How Clever Are YOU With A Quarter?
Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!
Shatzie - She knows how to handle it?
Pola - Let’s see if she does.
Pola (on phone) - How much money you got?
Loco - I’ve got a quarter.
Pola - Wonderful. Stop on your way and pick up something for lunch for us.
Loco - How many?
Pola - Three.
Loco - Okay, as soon as I get something on.
Shatzie - A fine addition to a million-dollar proposition. One quarter.
Pola - Maybe. But she’s awful clever with a quarter.
- Scene from How to Marry a Millionaire (20th Century Fox, 1953) where Shatzie (Lauren Bacall) and Pola (Marilyn Monroe) discuss whether or not to include Loco (Betty Grable) in their scheme.
The irony of course is that Loco, armed with only a quarter, shows up with not only two bags full of groceries, but an (unknown to them at the time) actual millionaire to pay for and carry them home for her. Pretty clever with a quarter, indeed!
This strikes me as one of those little “life lessons” we could all benefit from.
When you find yourself unduly restricted by resources or constraints, what can you do to break out of that box? Just because there are limitations doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t accomplish your goals anyway – you may just have to get creative and look beyond the not-so-obvious. One example that comes to mind is the CO2 filter problem faced by the Apollo 13 astronauts during their crisis (when they had to find a way to fit the Lunar Module’s filter elements to the Command Module).
Limitations may also turn out to be a good thing, prompting you to look in directions you would not have tried before. The current move toward sustainability (click here for an overview of this term), and practically every product influenced by environmental concerns are good examples.
So what challenges are you facing right now that seem to have you in a box? Have you allowed yourself to be creative in looking for the solution? When someone suggests a possible solution, is your first answer always “no”, or do you allow yourself to free-associate from there and brainstorm other ideas? What if you had said “yes” anyway?
If you have a war story to share, go ahead, let us all learn from it.
Just how clever are YOU with a quarter?
You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!
4 responses so far
Middle Zone Musings is a comfortable place to stop, have a cup of coffee, swap a few stories and share practical ideas for the real world. I don't ask for much, just a bit of your brain every now and then. Have a seat, take a load off, and relax...
A long time ago I was trying to win a sales contest and not doing very well. I finally made a sale to a bedding company and thought, hey, I could sell this same thing to other bedding companies, but there’s none in the area. So I got an Industrial Guide and figured out where the other companies were around the country, and started calling them on the phone. (Nobody used the phone to make sales calls in those days.) Then I actually made some sales. Quite a few, actually. I won the contest, but more important, it was the beginning of a new telemarketing department at our firm that ended up being a multi-million dollar operation.
Not bad, Brad; not bad at all! Don’t you love it when something comes along and just blossoms right under your hands? I’ve got a similar situation here at work - new line of business that might just be responsible for bringing in millions. Keeping the fingers crossed!
Did you hear about that guy who traded from a paper clip up to owning a home? I bet he’s pretty clever with a quarter.
Yes, I remember that guy - he’s at One Red Paper Clip. Now he’s got a book, he speaks all over the place, etc. Sheesh!