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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

No one can make you serve customers well. That’s because great service is a choice. Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey.

He handed my friend a laminated card and said -’I'm Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’ Taken aback, Harvey read the card.

It said,”Wally’s Mission Statement – To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.”

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.’ My friend said jokingly, ‘No, I’d prefer a soft drink.’ Wally smiled and said, ‘No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.’ Almost stuttering, Harvey said, ‘I’ll take a Diet Coke.’ Handing him his drink, Wally said, ‘If you’d like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.’

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. ‘These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.’ And as if that weren’t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air-conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

‘Tell me, Wally,’ my amazed friend asked the driver, ‘have you always served customers like this?’

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. ‘No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called ‘You’ll See It When You Believe It’. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, ‘Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.’

‘That hit me right between the eyes,’ said Wally. ‘Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.’

‘I take it that has paid off for you,’ Harvey said. ‘It sure has,’ Wally replied. ‘My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.’

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. How about us? Smile, and the whole world smiles with you. As they say ‘The ball is in our hands’!

- Taken fron CTS Manuscript