Are You too Insignificant to Change the World?

Think you’re not significant enough to change the world? Think again. I’m going to tell you a story I heard about a librarian from California in the 1930’s. You could say with one small act she changed the course of American business history.

She created untold billions in wealth. Maybe even trillions. In fact, she changed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives. And it all goes back to one small act of kindness.

A young boy came in to her library one day. The boy, the product of a broken home and dirt poor during the Great Depression, was bound and determined to be a success. His quest led him to this librarian. When the librarian asked the boy if she could help him, he asked for all the books on success. She replied they didn’t have any. As the crestfallen young boy started to turn away, she said, “But,”, and it’s almost mythological to think the course of history hinged on a “but”, yet it did.

One imagines she saw his downcast eyes and in a moment of kindness didn’t want the boy to walk away empty handed. So she said, “But, we have lots of autobiographies on successful people. Perhaps if you read one of those you’ll be able to determine what successful people have in common?”

That young boy was Earl Nightingale. The rest is history.