Martin England was a life insurance salesman. He asked Martin Luther King to purchase a policy, but Rev. King declined. Mr. England, however, would not give up. He followed Rev. King from town to town. Not because Martin England needed the sale, but because Martin King needed the insurance.
On April 4, 1968, three months after agreeing to purchase a policy, Rev. King was assassinated. Because Martin England saw a need and met it, Coretta Scott King and their four children had adequate finances to live and continue Rev. King’s ministry.
Is there someone chasing you because they see a glaring need in your business or personal life? Is that someone your doctor, business partner, CFO, board chairman, spouse, boss, pastor, best friend, largest customer, supply chain partner, teacher or Tom Pryor’s e-mail articles?
The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem.” (1) On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 as the lowest priority and 10 as the highest), if you were facing a level 5 problem with only level 2 strength, it would look pretty daunting. But if you grew your strength to a level 8, as author Harv Eker recommends in his new book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, that same level 5 problem would look pretty small. Problems rarely go away, even if we ignore them. So we’d better prepare ourselves to face them.
Martin Luther King realized that his level 1 financial net worth was no match for the level 5 needs of his family. Purchasing a life insurance policy made Rev. King bigger than his problem.
People are not poor for what they have, but because of important things they’ve missed. What person and issue is pursuing you or your organization today? Don’t dismiss it. Instead, print this article. On the back, write the issue you need to confront. Rate both the issue and your strength on a scale of 1 to 10. Then take 15 minutes to identify one or more ways to grow your strength greater than the issue.
Stop focusing on the size of your problem and start focusing on the size of you! Hot pursuits can make you rich.
[1] Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker, Harper Business Press, 2005
