My Amazing Note from China

What a valuable lesson I learnt from a stranger through a loss making transaction

There are those that buy things and sell them at a profit. Most of the world does business this way. They just handle inventory and make sure that they get rewarded for the changing of hands. But then there are those very few beautiful souls who have turned business into an art form. I came across someone like that two days ago.

My pen from China - with Cindy's note

All my friends know that I’m inordinately fond of fountain pens. Essentially I have only used fountain pens since I was 15 years old. And as it goes with life long passions, one always seems to be after the perfect instrument. In this case, the perfect pen. It so happened that I chanced to come across a nice-looking fountain pen on Ebay a while ago.

It was seconds before closing time and nobody had made a bid yet. I took a chance and entered my bid – mostly out of curiosity, I suppose. And so it came that I bought myself a nice new fountain pen for – all of one US cent. Yes – US$0.01 – or less than ZAR8c in our own money. When shipping cost of US$4.98 was added, the total came to US$4.99. What could I have bought for that kind of money in South Africa? A hamburger, if I was lucky. Or a dozen free range eggs maybe.

I could not believe my luck. This, for a heavy, exceedingly well-crafted pen with a suction cartridge and a nice golden nib? Too good to be true, you might think. Well so did I. But on Ebay a gentleman’s word is his bond, plus my curiosity had to be satisfied. And more than anything else – a deal is a deal. Accordingly, I paid the money and waited.

Mail from China normally takes about three weeks. But in this case we had a postal strike so I knew it was going to be long – if the package arrived at all. Yet, sure enough, two months later it was in the mail. South African Customs made me pay R15,00 for it.  We all know the feeling – when you must pay US1.88 tax for an item that cost US0.01 then there is only one way to put it – you have just been raped by your own government.

But what can you do? Caesar must also live, even if by means of immoral gain. I therefore paid the ransom and curiously opened the package. And there it was – not quite a Mont Blanc, to be sure. But still – I was exceedingly satisfied. It felt like real quality and wrote beautifully. Now, in the world of fountain pens, each pen has a soul and a character. Like a woman. Each one is unique in the way it handles and writes. I thought about my new pen and decided, if this one was a woman, it would have been Marlene Dietrich. Smooth and sophisticated right to the tip.

The next morning I woke up in a foul mood. I was in a hurry to tidy up before leaving for work, but just before I threw away the box that the pen had shipped in, something caught my eye. Inside the package was a small note – intricately folded in origami style. When I carefully unfolded it, I saw that it was a hand written message. And there – in the neatest Western handwriting, were the following words:

“Hello dear friend. Thank you very much for your purchase!

I’m so glad that the item reached you finally. Hope it did not keep you waiting tooo long. Your purchase really a big support on me and give motivation to make me keep offering best products and service. Thank you very much again!

If there is any problem make you unsatisfy with the transaction please contact me and give me chance to solve it. And if you satisfy with it please leave me positive feedback.

Thank you very much!

Best regards

Cindy

Share. Enjoy”

In neat Western handwriting, her words were written

Now I really must say – I had been in such an annoyed mood right up to then. But at that very moment, it felt as if the sun was shining into Africa all the way from China. I realized something very important then. For one US cent, this surely must have been a loss making transaction for a Chinese small business. There was no way they could have shipped that product economically. Surely most businessmen around the world would have sent the product with sour reluctance. Some would even have looked for justification not to send it at all. And yet, here was one who honoured a commitment not only with dignity, but with joyful pleasure.

How often would you encounter that in life?

In life, there are so many things we do simply because we have to. We have to buy something and sell it at a profit in order to make a living. We think nothing of the process, but rather treated as the necessary protocol that we have to hurriedly follow in order to collect our money so we can spend it.

But we forget that sometimes the little things we do can have a big effect on the lives of others. In my case, it was an event that gave me a smile that lasted all day long. I told all my colleagues this story at work – and showed them the note. I and then I decided to tell the world.

So every time I use this pen, I will remember among the 1 billion people who live in China – there is one person whose name is Cindy – who has taught me something about business, and caused the sun to break through on the other side of the world when it was just another cloudy day.

Yes, I will remember Cindy – and I will remember her business at http://stores.ebay.com/shareenjoy . Business is about business for the most part. Yet most of all, business is about people. We must never, ever forget that.

"My goal is to be a rock star. And my backup to be be an astronaut"

Reality should never be be the enemy of dreams

Yesterday I stumbled across the listing of a 15 year old boy on the website of a US adoption agency. The description stated that his "vocational goal is to be a rock star, but his backup plan is to be an astronaut." 

I read it again. Slowly. All night and all day long now his words have been playing over and over upon my mind. It gave me several emotions from sadness to excitement. But more than anything else I felt deeply pleased to hear those words. I recognized the language of big dreams. And the language of dreams is spoken by the rarest of men. In fact, the language of dreams is often spoken most fluently by the young. And we should listen to that voice as often as it is heard - for it is the voice that shapes the future.

Once upon a time almost all of us had big dreams. Fireman, pilot or astronaut - there was a time that you and I had every conviction that this dream would become reality one day. But as the years pass, things change. Surrounded by the examples of men who have given up before reaching their goals, we start to water down our dreams. Diminishing our goals. Miniaturizing our beliefs. We grow older and more cautious. We listen with close attention to the caring voices of those who had long since abandoned their own hopes.

They who show themselves so helpful to protect us against disappointment and disillusionment by cautiously reminding us to rather pick more reasonable dreams. Achievable ones. Sensible dreams that will more properly fit into the moulds of mediocrity. "Your dreams are false," they argue. "They are not real," they whisper. Those are the voices we hear the most. And in time, those are the voices we end up believing.

There is a story about diamonds that I was once told. It was about a man who grew up on the border of Lesotho. Over the years, the mountain inhabitants often brought brilliant stones from the mountain streams to his family - believing that they were diamonds. His father knew that diamonds were harder than almost anything. And so, to test whether they were real or not, he used to smack them with a hammer. In this manner, without fail, every single stone was crushed to powder.

Only many years later, when this boy saw some of the most exquisite diamonds in South Africa coming from those same mountains, did he realize that many of those diamonds had probably been real. For hard though they may be, even diamonds shatter between the cold steel of a hammer and the hard iron of an anvil.

This to me, is how it often is when seemingly unlikely dreams are shattered beneath the deadly hammers of preconception. And so, one by one, most people end up dropping the diamonds of their dreams into the molten lava of disbelief. Just as if someone had convinced us them that they were in actual fact never real diamonds, but merely ordinary fragments of glass. I could not help but wonder how many good dreams have been  lost in this way across the ages? It must be millions without number.

At what point then, do most of us abandon our dreams? At what point do we believe the voices that tell us to walk away from dreams that are too big? For example, one must grant that indeed, the odds of actually becoming an astronaut are small. Some might say minuscule. I believe that the odds of becoming an astronaut are 1 in 320 million. These odds are very nearly the same as winning the California lottery.

But as we all know - more new astronauts go to space every year. And somebody wins the lottery all the time - however small the chances. Clearly there are always those who dream about seemingly impossible things, who nevertheless still attain them in life.

I know of one such man. The biggest dreamer of them all. And the owner of more diamonds than anybody who had ever lived until his time. Some thought of him as the king of diamonds. But I think of him as the king of dreams. He it was, who used to say, "I measure a man by the size of his dream." I would take those words seriously from a person who started with nothing and made himself into one of the richest men in the world.


"I dream in continents," he told his friends. And that, indeed, he did. Quite literally so.

To those who knew him well enough, Rhodes was a scoundrel by every unit of measure. But he also set the benchmark for marrying unlikely dreams with ultimate reality. However lacking his character might have been at times, there is a lot that we can learn from his spirit.

Cecil John Rhodes - one of the biggest and most successful dreamers who ever lived.

Like so many other great men, he had a humble origin. Cecil Rhodes began his life as the somewhat sickly son of a British parson. He came from the bottom end of a large family. He was not an overly gifted scholar. He did not really excel at sport. And even his social skills were limited, for he he had a squeaky, almost girlish voice. Neither did he come from wealth or class. In fact, his life seemed destined to mediocrity.

He was already flowing into the mould of ensured social insignificance, but for one important thing that happened to him. His doctors advised him for the sake of his health to relocate to South Africa. And so it was decided to send him to the other side of the world in order to attempt to prolong his life.

In 1871 he arrived in South Africa. He was, as one author described him, "a tall, lanky, anaemic, fair-haired boy, shy and reserved in bearing." And he was still a mere boy of only 17 years old. To all reasonable expectations, young Cecil should have had a life of perfect insignificance. In fact, the farming venture that he attempted with his brother soon turned into failure.

But in this fateful decade South Africa had become the country of dreams. To dreamers and adventurers around the world, this was the land of golden opportunity. A land of mineral rushes unlike any the world had ever known. And it was one of the fewest places on earth where a nobody could have the hope of becoming a somebody with just a little bit  of luck and a lot of hard work.

Young Cecil's experienced many serious setbacks. But he never gave up trying. His wanderings eventually lead him to the diamond rush of Kimberley. In stead of finding rivers of diamonds here, he discovered thousands of men who already had a head start on him. Men much cleverer than he. Much older and stronger. Vastly more experienced. Far better equipped to survive and prosper in a cruel world where one man would step onto his neighbour just as sure as a hungry dog would eat another. What mattered most, however, was that Cecil had one thing that was bigger than any other man - the size of his dreams.

What followed in Cecil's life reads like a story book. In his relatively short life, the unassuming boy from Hertfordshire consolidated the mad world of Kimberley into the biggest diamond company in the history of the world. He founded and directed one of the greatest gold mines on the planet - still producing gold over 120 years later. He even had a country named after him. He floated companies, founded industries, determined the course of history, and either built or destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of men, women and children.

He, who had no special education, went on to obtain an Oxford degree. He then became the Prime Minister of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. He became the friend of monarchs and the partner of international bankers. These achievements would have satisfied even the most ambitious men. But Rhodes' dreams were bigger yet. All of these were merely stepping stones on the way to his real dream: that of building a railway from the Cape to Cairo - and then to go on to unify the entire English-speaking world into one great empire. And after that, his dream was to unite the world under the British flag.

In fact, these were not just fantasies. To Rhodes they were real. Because, as he once told his friends, his dreams are backed with plans. "There is a difference," he insisted.

It is an irony of history that Rhodes did not live to realize his ultimate dreams. But it did not matter. He came further than much more talented men could have reached in generations. He, who had once been given only 6 months to live, died at the age of 48. His dying words were, "so little done. So much to do."

There are many reasons why Rhodes came so far in life. But in my mind, one of the most important was the fact that he dreamed bigger than all, and remained child enough to believe in the reality of every one of his dreams.

Mark Twain once said that where Cecil Rhodes stood in the Cape, his shadow fell across the Zambezi

Rhodes had been brought up to become a parson like his father. Or a barrister, if his mother had allowed it. But destiny pointed him onto a different road. On that road, Rhodes ignored small ambitions. He paid attainable goals little attention. In stead, he chose only the biggest of dreams, and never allowed himself to be convinced that they were impossible to reach. He never tested diamonds with a hammer. He tested them with light - and if they sparkled - he kept them for his treasure.

Lesser men would have kept their dreams private, for fear that others would laugh at their size. But not Rhodes. Just as he was never shy to show his treasure of diamonds, he was never shy to share his dreams with anyone would might admire their glitter. And indeed, many a friend did tell him that his dreams were unrealistic. That someone in his position had no hope of reaching them. Rhodes did not listen to small men. And he never allowed the voices of doubt to cloud the light of his dreams.

And so I think back at the boy who would be a rock star. I may never meet him. But we all meet boys and girls who are like him. For my part, I choose to believe that boy will become a rock star. And if not a rock star, then an astronaut. And if not an astronaut, then I hope that he will still reach whatever dream he sets his mind to. Because dreams are the reflection of reality to those who have the faith to believe in them.

My choice does not have to be a rational one. I'm a believer in dreams. We dreamers speak differently.

Credits: 
All images by courtesy of Wikipedia
Astronaut image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/CecilRhodes.jpg/170px-CecilRhodes.jpg
Portrait of Rhodes: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Punch_Rhodes_Colossus.png/170px-Punch_Rhodes_Colossus.png
Rhodes the Colossus: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Astronaut-EVA.jpg/250px-Astronaut-EVA.jpg