Stories

Two men were sent to Africa on reporting if shoes can be a viable business.

One wrote back that, it will be a disaster, because here people doesn't wear shoes

The other wrote back that, it will be a huge success as they don't have any shoes yet.

A factory was broken down and millions of dollars were lose per second. They called a professional guy to fix the problem, he looked at the factory, marked a X on a electrical box, opened that box and just tightened a screw and everything started and gone back to normal. Manager asked how much was the cost. He replied 10,000 dollars. Manager said just for tighting a screw he is not going to pay 10000 dollars, give a breakdown of items used and give him the bill. Mechanic wrote something down on a piece of paper and gave it to manager and manager immedietely paid the mechanic. He wrote down 1 dollar for tightening the screw and 9999 dollars for knowing which screw to tight. Therefore work smart.

There's this small town that is limping through some tough times. Everybody is in debt, and everyone lives on credit. One day a wealthy tourist visits and enters the only hotel. He slaps down a $100 bill at the reception and goes to inspect the rooms.

The hotelier takes the $100 and rushes to pay off his debt to the butcher. The butcher uses the $100 to pay the pig farmer who clears his debt with the feed supplier. The supplier pays the jeweller from whom he bought a ring on credit. And the jeweller clears his dues at the hotel, where he had booked an exhibition hall. So the $100 ends up back on the hotel counter.

The tourist returns after inspecting the rooms, says he is dissatisfied, takes his $100 and leaves town. No one earned anything, but everyone is now debt-free and looks to the future with optimism. Magic!

Daniel Chambliss, an American sociologist, on how top performers feel about hard work:

"At the higher levels of competitive swimming, something like an inversion of attitude takes place. The very features of the sport that the 'C' swimmer finds unpleasant, the top level swimmer enjoys. What others see as boring - swimming back and forth over a black line for two hours, say - they find peaceful, even meditative, often challenging, or therapeutic. They enjoy hard practices, look forward to difficult competitions, try to set difficult goals. Coming into the 5:30 A.M. practices at Mission Viejo, many of the swimmers were lively, laughing, talking, enjoying themselves, perhaps appreciating the fact that most people would positively hate doing it. It is incorrect to believe that top athletes suffer great sacrifices to achieve their goals. Often, they don't see what they do as sacrificial at all. They like it."

AuthorMichael Lewison the stories we tell ourselves:

"As I've gotten older - I would say starting in my mid-to-late 20s - I could not help but notice the effect on people of the stories they told about themselves. If you listen to people, if you just sit and listen, you'll find that there are patterns in the way they talk about themselves.

There's the kind of person who is always the victim in any story that they tell. Always on the receiving end of some injustice. There's the person who's always kind of the hero of every story they tell. There's the smart person; they delivered the clever put down there.

There are lots of versions of this, and you've got to be very careful about how you tell these stories because it starts to become you. You are - in the way you craft your narrative - kind of crafting your character. And so I did at some point decide, "I am going to adopt self-consciously as my narrative, that I'm the happiest person anybody knows." And it is amazing how happy-inducing it is."

Blind men and an elephant

The parable of theblind men and an elephantoriginated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused. It is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and conceptualize what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the elephant based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

A parable from priest and therapistAnthony de Melloon the stories we tell ourselves:

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.

All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth - we're chickens."

So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."

Have you noticed that a Bronze medalist is generally more happy than a Silver medalist at the end of the game.

Its not incidental finding but proven fact in many research studies after studying reactions of silver medalists vs bronze medalists!

Ideally, a silver medalist should be more happy than the bronze. But, human mind doesn't work like mathematics.

This happens because of phenomenon of counterfactual thinking.

Silver medalist thinks, "Oh I couldn't win the gold medal." Bronze medalist thinks, "At least I got a medal."

Silver medal is won after losing, but Bronze medal is won after Winning.

This happens in our life also, we don't appreciate what we have but feel sad with what we don't have. Let's be grateful for our blessings, they far outweigh our problems if we start counting.

Author and journalistMitch Albomon time:

"Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can't. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out."

Source:The Time Keeper

A rare conversation between Krishna & Today's Arjun

Arjun - I can't find free time. Life has become hectic.

Krishna- Activity gets you busy. But productivity gets you free.

Arjun - Why has life become complicated now?

Krishna - Stop analyzing life... It makes it complicated. Just live it.

Arjun - Why are we then constantly unhappy?

Krishna - Worrying has become your habit. That's why you are not happy.

Arjun - Why do good people always suffer?

Krishna - Diamond cannot be polished without friction. Gold cannot be purified without fire. Good people go through trials, but don't suffer.With that experience their life becomes better, not bitter.

Arjun - You mean to say such experience is useful?

Krishna - Yes. In every term, Experience is a hard teacher. It gives the test first and the lessons later.

Arjun - Because of so many problems, we don't know where we are heading...

Krishna- If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look inside. Eyes provide sight. Heart provides the way.

Arjun - Does failure hurt more than moving in the right direction?

Krishna- Success is a measure as decided by others. Satisfaction is a measure as decided by you.

Arjun - In tough times, how do you stay motivated?

Krishna - Always look at how far you have come rather than how far you have to go. Always count your blessing, not what you are missing.

Arjun - What surprises you about people?

Krishna - When they suffer they ask, "why me?" When they prosper, they never ask "Why me?"

Arjun - How can I get the best out of life?

Krishna- Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.

Arjun - One last question. Sometimes I feel my prayers are not answered.

Krishna- There are no unanswered prayers. Keep the faith and drop the fear. Life is a mystery to solve, not a problem to resolve. Trust me. Life is wonderful if you know how to live.

Success has a nasty tendency to increase confidence more than ability. The longer it lasts, and the more it was tied to some degree of serendipity, the truer that becomes.

It's why getting rich and staying rich are different skills. And why most competitive advantages have a shelf life. Jason Zweig put it: "Being right is the enemy of staying right because it leads you to forget the way the world works."

It is of course possible to indefinitely maintain whatever skills brought you initial success. Lots of people and a handful of businesses have done it.

But when success is maintained for a long period the greatest skill often isn't technical, or even specific to your trade. It's identifying and resisting a few dangerous feelings that can nuzzle their way in after you've achieved any level of success.

1. The decline of paranoia that made you successful to begin with.
2. Finding other peoples' flaws more than you look for your own improvements.
3. The feeling of mastering a topic, particularly if that topic adapts and evolves.

Two Soldiers guarding a Bench

A new camp commander was appointed and while inspecting the place, he saw two soldiers guarding a bench.

He asked them why do they guard it.

"We don't know. The last commander told us to do so - and so we did. We think it might be some sort of regimental tradition!"

He searched for the last commander's phone number and called him to ask why did he want this particular bench to be guarded. "I don't know. The previous commander before me had it guarded, and I kept the tradition."

Going back another two commanders, he found a 92-year old retired General. "Excuse me, sir. I'm now the CO of the regiment which you commanded sixty years ago.

I've found that you had assigned two men to guard a bench. Could you please tell me more about the significance of this bench?"

The general was shocked: "What? Are they still guarding it? Is the paint still wet?"

This is how traditions are born.