This week saw the death of American businessman and magazine publisher Hugh Martin Hefner. He was a controversial yet well-known figure within the American media empire, and his most notable association has been as the founder of the Playboy magazine which he founded in 1953. In addition, Hefner was a political activists/ philanthropist and also an advocate of sexual liberation. His rise to fame followed his upbringing as a conservative Methodist of a Swedish mother and German-English ancestry. Having completed his education at a university serving in the military as a newspaper writer, he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art. These skills and qualifications later proved to serve him as the necessary skills to develop his empire.
What is now interesting about his life is that in 1952, having obtained a position of a copywriter for the Esquire magazine, he was refused a salary increase of $5. In response to this, he handed in his resignation, leaving the magazine. The following year he managed to obtain a bank loan and an investment from various investors including his mother; raising enough money to create his own magazine, Playboy. In December 1953 he released his first publication which featured Marilyn Monroe.
The contradiction of his life is that at one spectrum he was seen as an advocate of soft porn, a sexual liberator, and exploiter of women; while at the other end he was a civil rights supporter with Alex Haley and Dick Gregory, speaking out against social injustice.
He was also a big supporter of various educational institutions for the deprived and at his death, he had an estimated worth of $50million (and to imagine this started after a $5 dispute).
Whether we like Hefner or not, we must respect the fact that it was $5 that pushed him from a mundane job into creating a multi-million dollar empire.
The question presented today is, what will cause you or I to get up and respond to our gifting and abilities? Hefner used his gifting’s and abilities to do things that were socially and morally good combined with other things that were socially, morally and ethically questionable.
The 3 Cs in life: Choice, Chance, and Change. You must make the Choice, to take the Chance, if you want anything in life to Change. ~ via Curiano
Mark 8:36 King James Version (KJV): For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Look at your choice, chance, and opportunity for change. Let’s do what we can do to impact the world one person at a time without compromising the life eternity of our own soul.