The Road to Riches
Once upon a time, there was a young man who desired riches. He truly wanted to be rich, but he did not know the steps that he had to take to get there. He had heard of a wise, old man who had become very rich and successful from making a new brand of cars. He wondered how this man had made his fortune, and more important, if this man could be his mentor.
After weeks of searching, he found the old man in his garage furiously reading over blueprints while fiddling with a V8 engine. The young man walked up to the old man and spoke these five simple words, “I want to be rich.” The old man was startled and looked up from his work with a crooked grin. He peered over his glasses and through his pursed lips, firmly responded, “How badly do you want it?” The young man retorted, “I would go to any means possible.”
Upon hearing this, the old man turned and went back to working on the engine. “Hey, did you hear me?” the young man shouted, “Old man, aren’t you going to help me?” The old man hardly flinched and just kept tinkering with his engine. This infuriated the young man who was eager to learn the secrets of acquiring riches. He gathered his resolve and calmly tapped the old man on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me! I need your help!” The old man continued to ignore him. Full of frustration, the young man stormed out of the garage and said, “What a waste of my time!” But, just as the young man was leaving, the old man held up his hand and muttered a single word: “Wait.”
The young man turned around, and to his surprise, the old man spoke in a measured tone. “You have failed the first lesson of acquiring great riches.” The young man responded in disbelief, “How? I didn’t even do anything yet.” The old man cleared his throat and spoke, again, saying, “The lesson that you failed was that you didn’t persevere and you let your determination wane. If you really wanted to become rich you would have never given up trying to get my assistance.” The young man stammered, “B-B-But, I thought...” “No!” the old man interrupted, “You are about to fail again. Never make any excuses.”
The young man hung his head, dejected. He had felt so determined and confident that morning, but was now feeling defeated. The old man shuffled back to his engine and said, “Now if you really want to be rich, then meet me at the zoo at 4 a.m. tomorrow and I will teach you.” The young man grinned excitedly and ran home with a renewed sense of anticipation and confidence.
Three o’clock came quickly after a restless night’s sleep. The young man rose to a darkened sky that was slowly awakening to dawn’s pink, sleepy eyes cracking open to reveal a flood of requisite light. He rolled out of bed, jumped into his clothes, and hopped into his car to drive to the zoo. When he arrived, he saw the old man sitting quietly on a bench in front of the tiger exhibit, mesmerized by the regality of the black and orange predators pacing in front of the glass. When the young man approached him, the old man stood and asked in a hushed tone, “What is your greatest fear?”
The young man was hesitant, but proceeded to tell the old man about his fear of spiders. Ever since he had been a child, the young man had been deathly afraid of arachnids. As a young boy, he had been bitten by a rare, poisonous spider and spent a long and painful month recovering in a hospital. He admitted that even the sight of a picture of a spider could send him into a deep panic.
The old man listened intently and then said, “Follow me.” He led him down a path to a dark, stone building. “Walk through the door on the left and close the door behind you. In that room you will find the secret to obtaining riches.” Even though he was skeptical, the young man did not want to fail another lesson, so he followed the old man’s instructions.  He walked into the dark hallway, closed the door behind him, and felt the walls for a light switch. As the dark became illuminated, the young man quickly realized where he was. His heart began to race and his throat began to close. As he frantically reached for the door handle to run out, he heard the sound of a lock turning. The old man had locked him in the Hall of Darkness: home to spiders and tarantulas.
Disregarding the constant screams for mercy, the old man kept his young protege locked in the room. As the room began to spin, the young man began to imagine spiders crawling in every corner of the room. He screamed to be released, but to no avail. Two minutes went by and the old man still did not relent. At the mark of three minutes, the younger man desperately tried to kick down the door fight his way out. The fourth minute crawled by and the old man finally let the young man out of the room. When the young man got out of the room, he collapsed on the floor, shaking, and cursing at the old man.
After a few moments, the old man walked over to the young man, offered his hand and said, “Get up.” The young man slowly struggled to his feet and looked into the old man’s deep blue, knowing eyes. The young man, gasping for his breath and still shaking, demanded, “Why did you tell me to go in there? Why did you lock me in?” The old man took a deep breath and preached to the young man saying, “I did it to show you a feeling. A feeling that can never be conquered; a fire that can never be extinguished. If you want to be rich as much as you wanted to escape the possibility of spiders and tarantulas crawling on you, then you will be rich.”
After that, the old man grinned at the still shaking young man and walked off into the daylight. As for the young man, he sat down by the tigers’ habitat, pondering the cruel, yet powerful, lessons the old man had imparted. As the time ticked away, he watched the majestic tigers stride back and forth with focus and precision. He slowly began to realize that even these beasts lived by the lessons the old man had taught him: when they go for a kill, that is the only thing that are thinking about. Nothing else. The young man stopped shaking upon coming to this realization: he was going to be rich and no one was going to stop him.