With just a few hundred rupees capital, a man from Delhi started a business. He used to buy scraps of cloth which he would sell from door to door. When his business had grown somewhat, he obtained permission to sit on the pavement in front of a shop and sell his merchandise their.
| بنی اسرائیل کی تاریخ کا مطالعہ کیجیے۔ اس تاریخ میں ہمارے لئے بہت سے سبق پوشیدہ ہیں۔ کوہ طور کا سفرنامہ۔ قرآن اور بائبل کے دیس میں |
This freelance cloth-merchant built up a good deal of trust with his wholesaler, whom he impressed with his honesty and fair-dealing. The wholesaler began to grant cloth on credit to the vendor, who always made an effort to settle his debt before the due date. This habit made him even more trustworthy in the eyes of the wholesaler, who granted him more and more cloth on credit. After just a few years, the wholesaler was giving this street vendor Rs. 150,000 (approximately US$ 5000 at that time) worth of cloth on loan, an amount which he would not have given anybody else except on the basis of a considerable cash down-payment.
Clearly, such a large amount of cloth could not be accommodated on the street. The cloth vendor now required a shop. He bought one, and continued to spiral, and before long he was among the leading cloth-merchants of the old city.
| The steadily devoted soul attains unadulterated peace because he offers the result of all activities to Me (Allah); whereas a person who is not in union with the Divine, who is greedy for the fruits of his labor (in this world), becomes entangled. Bhagavad Gita |
It is a mistake to think of money as the greatest asset in life. The greatest asset is trust. On the basis of trust one can buy anything. What one lacks in other departments he can make up for in trust. Trust is an invaluable asset which can buy even more than money.
But the way to establish trust is not by repeating how trustworthy one is. No, it is by acting in a trustworthy manner. The outside world is very severe in this regard. Unless one proves one’s trustworthiness by impeccable actions, one cannot expect to receive the benefit of the doubt. Only if one consistently shows oneself worthy of trust over a long period, as the cloth vendor showed himself in his dealings with the wholesale merchant, will one be accorded trust in this world.
(Author: Waheed-ud-Din Khan, Translation: Dr. Farida Khanam. Note: Some minor adjustments are made in this article.)
| Send the link of this article to your friends if you have found it useful. Feel free to send at email at mubashirnazir100@gmail.com for your questions and comments. |
Think about it!
—– Developing trust is a long process. Why should we engage in this long process at the cost of our short-term profits?
—– What changes are required in our personality to build trust?
Please send your answers through email to post your comments on this web page.