two wheels from a discarded baby carriage, a few pieces of lumber from the basement, and some bright red paint, he constructed a toy that captured the attention of the entire neighborhood.
Other children wanted similar toys. The demand grew so fast that the unemployed bookkeeper turned his basement into a factory, then moved his production to a real industrial plant.
The toy the bookkeeper designed was called the “scooter.”
Or consider the case of a soldier returned from World War I. He had been a salesman before the war but was now unemployed. He used his hidden assets too. He took a chunk of ice cream, stuck a stick in it for a handle, dipped it in chocolate covering—and the Eskimo Pie was born!
Then there was a young man working as a filling station helper in Dallas. The work was hard, hours long, pay short— all adding up to a state of mind I call “constructive discontentment.”
The young man began selling for a publisher of children’s books. But instead of approaching parents, he made friends with school teachers and got their permission to tell the children in class about his books.
Then he would ask the children to arrange an appointment with their parents so he could sell them the books. The plan worked wonderfully and the last time I saw the young man he was preparing to go into the publishing business for himself.
Have you searched carefully for any “hidden” resources you’ve overlooked simply because they weren’t in some form you could bank immediately?
Have you some plan or idea which might prove of great value if you brought it into the open and put it to use?
A very successful man once gave this splendid formula for gaining wealth.
“Get some useful item that will bring repeat sales,” said he. “Then put everything you have into taking it to the millions of people who need it.”
His name was F. W. Woolworth. He didn’t create anything new. He merely took something old and gave it a new method of sales distribution.
The opportunities our country offers today are greater than ever—and growing constantly. Think, for example, of the millions to be made by someone who devises some simple method of reducing traffic accidents.
Somewhere you have unused assets. Put them to work for you and make yourself financially independent.
Source: Success Unlimited. December 1966