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If I asked you to name your financial goal, what would you say?
A 25% rise in income?
A job
paying 100,000 dollars a year?
A extra 500 dollars a week?
All this is possible if you work at
it, and set your priorities right. So how do you begin? Let me explain.
America was in the depths of economic
depression when Mary C. Crowley, a young housewife and mother, decided she was going to find a job.
Her neighbor
thought she was crazy when she put on her best dress and went downtown. But, Mary had done her homework well: She looked
neat and professional; she worked on her smile; and she had practiced getting a job several different ways. When she
arrived in town she headed for the most desirable store and asked to see the owner. A glum looking clerk directed her
up the stairs.
Mr. Jalonick sighed as Mary entered his office. She smiled and introduced herself.
"I looked around town and decided that your store was the nicest in town, so that's where I want to work."
Mr. Jalonick sighed again. "Young lady, have you heard there's a depression on? Take a look at the
sales floor. The only time anyone comes to town anymore is on Saturday."
"Then let me work Saturday,"
Mary replied.
Mr. Jalonick looked doubtful, so she added, "And if I don't sell enough to more than pay
my salary, you don't have to let me come back."
That got him. Mary went home (the neighbor almost
collapsed when she heard the news) and pondered how she could make the most of her opportunity. After much prayer and
consideration she had an idea. Everything in the store was priced three cents off the dollars--$.97, $1.97, and so on.
This meant that every customer had to wait for change. Wasn't it possible, Mary thought, to persuade a customer
to spend three more cents and avoid waiting?
On Saturday morning she noticed a rack of spools by the central counter.
The spools were four cents each. "For only a penny more," said Mary to her customers, "you can have your
choice of a spool of thread, and you won't have to wait for change." She would smile broadly. "I'm
sure you could use some thread at home."
Nine out of ten customers could. Mary sold more that day than
any other sales clerk.
"You certainly are a hard worker," said Mr. Jalonick at the end of the day.
May laughed. "You call this work? I call it fun. I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life."
That Saturday was the launch of amazingly successful career in sales. Who would have thought that a young mother
could land a job like this in the midst of the depression?
From a young married woman who faithfully attended church
and sang in the choir Sunday by Sunday in a gingham dress, to the lauded businesswoman whose company did more than a
half a billion dollars when she passed away in 1987, she demonstrated the TOP principles.
Mary trusted in God,
she organized to succeed, and she persisted until she got what she wanted. She started as a TOP employee and ended up
as a TOP employer.
With the TOP principles of trust, organization, and persistence, you can expand your income.
You can take your goal out of the realm of wishful thinking and make-believe, and turn it into reality. You can transform
your financial impossibilities into possibilities.
TRUST. You can expand your income because
God is interested in your business affairs, just as He is interested in every other part of your life. It says in Proverbs
3:5&6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all you ways acknowledge
Him and He will make straight you paths" (RSV). To trust in God in financial matters is thoroughly appropriate
and essential.
ORGANIZE. Begin by developing a clear vision for your work, a vision that
goes beyond self-seeking ends. Cecil B. Day, Sr., founder of Days Inns grasped the vision of using his business
to generate funds for God's work worldwide. Within six years he expanded from one 60-room motel to over 300 totaling
40,000 rooms!
Predicate all your actions on the basis of personal integrity. Remember the twofold foundation
of TOP success in business: 1) that right and wrong business practices remain right and wrong under all circumstances; and
2) that integrity in business, far from being a liability, is in fact the key to success. Integrity is not a technique;
it is a personal characteristic which needs to be carefully guarded and clearly expressed. Integrity will get you into work.
It will keep you there. It will pave your way to financial success.
PERSIST. Paul Meyer
made this final point of his early Million Dollar Personal Success Plan;
Develop a dogged determination to follow
though on you plan, regardless of obstacles, criticism, or circumstances, or what other people say, or do. I can't
imagine sounder advice than that!
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