Photo by Jeff Belmonte.

What idea could be worth one hundred thousand dollars?

When he was alive, Charles Schwab (1862 - 1939) was one of the richest, most successful and powerful men in the world. He ran the biggest independent steel company in America, and lived in a $7,000,000 seventy five room mansion in New York.

One day, someone approached Schwab with a request. They said: 'Mr. Schwab, I would like to give you an idea and I would like you to use it for one month. At the end of that one month, you pay me whatever you think the idea is worth.' Schwab agreed to this.

After trying the idea for a month, Schwab agreed to pay the person $100,000. Today, that would be over $3,000,000. Three million dollars!

I'd like to share this idea with you now.

The $100,000 Idea

The idea given to Schwab was simple. He was told to sit down for a few moments towards the end of each day, and write down the five most important things that he needed to accomplish tomorrow.

When he got up the next day, he was to ensure that those five things got done, whatever it took. If only four got done, the last thing was to be first on the next days list.

Massive Action

Photo by Susanica.

The $100,000 idea is massive action in practice. As Michael Heppell puts it, Massive Action = Massive Results. You can read more about massive action in my Change Your Life with Kaizen post.

My Kaizen Challenge for the Week

My kaizen challenge this week is to put the $100,000 idea into practice. Towards the end of each day, I will sit down and write down the five most important things to accomplish the next day. Then I will do them, whatever it takes.

This post is part of my Kaizen Challenge series.

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