SECRETS OF LIFE
1-16-24
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"Once upon a time there was a successful business man, and he lived and
worked in a big town and he enjoyed his labor down at his factories and
the trips he had to take and, because he was diligent and intelligent as
far as his business was concerned. After a while he had just the right
formula, everything came together and it became a great thriving
business.
But as it grew, it became more complex, too much for him to handle all
alone. In the early days he could handle every department fine, but it
became too much for him after a while. So he ran an ad in the paper,
worded it the exact way he wanted it in order to get a response from the
right man reading the ad.
And the ad asked for an associate in his business: Man who is willing to
take responsibilities and work hard as he did. And he got a dozen
replies from those who had seen the ad and said, 'Fine, I think I
qualify for working in your business. Let's have a talk.' So he invited
several of them in for an interview and went over their background and
heard their stories and looked them over personally.
Finally, he decided on one man in particular whose qualifications seemed
to be above the rest of them. So he took him in and over the next
several months the man proved to be a great worker. And, since they were
together a whole lot, they became personal friends, their wives met. So
everything was just fine and the associate proved to be a great
contribution to his work. And the business expanded even more. So this
went on for two years; everything looked great.
And after two years the owner of the company one day was looking things
over, looking at the books and looking at the income and sales, and he
noticed something wrong that he didn't understand. But it was a serious
financial matter - a couple of hundred thousand dollars was involved in
it - and he himself couldn't figure it out and his bookkeepers couldn't
figure it out, and the salesmen didn't know what it was all about.
So he knew he had to ask his associate about it because that was his
department, that's where he was the skilled man. So he phoned the
associate who happened to be home at the time and his wife said that he
wasn't there, so he asked would he call him back. The associate didn't
call back and he didn't call back for a day, for three days and for a
week and this was very strange, very unusual.
It was the first time there had been irresponsibility on the part of the
associate who'd been trusted and dependable all along. He seemed to be
just the perfect man to help him. Now, remember - we're going to get to
the point in a little bit - remember he needed someone to straighten out
this financial difficulty which was a very definite one, and which he
couldn't understand or solve. And all he could do was depend on this man
whom he had employed and had trusted and learned over quite a
period of time now to lean on when an emergency came up. Something came
up, he called his associate, made a phone call or did something and
cleared it away.
The boss had been so pleased to find that he had someone he could rely
on and now this. So he was shocked and distressed by it, especially since
the associate didn't show up.
One week turned into two weeks, into a month, so he went and got some
outside help, went over the books and here's what he discovered - that
the trusted employee had been embezzling money all this time, doctoring
the books and when he had enough he took off, betrayed him.
Now, this is the story of every man's life, as you will see as we go
on. But the first valuable point: What are you depending on to solve
your problems? What you're depending on is what caused the problems.
See, our boss was so expectant and hopeful that all he had to do again
was to make a phone call, and the trusted associate in turn would clear
the whole matter up and the boss could forget about it, be free of it.
No more. What he had been depending on to solve his problem was the
cause of the problem.
You don't yet have anyone you can trust. Your days and your thoughts and
your life, your time are all being embezzled by something that you
trust. Look, don't come to conclusions that that isn't true of you. You
just listen, bear it out to the very end so that you'll get all the
rewards at the end of the talk."
from a talk given 9/5/1986
V. H.'s Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 6, talk 130, track 1
