A firm needed a researcher. Applicants were a scientist, an engineer and an economist. Each was given a stone, a piece of string and a stopwatch and told to determine a certain building’s height. The scientist went to the rooftop, tied the stone to the string and lowered it to the ground. Then he swung it, timing each swing with the watch. With this pendulum, he estimated the height at 200 feet, give or take 12 inches.

The engineer threw away the string, dropped the stone from the roof, timing its fall with the watch. Applying the laws of gravity, he estimated the height at 200 feet, give or take six inches.

The economist, ignoring the string and stone, entered the building but soon returned to report the height at exactly 200 feet. How did he know? He gave the janitor the watch in exchange for the building plans. He got the job.

Of all the skills I admire, being resourceful is among the most important. I don’t want to be surrounded by ordinary thinkers. Rather, I want to be with people who, if they don’t know an answer, know how to get it. Or if we have a problem, know how to solve it.

Resourceful people think outside the box and visualize all the possible ways to achieve things. They are scrappy, inventive and driven to find a way to get what they need and want.

As one of my very favorite authors, Napoleon Hill, said: “A resourceful person will always make the opportunity fit his or her needs.”

Here are some characteristics I look for when determining a person’s resourcefulness:

-- Open-mindedness. Know what is and isn’t possible. Embrace different possibilities, people and views to broaden your perspective. Expand your comfort zone by trying different things.

-- Self-confidence. Believe that you can handle any problem you encounter and that there is a solution to it. Visualize yourself overcoming any obstacle.

-- Innovation. Resourcefulness is about optimizing what you have to work with. A fun example is the old TV show “MacGyver,” starring Richard Dean Anderson. There wasn’t any situation that MacGyver couldn’t handle, any problem he couldn’t fix, be it with his Swiss Army knife, a roll of duct tape or both. Thinking is the hardest, most valuable task any person can perform.

-- Adaptability. Don’t box yourself into doing things a certain way. Experiment.

-- Persistence. Try many different things until you succeed. Never give up. Many things can get in your way, but don’t let them until you get what you want or achieve your goal. Practice until you get it right.

-- Optimistic. If you have the right attitude, the solution is easier to find. You must believe that you can get through any issue and come out better and stronger.

All these things are crucial in anticipating problems and being prepared. I understand that you can’t predict everything, but I’m a big believer in asking what can go wrong in any situation.

Ernest Hemingway wrote, “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

A story shared by Vladimir Karapetoff provides a perfect illustration. When St. Petersburg was laid out in the early 18th century, many large rocks had to be removed. One especially large piece of granite was lying in the way of a main road. Bids for its removal submitted by contractors were exorbitantly high because there were no mechanical means for removal, no hard steel for drilling or cracking the stone and no explosives except inferior black powder.

Lo and behold, an insignificant-looking peasant appeared and offered to remove the boulder for a fraction of the other bids. Since the government ran no risks, he was authorized to try his luck.

He assembled many other peasants with spades and timbers, and they began digging a deep hole next to the rock. The rock was propped up to prevent its rolling into the hole. When the hole was deep enough, they removed the props and the boulder dropped into the hole, where it rests to this day below the street level. The rock was covered with dirt, and the rest of the earth was carted away. Since he could not remove the rock above the ground, he put it underground.

Mackay’s Moral: Mine your natural resources for uncommon results.

Anytime you feel like quitting throughout your career, perhaps you’ll remember this story of one of our people:

When he was born, he was given the nickname “Sparky.” School was very difficult for Sparky, and he failed eighth grade. He also flunked several subjects in high school, the same high school that I attended a few years later.

He wasn’t very good in sports, either. He did make the school’s golf team, but he lost the most important match of the season and the consolation match too. Throughout his youth, Sparky was awkward. He felt he was a loser and other kids avoided him.

One thing that was important to him, however, was his artwork. He spent most of his free time drawing. He offered sketches to the high school yearbook, but they were rejected. Later on, he submitted his cartoons to many publications and studios, including Disney, and he was turned down by every single one.

Sparky was drafted into World War II, later stating, “The Army taught me all I needed to know about loneliness.” After the war, he dated a woman who rejected his marriage proposal and then married another man the following year.

He decided to tell his life story in cartoons and was picked up by United Feature Syndicate in 1950, but they forced him to rename his comic strip from “Li’l Folks” to “Peanuts.” Sparky did not like the idea, but he was ecstatic that his comics were finally getting published.

"Peanuts" would go on to become a cultural phenomenon because people could relate to the lovable loser main character, Charlie Brown, who reminded people of their own embarrassing and painful moments. But he never gave up. Nor did Charles Schulz.

We all face discouragement and rejection in our lives, but we have a choice in how we handle it. You can’t avoid rejection. The sooner you find out that rejection is a part of life, the better off you will be. It’s how you deal with it that sets you apart.

A prime example comes from Charlie Brown himself. In the first panel of a classic strip, he tells his buddy, “I learned something in school today. I signed up for folk guitar, computer programming, stained glass, art, shoemaking and a natural foods workshop.

“Instead, I got spelling, history, arithmetic, and two study periods.”

The next panel shows Charlie’s pal asking, “So, what did you learn?”

In his infinite wisdom, Charlie replies, “I learned that what you sign up for in life, and what you get, are two different things.”

In my book, “We Got Fired! ... and It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us,” I featured businesswoman and author Deborah Rosado Shaw, who rose from poverty to create a multimillion-dollar umbrella-making business, Umbrellas Plus.

The secret of her success? As she described in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article some years ago, she learned to play beyond the rules.

Refused admission to law school 11 times, she went into sales, which led to the creation of her company. She offers the following advice on getting ahead:

-- Be willing to sacrifice.

-- Get used to fear.

-- Know where you’re going.

-- Enlist the help of a business coach or mentor.

-- Be creative about what you want.

-- Make noise.

-- Trade what’s predictable for what’s possible.

I’ve dealt with plenty of rejection over the course of my career, and I always offer the same advice. I usually focus on sales rejection, which constitutes most of my dealings.

First, don’t take it personally. You must remember that the person isn’t rejecting you; they’re rejecting what you’re selling. Always leave the door open. I always thank the person I’m calling on because they took valuable time out of their day to meet or talk with me. I’m grateful because we never know if our paths might cross again.

My absolute biggest rule on rejection is to never say no for the other person. Don’t anticipate rejection because then you won’t even try, let alone give your best effort. If you don’t believe in what you are selling, how can you expect a prospect to buy it?

I’m careful to analyze every rejection. I always want to know why people say no, and I’m not afraid to ask.

It’s helpful to remember past achievements. Look back to your past successes. Never pass up an opportunity to hone your skills and be ready for better times.

Mackay’s Moral: As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I was being rejected from something good, I was being re-directed to something better.

The great American film maker Cecil B. DeMille said, “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.”

As I’ve said in the past, I always try to start each day with a healthy dose of vitamin C -- creativity. I believe that creative ideas and actions are what make life interesting.

More important than drugs and vitamins are having a thick skin and being unfazed by criticism. Even the most unstoppable ideas in history have been criticized. Here are some of the more memorable ones.

“Mr. Bell, please remove that silly toy from my office. There is no room in the market for a telephone.”

“Watches with no hands? You’re crazy.”

“You can’t put a crocodile on a shirt to replace the pocket. Nobody will buy them.”

“You want to sell me a chicken recipe? You’ll never get this idea off the ground, Colonel Sanders.”

“I’m sorry, but your ‘Gone With the Wind’ manuscript will have little public appeal.”

“How dumb do you think I am? You can’t put music on a roll of tape.”

The history books are full of people who realized that creativity begins with destroying perceived limitations and proving the skeptics wrong.

Advertising genius Alex Osborn integrated creativity into everything he did. Considered the “father of brainstorming” -- a term he helped coin in 1939 -- Osborn devoted his life to promoting and teaching creative thinking. The fiercest enemy of creativity, he believed, was criticism.

Creativity doesn’t run in a straight line. It can run into roadblocks. They’re not always obvious. You may have to go around them or over them or tunnel beneath them. But first you must recognize them. Among the obstacles you need to steer clear of:

-- Excessive rationality. The creative process doesn’t always follow logical rules. It often involves looking for connections among unrelated (and sometimes contradictory) objects, goals, processes or ideas. Excuse yourself of the need to make sense all the time, and let your intuition guide you. When you stick to conventional techniques, you cannot expect unconventional results.

-- Obsession with size. A big idea is sometimes the sum of a lot of smaller ideas. Facebook began with a few hundred students at Harvard. Now it dominates the internet in most of the world. Don’t reject a concept or approach because it doesn’t feel like an instant home run. Giant leaps usually begin with baby steps.

-- Need to be productive. You can’t always predict where an idea will lead, so don’t rule anything out, even if it doesn’t seem immediately practical. You may be able to adapt it, or it may become useful in the future when your situation has changed.

-- Fear of (fill in the blank). If you’re hesitant, ask what you’re afraid of. Failure? Success? Drawing attention to yourself? Criticism? Creativity always involves an element of risk. You may not be able to make it disappear, but your fear will lose much of its power if you confront it directly.

One of the most prolific periods of creativity in history occurred during the Renaissance from the 14th to 17th centuries in Europe. According to a Huffington Post article by Anurag Harsh, people realized creativity was a talent that could be cultivated.

Among his points, he said Renaissance thinkers were contrarian. They didn’t settle for the status quo; they challenged conventional wisdom and took new approaches to the world.

In addition, they were nonconformists. They wanted to revolutionize the culture in technology, the arts and philosophy. They dismissed the tried and true in favor of novel ideas.

Finally, he said that instead of limiting themselves to a single area of knowledge, they connected different ways of thinking that led to advances in science, art and many other areas.

Consider Leonardo da Vinci, the ultimate symbol of the Renaissance, who was interested in invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history and cartography.

You may never paint a "Mona Lisa" or draw the "Vitruvian Man," but what inspiration his creativity offers! Start your day with a healthy dose of vitamin C and watch what happens!

Mackay’s Moral: Creativity, not necessity, is the true mother of invention.