“History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect.”
And then on her last day in office as US Secretary of State, she says to herself, “My, you’ve lived a lot of history.”
It’s so true. It is your actions and inactions, choices, infact whatever you do now, today, and tomorrow, and thereafter, that will make up your history, whenever it is written.
So, what’s going to be your history…your story?
Here’s one of my favourite examples of a personal story.
As a 16-year old, Sydney Weinberg, after dropping out of PS 13 (Public School No 13), needed a job, badly.
“At 8 o’clock one morning, I took the elevator to the 23rd floor of 43 Exchange Place, a nice-looking tall building on lower Manhattan, New York. Starting from the top, I stuck my head in every office and asked, as politely as I could, “Want a boy?’
“By 6 o’clock, I had worked my way down to the third floor…”
There, he encountered a small brokerage firm, where he was asked to come back next day.
He was hired for $5 a week as an assistant to Jarvis, the janitor. The year was 1907!
He worked his entire life in the small brokerage firm, building it into the world famous and powerful Goldman Sachs. He became Senior Partner in 1930, until his death in 1969, i.e. for 39 years, 30 out of that as Chairman.
Inside Goldman Sachs he addressed as “Chairman”. To outsiders, he was “Mr. Wallstreet.”
He served on 31 corporate boards, attending up to 250 committees and board meetings in a year. He was confidant and adviser to U.S Presidents often chairing Presidential committees.
Yet, he lived all his life, in the same house he bought in the 1920s. And always went to work on the Subway.
When he died on July 23, 1969, his Obituary made the front page of the New York Times along with the story of the first man (Neil Armstrong) landing on the moon.
Yet, all this was down to that famous elevator ride, in 1907, the moral of which include:
a) He started from the 23rd floor, at 8am and came down to the 3rd floor at 6pm, without ever given up, on any of the floors, thinking that there’s no job in the other floors below. Not on the 20th, or 15th or 6th floor. He continued way down….
b) Had he started climbing that 23-story building, from the ground up, he would have easily gotten the job on the 3rd floor. But that would have left him thinking that there were more jobs in the upper floors.
c) But coming down all day, from the 23rd until the 3rd floor, he knew there were no jobs up. Hence he took this very one seriously, staying for well over 60 years (1907 – 1969)!
So, that’s Weinberg Story.
History is lived forward. How are you living yours, today?
Warm regards.
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Martin Udogie, a Programme Host for the Radio Nigeria Network, wrote in from Lagos.
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