The Rockefeller Family made their fortune in oil. The Carnegie Family in steel. And the Berolzheimer Family? They made their fortune in pencils!
The German ancestors of the American Berolzheimers were involved for 40 years during the 1800s in the pencil-making trade in the Bavarian town of Furth, the primary source of a clay that is mixed with graphite to produce the pencil core. In 1856, Daniel Berolzheimer immigrated to America from Germany and established the Eagle Pencil Company outside New York City. And some 70 years later, in 1927, Charles Berolzheimer struck out on his own in the pencil business, moving west to California to buy a young firm called California Cedar Products Company.
Here, they found the abundant red cedar trees in the West the perfect growth engine for the business. It wasn’t sexy, but it was profitable! The offshoot company thrived for a generation as a great success story. But by the mid-1960s, the excess sawdust produced by the more efficient mills was becoming a drag on the business. New environmental laws demanded that California Cedar Products either burn the sawdust or bury it in landfills. The cost associated with disposing of the voluminous sawdust by-products practically outweighed any profits from the pencil sales. The company was in danger of collapsing.
But Michael Berolzheimer, grandson of Charles, had an idea. Artificial logs were just coming on the market at this time What if, instead of disposing of the TONS of sawdust produced each day, they mixed it with wax to produce quickly burning fire logs? After a year of research and prototypes, they formed a separate company under the pencil-making umbrella to market and sell the artificial logs. That company was Duraflame, and the rest is history!
California Cedar Products Company figured out a way to turn a massive liability into a runaway success beyond comprehension. And shouldn’t we all look to do the same in our own everyday lives?
Low Moments Can Propel Us
There is a fine line between a liability and a talent. The hyperactive child who always got in trouble in school may channel that energy into brilliant creativity later in life. The introverted recluse who had trouble making friends may find unparalleled success as a coder and programmer in a hot industry. The daydreaming D-student in the back of the class might turn those dreams into artistic genius. The very thing that held us back as children may propel us to success as adults. We can’t be so quick to bury that sawdust! It is possible to turn our liabilities into gold!
And what about the low moments in our lives? Should we immediately try to forget and burn the memories? Or could we turn those into something life-changing? Getting fired from our job may open a path to a successful career we would never have considered. Getting benched on a team may provide us with the perspective and drive we need to tackle any future challenge. Getting ostracized from a group may give us the empathy to be an inclusive and unifying force in this world! We can’t be so quick to bury these moments and move on. These mini-tragedies might just propel us to new heights we never thought possible!
A Little Resilience Goes a Long Way
It’s never easy and it’s never obvious. Not every setback and disappointment holds a lesson. Sometimes we are just left with a pile of sawdust and a broken dream. But not always. We have to get creative. We have to step outside the immediate hurt to see another perspective. Sometimes, the thing that has always held us back transforms into our greatest strength. Sometimes our past tragedies open up future triumphs.
In the end, no one remembers the massive piles of unwanted sawdust. In fact, no one even remembers the N0. 2 pencil business! But we do remember the burning success of those Duraflame logs. Stick with it. Find a way around. Don’t be so quick to dismiss those failures and setbacks. A little resilience goes a long way.
We produce a lot of sawdust in our everyday lives. But we all have the ability to turn that sawdust into gold.