The ability to do a lot with a little is a skill that will always serve you well. The successful person consistently looks to what tools he has available to him – no matter how few or how small – to get the job done. If you ever faced a challenge with a ladder that wasn’t tall enough, a tool that wasn’t sharp enough or a pocketbook that wasn’t deep enough, you are well aware of what it takes to work through to completion.
I came across a good example within an example that helps to illustrate the idea. Marcel Bich and his business partner Edouard Buffard started manufacturing fountain pens and mechanical pencil parts in Clichy, France in 1945. Eight years later, Marcel Bich founded a new company, called BIC, with just 10,000 francs and common sense. Bic Pen Company has grown over the last sixty-plus years to include other product lines, with annual revenues totalling 1.5 billion euros in 2009.
Bic has always produced creative marketing campaigns. One recent ad, in which an artist replicated Johannes Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring, using a single black ink Bic pen, provides a powerful demonstration of how to make a lot with a little. Enjoy:
Making a lot out of a little is as much an attitude as it is a skill.
To begin with, you must forever release the idea that you are badly done by, that you’ve been dealt a bad hand by people, by your circumstances or by God (if you go that far). Human activity and the cycles of the natural world interact from moment to moment and generate circumstances based on a causal chain. What happened yesterday served as the foundation for today. What happens today prepares the ground for tomorrow. To be sure, what you face may or may not be the result of your personal actions as we live in an interdependent world. At any rate, what happens to you is not important, how you handle what happens is.
Secondly, you have to get past the idea that you are impotent for lack of education, for lack of experience or for lack anything you might have used as an excuse in the past. If you’re faced with a challenge and all you look at is what is preventing you from getting the job done, you will fail. Remember this always: nothing will come to you that is bigger than your ability to handle it. The more ingenuity you employ, the more graceful the execution and typically the more satisfactory the outcome.
Finally, there is great value in keeping things in perspective. When a challenge is blown out of proportion you, who should be a part of the solution, will be blown out of the water. Develop the ability to take a step back, physically, mentally, emotionally, so that you can see the challenge that lies ahead with the greatest measure of balance available to you at the time. You will rarely have perfect, all-encompassing perspective on a situation, which is why the perspective of others is so important. You are limited in that you are not omnipotent. Get over it.
The next time you face a daunting challenge, think of the artist who had to recreate a masterpiece using a lonely, lame and sorry black ink pen. Every person on earth can achieve what they need to, whether their resource base is miniscule or massive. The key is in approaching the problem in the right spirit.
Have a great day!
Gregory Hake 
As a new entrepreneur, I can most certainly relate to the need for ingenuity, creativity, and the spirit of the pioneer.
There was a point not so far back when I had but one tool to work with, and negative resources, yet holding steady has paid off and the tools that are now available to me, have multiplied; Furthermore the jobs have also done so in size and frequency. It is great this eve to review the world round about with a refreshed perspective, backed by the spirit of the Pioneer. If it is going to be, it is up to me!
Thanks Gregg!!!
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You’re welcome, Joshua. I appreciate your attitude and you support! Good luck with your new venture.
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This is wondeful for so many who fall victim to struggle and lack. This has helped me to take an even closer view of my own life to see where I have been complacent relative to accomplishment,” waiting” on the resources when all that is needed is that one lonely” BIC”. My children will benefit from watching this video, this can give them the understanding that they can acheive in this life with minimal resources or not, it’s up to them how they will proceed. Thanks for such profound and logical considerations!
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I remember my 5th grade English teacher telling me that the key to writer’s block was to put pen to paper, even if it only initially resulted in doodles and squiggly lines. You have to start where you are and while waiting for everything you need can be appealing it is not always the best approach.
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Good stuff! I forwarded this to my team this morning and told them I hope none of us ever feels that we don’t have enough resources at hand to accomplish amazing feats.
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I think this is a great skill to practice even if you have enough for your current situation. I have a friend that says “I can do more with less than anyone I know”. I think you can enjoy the luxuries of a time of excess without getting so soft that you are lost when hard times come. Thanks for another great topic and a great article!
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My pleasure, Colin. Developing this skill in the lean times is vital, but maintaining it during the fat times is equally as important, but rarely considered as such.
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That was amazing!
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I’ve been following your blog for over a month now and I commend you that you consistently offer NO EXCUSES no matter what the circumstances may be.
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I appreciate that, Todd. It’s an easy task, really, as I have yet to hear a good excuse for not doing the right thing.
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I wonder how many in the field of art alone quit before they get started because they had a concept of what type of materials and setting they needed in order to create their concept of their “someday” masterpiece? I don’t think I’ll ever look at a BIC pen again without thinking, “Now there is a perfect starting point for something great to be created, now!” (And there are 11 more in the box after the ink runs out of this one!).
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