“In a 1985 monthly publication of Insight, there is an
article about Andrew Carnegie, the great steel maker, who
was asked by a reporter, “How is it possible to have 43
millionaires working for you at the same time?”
Mr. Carnegie answered, “They weren’t millionaires
when they started working for me.” The reporter asked,
“Well, what happened?” Mr. Carnegie replied, “We believe
in rewarding excellence in performance, and these men have
developed themselves to the degree that they have become
millionaires.”
The reporter asked, “How do you develop so many
people?”
Andrew Carnegie replied this way: “I develop men
exactly the same way you mine gold. In order to get an
ounce of gold, you move tons and tons of dirt. But you don’t
go looking for the dirt; you go looking for the gold.”
When interviewed by Success Magazine in 1898
Thomas Edison was asked, “What’s the first requisite for
success?” And Edison answered this way: “The ability to
apply your physical and mental energies to one problem
incessantly without growing weary. You do something all
day long, don’t you? Everyone does. If you get up at 7 A.M.
and go to bed at 11 P.M., you have put in 16 good hours,
and it is certain with most men that they have been doing
something all the time. The only trouble is that they do it
about a great many things and I do it about one. If they took
the time in question and applied it in one direction, to one
object they would succeed.”
Leadership
“Why are very few people leaders? Many people are
followers in general and in most all aspects of life. Many
seem to follow others, much like all the mice that fall in line
to follow behind the Pied Piper.
I believe many people are too shy to lead, in whatever
situation they are in. The average person, when entering
a department store, will follow the person who previously
entered the store. People will follow other people through
the same exact door, no matter that other doors are more
accessible. People tend to follow the path of a predecessor.
People do the same thing because it’s easier that way. It takes
more commitment, work, and determination to find and to
independently accomplish something new and better.
In a casino, if there is an empty roulette or blackjack
table, people will usually walk right by it. But as soon as
one person sits down at the table, it’s amazing how the table
fills up with new people following the lead of the person
who first sat down. Why? Maybe people think that they
would miss out on something good, so they join the lone
player.
It has been known that in the former Soviet Union,
people were so used to standing on line that, once a line
formed, other people automatically joined on the long line.
They didn’t want to miss out on whatever was for sale.
Who can be the leader of the pack? Anyone. With just
a little imagination and determination, anyone can come up
with new ideas to lead the way.
Remember, many people we know will be the followers,
and will expect us to follow the followers also. I’m in no way
saying this to degrade or make fun of people, but merely to
bring out a point of truth. The average person is often not
aware of the strong urge to “follow the crowd.””
C- 2005 John Paul Carinci
No comments:
Post a Comment