Right Effort At The Right Time

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”
So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference!!

The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer…… …….. ……… $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap……… …….. …….. $ 9, 998.00

The starfish story

There was once a wise old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. One day as he walked along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man, and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead was reaching down to the shore, picking up starfish, and very gently throwing them into the ocean.

“Good morning! What are you doing?” asked the wise man. The young man paused, looked up, and replied, “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The sun is rising, and the tide is out. And if I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that there are miles of beach and thousands of starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man, listening politely, bent down and picked up another starfish, throwing it into the sea past the breaking waves. Turning to the old man, he modestly replied,                                                   

“It made a difference for that one.”

Perseverance – The Power

A very poor Thai farmer learnt that his daughter wanted to marry the stonecutter of the village, very poor too.
Furious against his daughter, he went away to look for a husband for her. He visited the Sun, thinking that he was the most beautiful and the most powerful and that he would know how to protect his daughter against the harshness of life and misery.

He asked the Sun: “Oh, you, who are the most powerful, I ask you to marry my daughter and protect her. There is enough misery in our family.” The Sun thought and then said: “Nice man, if you look for the most powerful, I can not marry your daughter because the clouds are stronger than I, they can prevent me from shining on the world”.

Thoughtful, the man started again and visited the clouds. He said: “Oh you Cloud, who are the most powerful, I ask you to marry my daughter and protect her. There is enough misery in our family.” The cloud thought and then answered: “Man, if you look for the most powerful, I can not marry your daughter because the wind is stronger than I. It pushes me far away and scatters me”.

Thoughtful, the man started again and went to find the Wind. He said: “Oh you Wind, who are the most powerful, I ask you to marry my daughter and protect her. There is enough misery in our family.” The Wind thought and answered:” Man, if you look for the most powerful, I cannot marry your daughter because the Mountain is stronger than I. It is capable of stopping me.”

The man, desperate, went to find the Mountain and he said: “Oh you Mountain, who are the most powerful, I ask you to marry my daughter and protect her. There is enough misery in our family.” The Mountain thought and said: “Man, you who look for the most powerful, I cannot marry your daughter because below, quite below, there is a small stone-cutter who taps, taps, taps again, and reduces me to bits and pieces…”

And the girl married the stonecutter.

Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

- Taken from CTS Manuscript

Attitude is Everything

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, ‘Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut way all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.”

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’

“I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them. ‘I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

- Taken from CTS Manuscript

Collaboration

Many living things need each other to survive. If you are familiar with Colorado aspens trees, you may have noticed that it does not grow alone. Aspens are found in clusters, or groves. We’re told that the reason for this is because aspens can multiply from the roots. They send up lots of new shoots every year. These become saplings that grow quickly and make new baby aspens of their own. In some groves, all of the trees may actually be connected by their roots. It is as if they are one tree. Another tree, the giant California redwood, may tower 300 feet into the sky. We’ve seen pictures of tunnels carved into massive trunks wide enough to drive an automobile through. It seems they would require the deepest of roots to anchor them against strong winds. But instead their roots are actually shallow — they spread out wide in search of surface water. And they reach in all directions, intertwining with roots of other redwoods. Locked together in this way, all the trees support each other in wind and storms. Aspens and redwoods never stand alone. They need one another to survive.

People, too, are connected by a system of roots. We grow up in families that nurture and guide us. We learn early to make friends who support us in different ways. We are not meant to survive long without others. And like the giant redwoods, we do best when we hold onto one another and help each other to keep standing through life’s storms. We need others to hold us up, encourage us and to stand with us. When we are not doing well, it is often because we are going it alone. We don’t always let others in. We forget to ask for help; We keep our problems to ourself. And though we may not see it, others around me might be doing the same thing. It helps to remember how much like those trees we really are. It might be time to let someone else help hold you up for awhile. Or perhaps someone needs to hang on to you. Hope you will know the meaning of “We Need Each Other”

- Taken from CTS Manuscript

Innovation

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet.  He held up a sign which said: “I AM BLIND. PLEASE HELP !”

There were only a few coins in the hat. A man was walking by.  He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.  He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.  

He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by will see the new words.  Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, ”Were you the one who changed my sign this morning?  What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.” What he had written was: “Today is a Beautiful day and I cannot see it.”

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?  Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.

            Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story.

The first is, “Be thankful for what you have.  Someone else has less.  Help where you can.”

The second is,

“Be Creative.  Be Innovative. Think Differently. THERE IS ALWAYS A BETTER WAY!”

- Taken from CTS Manuscript

Everyone is unique….!

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was Ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself and I want to apologize to you. I have been able to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house. Because of my Flaws, you have to do all of this work and you don’t get full value from your efforts” the pot said. The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw. So I Planted flower seeds on your side of the path and every day while we walk back, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.   Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house? Moral: Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots but it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape. Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life. - taken from CTS Manuscript