Generals and successful ladies

The armistice had been signed to end the Korean War, so on July 4, 1954, Corps Artillery’s Commander, a three-star general, had scheduled his baseball team to play the Corps Arty’s team. Corps Arty was much larger in service personnel than Corps Artillery, which was strictly a tactical headquarters unit with very few men assigned to it. Corps Arty was much larger with perhaps 18 battalions consisting of over 12,000 men.

The Corps Arty Commander was a two-star general who took his baseball very seriously. He had a fulltime team made up of mostly professional players who were drafted into service by Uncle Sam. Corps Arty was the visiting team.

Corps Arty had fallen far behind by the bottom of the first inning. They had given up lots of hits and had run out of pitchers. Their catcher, who was a sergeant, tried his arm at pitching, but to no avail.

The sergeant left the mound and approached the Corp Arty Commanding General. He wiped the sweat from his face, stood at attention, saluted, and in a loud voice said, “Sir, request permission to call the game on account of snow.” The general stood up, returned the salute, and in an equally loud voice said, “Permission granted.”

Let’s take a look at a lady who was born in Brussels, Belgium to American parents. Instead of finishing high school, she studied art in Europe. Later, she became a fashion designer and worked for several years in the Garment District on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

For many years, she argued that her company was not meeting the changing needs of the fashion market. Her efforts to convince management that style preferences should be expanded were ignored.

She became frustrated at the failures of the companies that she worked for to provide clothes for working women, so she started her own design company. It became an immediate success with sales of $2 million in 1976 and $23 million in 1978. By 1988, her company had acquired one-third of the American women’s upscale sportswear market.

Liz Claiborne, Inc. became the first company founded by a woman to make the Fortune 500 list.

Although not as well known as Liz Claiborne, another lady who was born and raised in Southeast England near Brighton in 1942 did very well for herself. Her Italian immigrant mother and American father ran a café’ where early in life, she was instilled with an intense work ethic.

Later in life, after her husband had left her with two young children to raise and support, she concocted cosmetics in her garage and open her first shop in Brighton. She sold 50% of her company for $6,400 in order to finance her line of nature-based cosmetics. Initially, she had only 15 products, which she packaged in five sizes so it would look like she had at least one hundred.

After she opened her second store, customers began to ask if they could start their own branches. She set up a system of franchises, and The Body Shop increased to more than 1,500 stores. When Anita Roddick passed away in September 2007, she was worth more than $200 million, making her one of the wealthiest women in England.

Remember that if we expect the best, we will be the best. We all need to learn to use one of the most powerful laws in the world and that is to change our mental habits to believing that we can accomplish something rather than wondering if we can. We need to learn to expect and not to doubt. In doing so, we will bring everything into the realm of possibility. Bet you that Liz Claiborne and Anita Roddick followed the above philosophy.

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