Chapter 16
GREG'S STORY
G. I. Gurdjieff wrote a book “Meetings with Remarkable Men”(5). Well, you do meet some people in your lifetime that are in some sense “remarkable”. My friend Greg was one of these men.
His attitude was so positive and uplifting that I thought it would be good to recount briefly the story of Greg and how he went about life.
When Greg was young and looking for a career he did not know in what direction his future lay. He had no strong and clear vision of what he wanted to do with his life. He thought that he must do SOMETHING and pick some direction to go. Since he had some interest in cost accounting and how it worked, he decided to take a night course at the University. That course was over-crowded and he had to share a desk with another man. What seemed like a problem, turned out to be a key to his future. They hit it off right away and then began to study together, and this soon developed into a lifelong friendship.
At the end of the course Greg found a job in the cost accounting field. His friend meanwhile became a plant manager at a local firm and after Greg had gained some good experience in his work, his friend invited him to come to work for him. Together they worked their way to the top management of the company. They got along exceedingly well and the firm prospered, all the while both gaining valuable experience.
Then one day Greg said to his friend Ian, why don’t we start up a business of our own? Well, they did and they went through the financing issues, solving the problems as they went along with that positive attitude that was characteristic of the way they looked at life.
One year, as Greg relates the story, the company lost money so they sat down and tried to figure out what was wrong. They had the sales volume but they did not end up with the anticipated profit. So Greg said to Ian, let’s take the positive approach, and Greg wrote up on the meeting room’s blackboard. “The goal for next year — profit $50,000”.
They looked at this goal every day; it figured in every decision they made. At the end of the year they made $55,000. So, then they wrote up on the board: “Goal for next year -$100,000”. And at the end of that year they posted a profit of $107,000.
Maybe that sounds too simple but that was the way they worked as a team and with totally positive attitudes and the belief that if you fix an image in your mind, and continually refer to it, it will indeed come to pass.
Well, since I hadn’t seen Greg for a number of years I thought it would be a good idea to chat with him and ask him about some of his beliefs. For one thing he strongly believed in the power of the subconscious. Here are some of the things he said:
-write out what you want to be, or achieve, and read it every day. You will realize that thought in about 3 months. This way you implant the image in your subconscious, and eventually it will come true.
-appreciate the power of the subconscious. It works when your conscious mind is asleep, or busy. Tell it to do something, and it will surely work for you.
Then I asked him what advice would he give to those about to retire:
-always do SOMETHING; never do nothing.
-look after your health; watch your diet, get plenty of exercise.
-keep a positive outlook; if a negative thought enters your mind, don’t nourish it, replace it right away with a positive thought.
-if you think about someone “I hate that person” it does no harm to anyone except yourself. And if you believe in re-incarnation, as I do, then that person will re-appear in your next life, so you can hate him again!"
Then I asked him, what is your advice to the young people of to-day? He replied:
-try to have an objective, some kind of goal.
-practice persistence; never, NEVER give up.
But here I must qualify Greg's statement of
"NEVER" giving up. I think he must have meant that if something does not succeed don't give up, but do it in a different way.
Then I asked Greg what was his favourite book. He responded that the one that helped him most was U. S. Andersen's “Three Magic Words”(6). So I went to the bookstore, found the book, read it, and discovered why Greg loved it. It described the positive attitude and the power of the subconscious that Greg followed all his life.
And that’s Greg’s story.
One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never
Shakespeare, King Henry V