A frog decided to
reach the top of the tree. All the frogs shouted, it's impossible , it's
impossible.
Still the frog
reaches the top.
How?
He was deaf.
And he thought
everyone was encouraging him to reach the top.
Moral:
Be deaf to negative
thoughts, if your aim is to reach your goals.
One night four college kids stayed out late, partying and having a good time. They paid no mind to the test they had scheduled for the next day and didn’t study. In the morning, they hatched a plan to get out of taking their test. They covered themselves with grease and dirt and went to the Dean’s office. Once there, they said they had been to a wedding the previous night and on the way back they got a flat tire and had to push the car back to campus.
The Dean listened to their tale of woe and thought. He offered them a retest three days later. They thanked him and accepted his offer that time.
When the test day arrived, they went to the Dean. The Dean put them all in separate rooms for the test. They were fine with this since they had all studied hard. Then they saw the test. It had 2 questions.
1) Your Name __________ (1 Points)
2) Which tire burst? __________ (99 Points)
Options – (a) Front Left (b) Front Right (c) Back Left (d) Back Right
The lesson: always be responsible and make wise decisions.
There was a farmer who sold a pound of butter to a baker. One day the baker decided to weigh the butter to see if he was getting the right amount, which he wasn’t. Angry about this, he took the farmer to court.
“Your Honor, long before the baker started buying butter from me, I have been buying a pound loaf of bread from him. Every day when the baker brings the bread, I put it on the scale and give him the same weight in butter. If anyone is to be blamed, it is the baker.”
There is a story told
of the great Polish pianist Ignace Paderewski. It perfectly highlights
the power of teamwork and our dependence on each other.
A mother, who wanted
to encourage her young son to continue playing the piano, bought tickets and
took her son to a performance of the great pianist Ignace Paderewski.
They took their seats
near the front of the concert hall the evening of the performance and eyed the
majestic Steinway waiting on stage for the great pianist to begin.
Soon the mother found
an old friend to talk to and didn’t notice that her boy had slipped away.
On the hour the
lights in the hall began to dim and the spotlights came on. It was at that
moment the little boy’s mother noticed him up on piano bench hammering out
“Chopsticks.”
She was shocked and
embarrassed, but it was too late to hurry up and get him as the Master of the
night appeared on the stage and quickly moved to the keyboard where her little
boy was focused in on his own masterpiece.
Paderewski gently
whispered to the boy, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.” Leaning over, he reached down
with his left hand and began filling in the bass part. Soon his right arm
reached around the boy and improvised a delightful enhanced melody.
Together, the old
master and the young beginning pianist mesmerized the audience with their
blended and beautiful music.
Teams kind of work
this way don’t they?
The novice to the
expert on great teams work together to accomplish extraordinary things. There
is little of what we do on teams that doesn’t require some type of help from
someone. We can’t succeed without the help of others. Whether that is depending
on someone to complete something for you, asking for a hand on something,
asking a question, or simply working together – we need each other on teams!
High in the Himalayan
mountains lived a wise old man.
Periodically, he
ventured down into the local village to entertain the villagers with his
special knowledge and talents. One of his skills was to “psychically” tell the
villagers the contents in their pockets, boxes, or minds.
A few young boys from
the village decided to play a joke on the wise old man and discredit his
special abilities.
One boy came up with
the idea to capture a bird and hide it in his hands. He knew of course, the
wise old man would know the object in his hands was a bird.
The boy devised a
plan.
Knowing the wise old
man would correctly state the object in his hands was a bird, the boy would ask
the old man if the bird was dead or alive. If the wise man said the bird was
alive, the boy would crush the bird in his hands, so that when he opened his
hands the bird would be dead; if the wise man said the bird was dead, the boy
would open his hands and let the bird fly free. So no matter what the old man
said, the boy would prove the old man a fraud.
The following week,
the wise old man came down from the mountain into the village. The boy quickly
caught a bird and cupping it out of sight in his hands, walked up to the wise
old man and asked, ” Old man, old man, what is it that I have in my hands?”
The wise old man said,
“You have a bird.” and he was right.
The boy then asked,
“Old man, old man tell me, is the bird alive or is it dead?”
The wise old man
looked at the boy and said, “The bird is as you choose it.”
And so it is in
everything we do. The power, your direction and your destiny are literally in
your hands and the hands of those you lead and/or serve with. Which path are
you going to take? It’s up to you, it’s always up to you.
Moral:
Teamwork is a choice that
every member of the team makes, including the leader.
A wise man who was
visiting River Ganges to take a bath found a group of family members on the
banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled and
asked. ‘Why do people shout in anger at each other?’
Disciples thought for
a while, one of them said, ‘Because we lose our calm, we shout.’ ‘But, why
should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well
tell him what you have to say in a soft manner.’ asked the man.
Disciples gave some
other answers but none satisfied the other disciples.
Finally he explained,
"When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To
cover that distance, they must shout to be able to hear each other."
"The angrier
they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that
great distance."
"What happens
when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, because
their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either non-existent
or very small…" The wise man continued, ‘When they love each other even
more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper ‘n they get even closer to
each other in their love."
Finally they even
need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how
close two people are when they love each other.’
He looked at his
disciples ‘and said. ‘So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant, Do
not say words that distance each other more, Or else there will come a day when
the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.’
