I was listening to Business mentor, Darren Hardy, give an
example of why it is wise to always go the extra mile with business. I think
his example applies to just about any area of life.
Many will remember that in the Roman Empire there was a
regulation that if a soldier needed help on the road, he could command any
traveler in the name of Rome to carry his gear for a mile.
Probably people resented that regulation, because it made
it even more evident that they were subservient to the Roman Conquerors, and
interfered with their plans.
Along comes Jesus of Nazareth who taught that if a soldier
commanded you to go with him one mile that you should offer to go with him an
extra mile, hence our reference to “going the extra mile”.
Can you imagine what a soldier thought of a person eagerly
and enthusiastically offer to go a second mile? I imagine the soldier thought
to himself, “I will just see at the end of the required mile if he really means
what he says. Is his word his bond or not? We will see just how enthusiastic he
is at the end of the first mile.”
Darren Hardy went on to tell the story of an elderly lady
who came into a large department store in Pittsburgh to get out of a torrential
rain storm. She was passing time looking at a lot of things, going from one
counter to another, but no one spoke to her. The clerks even appeared to shy
away from her, probably because it didn’t seem like she would be a good
customer, so why waste the time!
She finally came to the counter of a recently hired young clerk
who smiled and pleasantly asked if he could help her with anything. She
replied, “No, I am just waiting out the storm and then I will be on my way.”
The young man offered her a chair, spent some time talking
with her, and when the storm was over, helped her on her way. She asked him for
his card and she said goodbye to the kind young man.
Several months passed and the woman’s son sent a letter
with a request to have that same young man sent to Scotland to receive a very
large order. The manager said he would send a more experienced employee to deal
with an order of that magnitude. The woman’s son replied that only that young
clerk would be welcomed and so the young man was sent to Scotland for the order.
The woman’s son was Andrew Carnegie. The young clerk came
back with an order amounting to thousands of dollars’ worth of furniture for
Carnegie’s Castle in Scotland.
The young man actually became half owner of the store due
to the sizable
What would happen in our families, schools and society in
general, if even a fraction of people would grab hold of the principle of
giving first, and doing so with a smile and without any ulterior motive?
Just
thinking!
Chuck Stilwell,
Stilwell’s
Learning Center, LLC
