A little boy in patched overall asked a rich general contractor in fancy clothes, observing the skyscraper rising under his supervision, “How can I be rich like you when I grow up?”
The tough old construction man looked at the little fellow and, using the crusty language of one who had come up from the soil of labor, say, “Buy a red shirt, son, and work like hell.”
The startled little boy obviously didn’t understand what the elder man was telling him. The man pointed to the workmen crawling around several stories of the open steel framework of the rising skyscraper and aid to the boy, “Look at those men working there. They all work for me. I don’t know them by name. I’ve never met some of them. But look at that fellow in the red shirt. Everybody else is wearing blue. I’ve noticed that the man in red works harder than anyone else. He comes in every morning, just a bit earlier than anybody else. He seems to work faster than anybody else. He is the last one to clock off the job. He stands out from the crowd because he wears that red shirt every day. I’m about to go over there and ask him to be my supervisor. From there, I suspect he is going to rise to the top and maybe become one of my vice presidents.”
“That’s how I made it, son. I decided to work a little harder and a little better than anybody else on the job. And if I wore blue overalls, nobody would ever notice me. So I always wore a stripped shirt. I worked harder. I stood out from the crowd. I was noticed. I got the promotions. I saved my money. And that’s how I got
