Laxman was just another guy working in the tool-and-die trade who made a decent living by average standards. But it was far from ideal. His home was much too small, and there was no money for those many things he wanted.

His wife didn’t complain much, but it was written all over her that she was more resigned to her fate than she was happy. Inside he grew more and more dissatisfied. He was failing his good wife and two children, It really hurt him inside!

He got really disgusted with himself. Kept on asking ‘Why,’ am I just a middle-class failure? Why do I have a job that just pays my monthly bills?’ Laxman don“t know to this day what prompted him to do it, but he took a sheet of paper and wrote down the names of five people he has known well for several years who had far surpassed him in earning power and job responsibility.

Two were former neighbors who had moved to fine positions. Two others were fellows he had worked for, and the third was a brother-in-law. He asked himself “What do my five friends have that I don’t have, besides better jobs?” He compared himself with them on intelligence, but he honestly couldn’t see that they excelled in the brains department. Nor could he truthfully say they had him beat on education, integrity, or personal habits.

Finally, he got down to another success quality one hears a lot about “initiative”. Here he hated to admit it, but he had to. On this point, his record showed he was far below that of his successful friends. He was seeing his weak point for the first time. He discovered that he had held back.

He had used his mind to work against himself. He found he had been preaching to himself why he couldn’t get ahead instead of why he could! He had been selling himself short! He found this streak of self-depreciation showed through in everything he did.

Then it dawned on him that “no one else was going to believe in him until he believed in himself” Right then he decided, ’I’m through feeling second-class. From here on in I’m not going to sell myself short. After few days Laxman learned about a job opening with a tool-and-die company in a neighboring city. He decided to go for it, to gave his newfound confidence its first test.

“After a well-done interview, Laman asked for 5 times more salary than his present job” And “he got it”.

Laxman sold himself because after that one long day of self-analysis he found things in himself that made me a lot more salable. Within two years after Laxman took that job he had established a reputation as the fellow who can get business.

Then business went into a recession. This made him still more valuable because he was one of the best business-getters in the industry. The company was reorganized and he was given a substantial amount of stock plus a lot more pay. Today Laxman has a beautiful new home on a two-acre land.

There’s no more worry about whether we can send the kids to a good college, and his wife no longer has to feel guilty every time she spends money on some new clothes. Next summer the whole family is flying to foreign countries to spend a month’s holiday.

Laxma really living! It all happened, “because Laxman harnessed the power of belief”. Believe in yourself, and good things do start happening.

One book that best illustrates the attributes of believing and thinking big is “The magic of thinking big” by David J. Schwartz. Please do explore the book.