Mistakes

In his book, Fresh Packet of Sower’s Seeds, Brian Cavanaugh tells of an anonymous account of lives out of balance: In 1923, nine of the world’s most successful financiers met at Chicago’s Edgewater Beach Hotel. Financially, they literally ‘held the world by the tail’. Anything that money could buy was within their grasp; they were rich, rich, rich! Here are their names and the high positions they held:

1. Charles Schwab, president of the largest steel company;
2. Samuel Insull, president of the largest electric utility company;
3. Howard Hopson, president of the largest gas company;
4. Arthur Cutten, the great wheat speculator;
5. Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange;
6. Albert Fall, Secretary of Interior in President Harding’s Cabinet;
7. Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements;
8. Jesse Livermore, greatest “bear” on Wall Street;
9. Ivar Kreuger, head of the world’s greatest monopoly.

Certainly, we must admit that there were gathered a group of the world’s most successful men – at least, men who had found the secret of making money. Let’s see where these men were 25 years later, in 1948:

1. The president of the largest independent steel company, Charles Schwab died bankrupt and lived on borrowed money for five years before his death;
2. The president of the largest utility company, Samuel Insull, died a fugitive from justice and penniless in a foreign land;
3. The president of the largest gas company, Howard Hopson was insane;
4. The great wheat speculator, Arthur Cutten died abroad, insolvent;
5. The president of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney was released from Sing Sing Penitentiary;
6. The member of the president’s cabinet, Albert Fall was pardoned from prison so he could die at home, broke;
7. The president of the Bank of International Settlements, Leon Fraser died a suicide;
8. The “great bear” of Wall Street, Jesse Livermore committed suicide;
9. Ivar Kreuger, the greatest monopoly player, also took his own life.

All these men learned well the art of making money, but not one of them learned how to live. A vast amount of talent and potential went down the drain with these men. What happened? Their lives were out of balance.

Source: Brian Cavanagh, 1994, Fresh Packet of Sower’s Seeds, New Jersey: Paulist Press, p.52-54

I remember some time ago being on the treadmill at the gym, and I got a bit bored of the monotony and figured the treadmill was so repetitive that I could do it with my eyes closed… so I did a rather foolish thing; I tried it! I put my hands over the safety bars (not that it helped), closed my eyes and counted to five. That was easy enough, so I tried it again, this time see if I could reach 10 seconds. What I forgot is that our eyes help us to maintain balance… by the time I got to 7 seconds I fell head over heels and ended up crumpled on the floor with my head bouncing repeatedly off the moving belt! I hurt myself (not badly) but it was nothing compared to my pride. The whole gym came to a standstill as people looked over to see what had happened. Totally embarrassed I jumped up and blurted out without thinking: “It’s alright. ‘I’m okay… I just closed my eyes for a second!”

The illustration behind this tale is this: if we take our eyes off the goal that Jesus set for us – to live holy lives, pleasing to God – we run the danger of losing our balance, of falling and injuring ourselves, or others.

R. Ian Seymour

Let go of your mistakes and move on. Don’t let a temporary setback become a permanent defeat; don’t allow your mistakes to imprison you. In some parts of India the locals have a technique for catching monkeys, which they then sell in the market place. The technique is very simply and it works like this: First of all, they put some tempting tit-bits of food, maybe some fruit and nuts, into a heavy glass bottle which has a narrow mouth. They then secure the bottle to the ground or to the base of a tree, sprinkle a few more tit-bits around it, and leave it alone for a while. The monkey comes along, puts his hand through the narrow mouth of the bottle and grabs a fistful of goodies. – This is the monkey’s mistake! – You see, the monkey can’t get its clenched fist back out of the bottle, and it doesn’t have the sense to simply let go of its treasure! It becomes trapped in a blunder of its own doing. – Don’t follow suit. Don’t become trapped in a blunder of your own doing; don’t allow non-success to become permanent failure; don’t allow non-success to imprison you. Instead, acknowledge your mistakes, then let go of them and move on.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Discover Your True Potential

A manager working at IBM lost $10 million on a project he was working on. His boss immediately cancelled the project and called the manager into his office.

“I suppose you are going to fire me,” the man said.

“Fire you,” replied his boss. “Why on earth would I do that when we have just spent $10 million educating you?”