“Yes, I would say that the sale of the Ludlow Bubbly involved a great deal of successful negotiation, and I can tell you the secret: when you set up your deals so that everybody wins, success is almost guaranteed.”
Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr. was talking to a younger colleague, and his grandson, nine-year-old Milton Trent, was listening for a long time before going to find his best friend, nine-year-old George Ludlow.
“I've figured out why we get grounded so often,” he said to George. “We gotta start offering out folks win-win situations in our projects.”
George considered this.
“I like it,” George said. “I mean, space travel can teach us more about Earth, too, and I thought we could incorporate recycling in there.”
“How?” Milton said.
“Well, I was reading that coming back through the atmosphere, it gets really hot,” George said, “so I was thinking, let's just take up all the spare metal as we go out, and then melt it on the way back in so that we can drop it off at the recycling place already ready to be made into whatever the people need.”
“That's a great idea!” Milton said. “And, if we eat enough beans to get us gas to get in orbit, this metal part will be easy! This can become a business. Pop-Pop is a billionaire, but we can become trillionaires on helping humanity with this!”
“I think I'm just going to ask Grandma to slip me a few extra cups of beans so we can get started tomorrow,” George said.
