Motivation: Take a Trip down the Mississip' and Discover Treasure!
Reynold Jay
Your Personal Treasure Barge: Excerpt from Born to be Rich
Your Personal Treasure Barge
Imagine yourself alive during the time of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, living an easy life on the peaceful banks of the Mississippi without a care in the world, sitting in the summer sun wondering if the catfish would take the bait.
As you sat there relaxing, you noticed many items floating down the river and decided to reach out and try to scoop up anything that looked interesting. If there were any “law of the river,” it would probably be that you could keep anything you found floating there unless it was claimed and identified by the owner who had lost it.
An old boot floated toward you. You retrieved it, and decided to keep it in the event a matching boot came along. When another boot did not appear, you started to learn that the items that floated easily up to the bank were usually nearly worthless. The more interesting things seemed to float by a few feet beyond the river's edge.
Though you had not intended to get wet, you decided to wade out a few feet so you could retrieve some floating items of more value to you. After several days of fishing and retrieving items floating near the bank, you decided that you were getting things of limited value. You made a plan to venture far out into the river in search of more valuable floaters.
You traded all the items you had recovered up to now for a small rowboat and began to scavenge successfully for more interesting discoveries. While recovering an interesting piece of driftwood one day, you watched in amazement as an old abandoned barge came drifting down the middle of the river. Though other abandoned barges floated down the river from time to time, and were quite common, this one glistened spectacularly from a great distance. As it floated closer, you gazed in incredible disbelief at diamonds, rubies, silver, gold, and other treasures that defied description.
You rowed toward the astonishing site, but it drifted past you and out of sight before you could reach it.
You tossed and turned in your sleep with distress that night. You kept seeing the barge floating past you over and over again. Soon you began to wonder if it were only a mirage sent to haunt you. In your restless sleep, you reached out for the great treasure barge, but it always drifted beyond your grasp.
When you told your friends about all this, they laughed and said you had been out in the sun too long. Undiscouraged, you began plans to possess any treasure that might come floating down the Mississippi, regardless of the personal cost to you.
Though your two closest friends were skeptical of your vision, you eventually persuaded them to help scavenge the river every day for useful items. The three of you thus formed a team for a common goal, dividing duties so that you would have a better chance of retrieving any great treasure that might eventually drift down the river. One friend scavenged, the other sold the retrieved items to a junk dealer, and you obtained a bank loan in order to purchase an old tugboat badly in need of repair.
One day, while you and an associate were working to restore the old tug, the partner in the rowboat signaled from a half mile offshore, indicating that something valuable was drifting down the river. Soon he rowed ashore and reported that he too had seen a treasure barge loaded with gold, silver, diamonds, and immense treasures.
Greatly excited, the three of you began working furiously night and day to restore the tug and outfit it with everything needed, such as rope, shovels, wheelbarrows, and food. You felt you must be prepared for any action necessary to recover the treasure.
Several months went by without incident. Your fellow workers sometimes became discouraged, but you pulled them through with your persuasiveness, charm, and cheerful disposition.
To pass the time, the three of you decided to clean up the riverbank site which had become a second home. You set up a picnic area for tourists and offered a ferry service across the river for a small fee. You also built a refreshment stand, began to rent rowboats to other scavengers, and sold bait and tackle to passing fishermen.
After many months, you found yourself ferrying tourists across the river ford about a mile from the great rapids, when a familiar glimmer caught your eye. You dropped off your passengers on the dock, then called your two team members together and headed the old tug full throttle toward the center of the river. Your team was ready. Anything that came floating down the river was yours!
The barge floated into full view and displayed a wealth of treasure many times larger than your first sighting. You began to wonder if the three of you could wangle all of this incredible wealth onto the safety of the shore. While you were trying to decide whether to guide the barge ashore or load its treasure directly onto the tug, two more treasure barges drifted into view directly behind the first. They bore wealth that far surpassed your wildest dreams!
Your team set about its task. One partner jumped from the tug and boarded the first barge. The other tossed him a rope with which to secure the first barge to the tug. In a similar manner the second barge was secured to the first, but the other teammate indicated that the third barge was taking on water and its treasure would need to be loaded directly aboard the tug.
The tug and barges were immediately secured into a circle that allowed the loading of the treasure from the third barge, using shovels and wheelbarrows. After an hour of furious activity, the third barge began listing badly, so you decided to abandon the remainder of its treasure in the interest of safety.
Your team towed the first two barges ashore, where a large group of your friends had gathered during the excitement. No one was laughing at you that day.
It took about a week to tally up the treasure. You and your partners celebrated at a dinner party on the old tug. Comparing the wealth of the great treasure barges with the profits from your daily activities, you discovered that your daily business would bring in nearly as much, in the long run, as the treasure barges.
You felt good. You had created a thriving business, and your team members would be your friends forever. It did not matter whether another treasure barge ever drifted down the river. You had proved to yourself that you could make your dreams become true.
~*~
Authors note: I wrote Born to be Rich in 1985 and published it myself. Now that I’m establishing a writing career, I’ll dust off some old copies and publish the chapters from time to time on the internet. Chapter one is reprinted here. I hope that you enjoy it and will take a few moments to make a comment.
See follow-up related articles:
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◊Opting for Wealth...Motivational article for Entrepreneurs
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Discover the Wealth that has always Belonged to you
Comments
I guessed that the treasure barges were metaphors for the rewards that the friends could get from hard work and cooperation.
Then I discovered that loads of others had reached the same conclusion.
That has to be a tribute to the clarity of your message in this clever article.
Thank you Reynold.
Hello, Reynold Jay,
Thank you for publishing this brilliant hub.
It is a perfect metaphor for the type of ingenuity and industriousness that made America the great nation it is.
Awesome read, Thanks
This is fascinating and had me hooked! Inspiring and easy to read too. Thanks for putting it 'out there' for all to see.
A great hub full of inspiration.Good hub keep it up
Inspiring, with the the proper support team and a positive environment u can achieve a lot.
Thank You RJ!
Aww.. That probably was an exciting job making ladies dreams a reality!
Yes I enjoy wedding, birthday parties, baby showers etc. and helping out people in anyway I can with ideas.
I enjoy your inspirational writings!
God Bless
Great metaphor! Nice hub!
Thanks Mr. Reynold for posting this story, I really appreciate it!
It really shows persistence is the key to success.
Despite his friends laughing at him and he came up fruitless for the time being, he kept at it.
Defeat is only defeat when accepted as defeat and he sure was persistent.
Reading the story I feel like I'm being told to be prepared (in many ways including skill, knowledge, intuition) to catch the event of a life time.
During that preparation I also should learn to enjoy my daily profitable activities... :)
Thanks for bringing such an inspiring story... :)
another great hub voted up:)
Wonderful! Beginning to make my way through some of the others as we speak. Mr. Jay, you're an inspiration!
Wow, there is a lot here to study. I put you on my favorites list to go back to when I have lots of time.
Lizzee
Nice hub once again from RJ, I hope you will continue to give us more of the excerpts from you 'Born To Be Rich' book. As usual voted up and rated 'USEFUL'
Thats funny. I think I like the original ending better. :)
Interesting story. I guess I was not the optimist during this story. I kept thinking the treasure barge was going to be taken away. Like here today, gone tomorrow. You made a great ending from a wonderful story. Well done.
Hi, that's a great motivational story. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your hubs and hopefully your upcoming books!
Awesome Hub!
I love a good metaphor! I believe the "river" would have continued to send gold filled barges until your main character was ready to receive it. Sometimes its easier to believe you are due a shoe though.
Hi :-)
Thank you for this story
I truly enjoyed it :-)
Will be glad to read more of your Hubs .
In all effort to acquire the gold, they discovered they had built an empire in the process, through hard work and imagination. Fun read, I enjoyed it very much. Awesome hub!
Hi RJ,
I loved the creative use of Huck Finn in this story. This was a fun read with the important lessons that Peggy W. mentioned in her comment. I voted this hub up, useful, beautiful and awesome.
Hope you had a wonderful New Year's holiday and that 2011 will bring many readers flocking to your beautifully written hubs.
I did enjoy it and look forward to reading more. I've often thought what it would be like to live in the day of Huck Finn.
Wonderful story of determination, hard work and reward.
This chapter shows inventiveness, hard work, determination and persistence leading to these fellows eventual success.
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