Capone was the public enemy number one in the third largest city in America. After leaving school at an early age, he rose through the ranks to head Chicago's underworld. That was after he had shrewdly and ruthlessly eliminated his enemies and competitors in the illegal liquor trade; Ibraheem Dooba writes.
In the 1920s, if you asked an average American
or talked to him about gangsters, the first image that will come to their mind
was Alphonse Capone, A.K.A Scarface.
Now that you've got the picture of who the
man was, could you please answer this question? How easy (or difficult) would
it be to swindle, defraud or trick a man with this kind of character?
Who will ever have the chutzpah, the nerve, or
the temerity to try a guy like that?
You know by going news that a guy like that
is suicidal, let alone thinking of hoodwinking him - you must have written your
will somewhere! Characters like Capone have enemies everywhere including under
their beds. They do not trust their own hands or anything that's ten
centimeters above their nose.
But somebody did scam the guy. His name was
Count Victor Hustling, a con artist extraordinaire.
He simply confidently and boldly walked into
Al Capone’s office and without mincing, words asked Capone to give him money so
that could double it for Al after some months. Capone looked at him coolly and
gave him the money. Count Victor had no idea how to double that money. But he
collected it and put it in an account without touching, without thinking, and
without doubling it.
When the time he gave Capone came, he
withdrew the money and returned it to him. He apologized for the deal not working.
He removed the money, handed it to Capone, apologized profusely once
more, and made to go.
Capone who was not expecting the guy to
return any money to him, and who was also impressed by Husting's perceived
honesty, removed part of the money and rewarded Husting handsomely.
We are not con artists, and neither do we have
bad intentions in our business dealings with people. So, the least advice is to
eschew the bad side of Count Victor Husting's life and borrow his boldness,
because it is a genius trait.
Goethe said, "Boldness has magic in it
Here is what Cardinal de Retz said about the subject, "Fear, which always
magnifies objects, gives a body to all their fancies, which takes for it
whatever they conceive to exist in their enemies' thoughts: so that fearful
per- sons seldom fall into real inconveniences occasioned by imaginary
dangers."
Boldness is the opposite of timidity and
another name for timidity is fear, especially fear of making mistakes. The wise
Alfred Hitchcock beautifully described fear thus, "Fear is more dangerous
than danger itself. It rules one of the faculties of reason."
Have you ever asked this question? How do scammers sometimes succeed in defrauding even the most intelligent people?
You see, these scammers do not have many initiatives. They take one story and replicate it a hundred times in a thousand
places.
If the story online is about a late Central
African Head of State who stole money and stashed it away in an Arab State
before his demise, and now the current Head of State is persecuting the children
of the former Head; and the children want someone to sponsor them to recover
the stolen funds; you will see the same story everywhere on the Internet.
And if the story offline is about a stranded
African from a francophone country, whose English is rusty; but understands it
enough to promise you a handset and a TV set if you help him sell his goods,
you will hear the same story at every bus stop in Nigeria.
You can see what I mean by saying it is not
their intelligence that makes them succeed, it is their boldness in telling the
stories.
They are so stupid that they tell an
omnipresent story all the time. They don't mind whether the person they are
telling it to has heard it before or maybe the person has a friend that has
been duped before. Or the person himself has been subjected to such tricks.
But there are so many positive things one can
do with boldness that is even easier and albeit, better than scams.
In his ‘Behind The Scenes of Royal Palaces in
Korea’, Ha Tae-Hing tells the following inspiring story:
‘’in a lowly thatched cottage in the Namesan
Valley, there lived a poor couple, Mr. And Mrs. Hu Sueng.
For seven years the husband confined himself
in his cold room reading books.
"One day his wife, all in tears,
said to him: "look here, my good man! What is the use of your book reading
since for the whole of my youth I washed and sewn for others and still.
Hearing these words, the middle-aged scholar
closed his book, rose to his feet, and without saying another word, went out of the door.
Arriving in the heart of the city, he stopped
a passing gentleman 'Hello, my friend! Who is the richest man in town?
'Poor countryman! Don't you know Byonssi, the
millionaire? His glittering ill-roofed house pierced by twelve gates is just
over there?
Hu bent his steps to the rich man's
house.
He flung the guestroom door open after he
entered the gate and addressed the host,'' my commercial business would
need 10, 000 yang and I would want you to send the money to me.
'All night, sir, where shall I send the
money?
‘’Do that through the commission merchant at
the Ansong Market! 'Very well sir, I will draw on him who does the biggest
commission business to the Ansong Market; you'll get the money there!
"Goodbye, Sir!
"On Sueng's departure, Byonssi was
bombarded by questions from the guests about why he would give huge amount of money
to a man considered stranger with beggarly disposition whom he knew not.
But the rich replied with a triumphant face:
'Even though he wore ragged clothes, he spoke
clearly to the point without betraying, shame, or inferiority, unlike common
people who want to die for a bad debt. Such a man as he is either mad or
self-confident in doing business.
But one thing stands clear, he is
exceptional, and I will stick my trust in him. I know money and I know
men.
Money transforms a person of little
significance, but someone who makes tons of money. l am only happy to have
helped a big man do big business.
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