The boss turned down a raise and gave it to his staff instead. Tony Bennett, the head coach of the University of Virginia （UVA） men's basketball team, was offered a large pay raise after his team won the national championship in 2019. But to everyone's surprise, he turned the offer down and requested that the money go to his staff and the basketball program instead. What's more, he donated $ 500,000 to the basketball players.

The boss bought an employee a new car. On the night before Alabama student Walter Carr's first day at Bellhops Moving company, his car broke down. Nobody could give him a ride to work, so Carr decided to walk the 20-miIe distance overnight. After seven hours, he arrived right on time. When the boss heard about Carr's unbelievable story, he drove from Tennessee to Alabama to give the young student a Ford Escape.

The boss forgave a costly mistake. A diner at a British steakhouse had a stroke of luck when he was accidentally served an expensive bottle of red wine. Instead of blaming the server who made the mistake, as some might, the boss decided to laugh it off “To the customer who accidentally got given a bottle of wine, which is £4,500 last night, hope you enjoyed your evening!" the steakhouse tweeted. "To the server who accidentally gave it away, cheer up! We love you anyway.”

The boss gave his staff a free trip to Hawaii. Imagine drinking a cocktail on a sunny, warm beach with 500 of your closest employees. That's how Brian Scudamore, the founder and CEO of home service provider O2E Brands, chose to spend his vacation in 2017. Back in 2012, Scudamore promised his employees that if they could double the company's income in five years, he would take them on an all — expenses — paid   trip to Hawaii. Needless to say, they achieved the goal.

Born on March 21, 1958, in Louisiana, Grant Cardone is not a typical celebrity. He didn’t come from a wealthy family. He’s not a Hollywood superstar, nor does he have some amazing talents, like script-writing, politics or athleticism. However, what he has is something that is available to us all, and that is a determination to succeed.

At the age of 25, Cardone took the first job that he could find. That job was as a car salesman. It was a title and a position that Grant was not very fond of. However, the economy was slow, which meant he didn’t have many options, so he made it work.

Cardone was committed to becoming the best salesperson he could be. So, he invested (投资) heavily in his own self-improvement by reading books and studying his craft and his industry. After committing himself to becoming his very best, his income quickly doubled. And soon thereafter, he became one of the best car salesmen in the country. He eventually moved on to running his own business, and was extremely smart and disciplined (自律的) with his money. Cardone only spent money on what was absolutely necessary for food and housing. He would place anything left over into an investment fund just for the property market.

Cardone’s focus on learning more so that he could earn more, along with having the discipline to invest his extra money, instead of wasting it on useless things, helped him become a self-made millionaire just five years later by the age of 30.

Cardone has since gone on to become a well-known international businessman, speaker and the owner of Cardone Capital, a $ 1.5 billion investment firm. He’s authored the New York Times bestselling books If You’re Not First, You’re Last, and other famous books like The 10X Rule, and Axiom Award winning Sell or Be Sold. In addition to this, he also founded Cardone University, a popular sales training platform that has over 50,000,000 and growing users.

It took Cardone only five years to completely change his entire life. With the right mindset and sufficient willpower, just imagine what five years could do for you.

Our house was directly across a popular hospital. We rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man, his face lopsided from swelling, red and raw. He told me he’d been hunting for a room since noon but he had no success. “I guess it’s my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments…”

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. It didn’t take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease.

At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children’s room for him. When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch. Before he left for his bus, haltingly, he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I can sleep fine in a chair.” He paused a moment and then added, “Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don’t seem to mind.” I told him he was welcome to come again.

In the years he came to stay overnight with us. There was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning. “You can lose roomers by putting up such people!”

Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice. But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illnesses would have been easier to bear. I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude.