Power of Belief

[Guest guest]

A businessman was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing

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 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 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 check 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 realised. But instead, the

executive decided to put the uncashed cheque in his safe. Just knowing it was

ther might give him strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

 

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment.

 

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 cheqaue. At

the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about

to hand back the cheque and share his success story, a nurse came running up and

grabbed the old man.

 

" I am so glad I caught him! " she cried.

 

" I hope he has not been bothering you. He is always escaping from the rest home

and telling people he is John D. Rockefeller. "

 

And she led the old man away by the arm.

 

The astonished exedcutive just stood there, stunned. All year long he had been

wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million

dollars behind him.

 

Suddenly, he realised that it was not the money, real or imagined, that had

turned his life around. It was his new found self-confidence that gave him the

power to achieve anything he went after.

 

(Taken from Ideas Exchange, June 2009)