The Magic Of Self-Confidence

Once there was a business executive who was sunken in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hand, wondering if anything could save his company from insolvency.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him.

“I can see that something is worrying 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 $100,000, signed by Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in the world at that time!

“I can erase my money problems in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

With revived hope, 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 after one year, the executive returned to the park with the uncashed check of $ 100,000. At the same time, the old man appeared there. But just as the executive was about 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.

He is always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s Andrew Carnegie.

The astonished executive just stood there, stunned.

All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had a check of $100,000 behind him.

Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money real or imagined, that had returned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.