The business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out.Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He saton 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 is 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 check, and pushed it into his handsaying, "Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and youcan 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 check for $500,000, signed by Henry Ford, then one
of the richest men in the world! "I can erase my money worries in an instant!" he realized. But instead, theexecutive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there and might give him the strength to work out a wayto save his business, he thought. With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms ofpayment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again. Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed check. Atthe agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive wasabout to hand back the check 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 always escapes from the rest home and goes around telling people he's John D. Rockefeller or Henry Ford . " And she led 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, convincedhe had half a million dollars behind him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn't the money, real or imagined, that hadturned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him
the power to achieve anything he went after. Don't let life discourage you;
everyone who got where he is had to begin from where he was.
