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Sunday Success Story: John D. Rockefeller

Sunday Success Story

John D. Rockefeller was a pioneer in the oil industry, he alone took a chaotic second rate industry and turned it into the powerhouse industry that fuels the world today. Making himself one of the wealthiest men in history during the process. Rockefeller didn’t have a silver spoon in his mouth when he began his journey. Rockefeller had a tough life growing up, his father never supported his family and Rockefeller started working at a young age to help his mother. A struggling accountant, Rockefeller looked to create a legacy for himself. Seeing the potential that oil had to change the world he started Standard Oil when he was 24. He struggled to keep the company afloat in the early years. Almost bankrupt, the most powerful man in the country, Cornelius Vanderbilt proposed a partnership with Rockefeller. Rockefeller missed his train for the meeting, that train derailed killing everyone on board. This event changed Rockefeller’s whole life, a man of faith he believed that god spared him for a reason. From there Rockefeller relentlessly built Standard Oil into an enterprise never seen before. At his peak owning 90% of the oil industry in America. Having a ruthless work ethic, destroying all competition in his path. Creating a monopoly in the oil industry. His ruthlessness about him make him out to be a villain in history but it was necessary for him to create a monopoly. Rockefeller paved the way to set a standard of what is possible for businesses. That an industry can be built from dust, through hard work, vision and doing whatever it takes to continually grow. Rockefeller also gave $100 billion in today’s money to charitable causes. Understanding that his wealth could benefit society. A man that saw a grand vision of oil that no one else saw, never wavering from that vision built one of the greatest enterprises in human history. Laying the framework of what is possible for the American dream, showing every one of us that the only limitation to the heights of success lie within the human mind.

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