The Crippled Fox

A man was walking through a forest when he saw a crippled fox. “I wonder how it manages to feed itself?” He thought. 

At that moment, a tiger approached, carrying its prey in its mouth. The tiger ate its fill and left what remained for the fox. 

“If God helps the fox, he will help me too,”  The man thought. He went back home, shut himself up in his house and waited for the Heavens to bring him food. 

Nothing happened. 

He lay there in bed waiting for God to provide for him as he had for the fox, but instead just starved.  

Just when he was becoming almost too weak to go out and work, an angel appeared. 

“Why did you decide to imitate the crippled fox?” asked the angel. “God has given you gifts and abilities to contribute to the world and make a living, while looking after the crippled foxes of the world.  Get out of bed, pick up your tools and follow the way of the tiger!” 

I only have one question today.  Which one are you, the fox or the tiger?

How the Path Was Made

One day, a calf needed to cross an old forest in order to return to its pasture.

Being an irrational animal, it forged out a tortuous path full of bends, up and down hills.

The next day, a dog came by following the scent and used the same path to cross the forest.

Next it was a sheep’s turn, the head of a flock which, upon finding the opening, led its companions through it.

Later, men began using the path.  They entered the forest, turned to the right, to the left, bent down, deviating obstacles, complaining and cursing – and quite rightly so. But they did nothing to create a different alternative.

After so much use, in the end, the path became a trail along which poor animals toiled under heavy loads, being forced to go three hours to cover a distance which would normally take thirty minutes, had no one chosen to follow the route opened up by the calf.

Many years passed and the trail became the main road of a village, and later the main avenue of a town. Everyone complained about the traffic, because the route it took was the worst possible one.

Meanwhile, the old and wise forest laughed, at seeing how men tend to blindly follow the way already open, without ever asking whether it really is the best choice.

Keep the F

I came across a story recently about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.

That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.

He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, ‘See me after class.’

The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, ‘Why did I receive an F?’

The teacher said, “This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources. Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees. There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, ‘If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.”

The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, ‘Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.’ “Finally, after sitting with it for a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all.

He stated, “You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.”

That boy (his name is Monty) is now grown up and he says,  “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.” He adds, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.” When the teacher was leaving, he said, “Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.”

If you’re a parent, teacher or anyone else who is in a position to influence kids, don’t be a “dream stealer.”  Encourage the next generation to rise up and follow their dreams.

To everyone else, don’t listen to those who would say that your dreams are unrealistic.  Write them down and begin the process of turning your dreams into reality.

Five Blind Men and an Elephant

Once upon a time, five blind men came upon an elephant.

“What is this?” asked the first one, who had run head first into its side.

“It’s an elephant.” said the elephant’s keeper, who was sitting on a stool, cleaning the elephant’s harness.

“Wow, so this is an Elephant!  I’ve always wondered what Elephants are like.” said the man, running his hands as far as he could reach up and down the elephant’s side. “Why, it’s just like a wall, a large, warm wall!”

“What do you mean, a wall?” said the second man, wrapping his arms around the elephant’s leg. “This is nothing like a wall. You can’t reach around a wall! This is more like a pillar. Yeah, that’s it, an elephant is exactly like a pillar!”

“A pillar? Strange kind of pillar!” said the third man, stroking the elephant’s trunk.  “It’s too thin, for one thing, and it’s too flexible for another. If you think this is a pillar, I don’t want to go to your house!  This is more like a snake.  See, it’s wrapping around my arm.  An elephant is just like a snake!”

“Snakes don’t have hair!” said the fourth man in disgust, pulling the elephant’s tail. “You are closer than the others, but I’m surprised that you missed the hair. This isn’t a snake, it’s a rope.  Elephants are exactly like ropes.”

“I don’t know what you guys are on!” the fifth man cried, waving the elephant’s ear back and forth. “It’s as large as a wall, all right, but thin as a leaf, and no more flexible than any piece of cloth this size should be. I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, but no one except a complete idiot could mistake an elephant for anything except a sail!”

And as the elephant moved on, they stumbled along down the road, arguing more vehemently  as they went, each sure that he, and he alone, was right and all the others were wrong.  Whereas the truth is that an elephant is… an elephant.

How many times do we argue about the details of things when back to get a bigger picture would save a lot of debate?

Great leaders are able to bring people with diverse perspectives and personalities together to help them understand that although they may only experience a certain part of the elephant, it’s still an elephant.

The next time you debate with someone at your work, check yourself to make sure that you’re not at the trunk end when your peer is holding the tail.

The Animals’ School

Once upon a time, the animals decided that they should do something meaningful to meet the problems of the new world, so they organised a school.

They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swimming and flying.  To make it easier to administer, all of the animals took all of the subjects.

The duck was excellent at swimming.  In fact, he was better than his instructor.  However, he made only passing marks in flying and was very poor at running.  Since he was so slow in running, he had to drop his swimming class and do extra running.  This caused his webbed feet to become badly worn, meaning that he dropped to an average mark in swimming.  Fortunately, “average” was acceptable, therefore nobody worried about it – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because he had so much makeup work to do in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher insisted that he start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down.  He developed cramps from overexertion, so he ended up with a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was a real problem student and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist.  In climbing class, he beat all of the others to the top, but insisted on using his own way of getting there!

The principle here is that we each have our own strengths and need to be working hard to maximise them, not handicap our potential by becoming good at something that isn’t natural for us.

If you’re a leader reading this, think about who the ducks, rabbits, squirrels and eagles are in your organisation are and how you can best use their unique skills and strengths rather than trying to get the same level of average performance out of all of them.