Blueprint for Success--Donald Dale Jackson

He gave away his fortune for a hammer, a saw — and a dream.

As a boy, Millard Fuller was a whiz with money. He had a knack for turning a profit the way other kids had a knack for baseball. Starting with a pig his father gave him, Millard became a livestock trader during his teens, netting enough to pay his way through Auburn University.

Then he entered the University of Alabama law school in 1957. But he continued to make money. By age 29, Fuller was almost a millionaire, with a luxurious home, a vacation retreat, two speedboats, a Lincoln Continental and shares in three cattle ranches.

Several years earlier. Fuller had married Linda Caldwell, and for Millard Fuller, life was full.

Then one day Linda stunned Millard by announcing that she didn't think she loved him any longer. "I feel as if I don't have a husband," she told him. "You are always working," she said. "I'm going away for a while." The next day she left for New York to talk to a minister they knew.

How could I have miscalculated so badly? Millard wondered. Surely my family matters more than money.
For the next few days he tried to work, but couldn't concentrate. The business he had helped build was thriving — but what had it cost? His marriage? His health? Millard's neck bothered him lately, and he sometimes had trouble breathing, as if a weight were pressing on his chest.

When Linda called and agreed to his pleas to meet him in New York the following week, Millard asked his parents to stay with the children. The evening before he went to New York, he began idly watching a TV movie. A line in the film jolted him: "A planned life can only be endured."

（to be continued）