有关梦想与奋斗的英文小故事

Until the 1950s Sohio, part of the Standard Oil Company that was the original building block of the Rockefeller oil empire, was content to stay in the borders of Ohio and to stay only in the oil business. When Charles Spahr, a longtime Sohio veteran, became president in 1959, he began looking at ways to move the business into a new era of diversity and profits. "He shook the company like a terrier grabbing a mouse," as one executive put it. Sohio expanded its gasoline market in 1962. It diversified into related fields such as plastics and mining oil shale. It intensified research efforts in oil-related products such as synthetic fibers.

To make these changes work, Spahr had to transform company management. For the first time, the company put a high priority on a formal long-range plan. Top posts were filled with management "generalists," whose task was to watch closely the return on investment. He put people in responsible positions because of ability and not because of seniority. The streamlining worked because of the president's ability to sell his ideas. The result was a memorable turnaround of Sohio from a stale company to a growing concern.
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Wally Amos is one of the most successful black entrepreneurs in America. He calls himself the Jackie Robinson of the theatrical business. It was Amos who "discovered" Simon and Garfunkel in a Manhattan club. Amos promoted talent at the William Morris Agency until he discovered something better. A friend of Amos' dropped by one night with a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, and they were so tasty that Amos wanted to know how to make them himself. Simple -- the   recipe was on a bag of Nestle's chocolate chips. Amos' promoter mind went crazy. He had "discovered" something big. After months of making cookies for all his friends, and perfecting the recipe to make it his own, Amos was ready to let the world in on his new discovery.

    It was opening night in Hollywood, California. Two thousand people were sent special invitations. A red carpet decorated the sidewalk. Celebrities arrived in limousines. Music was playing and champagne was flowing. It was the grand debut of "Famous" Amos's first chocolate chip cookie store. Amos promoted his cookies nationwide, marketing them to exclusive department stores and specialty shops. Within five years, annual sales of Famous Amos cookies reached $5 million. Not everyone can afford a car phone, a Rolls Royce, a penthouse, or diamonds. But almost everyone can afford a chocolate chip cookie.
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At virtually any store in the free world, you can find racks filled with designer fashions. That was not always the case. Before the 1970s they were found only in the most exclusive stores. Calvin Klein changed all that. Calvin seemed to have a knack for fashion even as a child. Sometimes he would help his friends buy clothes. It was natural for Klein to consider fashion as a career. He studied at Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology in the hopes of becoming a designer.

After graduation and for six long years Calvin struggled with low-paying jobs around New York's fashion district. Perhaps he was in the wrong industry. He considered joining a family friend in the grocery business. Instead, his friend was so convinced of Klein's talent that he seeded Calvin with $10,000 to begin Calvin Klein Ltd. In 1968 Klein began by designing women's coats. They were classy, simple and elegant and fitted right into the changing lifestyles of the era. Klein seemed to have a knack for the tastes of the "post-hippy" generation. His comfortable, stylish and relatively inexpensive clothes introduced the concept of designer fashion to a whole generation. By 1975 Klein had won three consecutive Coty awards and was inducted into the Coty Hall of Fame.
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It was a bleak winter in 1933. The weather and the economy were both bad. Charles Darrow of Germantown longed for the trips he had made to Atlantic City, New Jersey, but the depression left him little money for such frivolity. Perhaps as the next best thing to being there, Darrow concocted a little diversion. He devised a game based on the streets of Atlantic City: Boardwalk, Park Place, Baltic Avenue, Marvin Gardens and the rest. He called his new game Monopoly, and it was all about making and spending money, some thing everyone wanted to do during the depression. Darrow showed the game to a few friends, and they liked it enough to want copies. Darrow made a few copies by hand, and thinking that he had a good idea, showed the game to Parker Brothers. But Parker considered the game too complicated to ever be successful.

    Not willing to stop because of a single "no," Darrow managed to raise enough money to have some sets printed and offered them to Wanamaker's Department Store in Philadelphia. Soon Monopoly was the rage of the city. People who normally went to bed by nine o'clock would find themselves still trying to buy Boardwalk at two in the morning. Something about the game was addictive. After the successful showing at Wanamaker's, Parker Brothers took a second look and acquired the rights to the game in 1935. Today, Monopoly is licensed in over eighty countries and in twenty-three languages. It is a worldwide pastime that even boasts a "world series" of Monopoly that is played each year.