The Fox & the Goat

A Fox fell into a well, and though it was not very deep, he found that he could not get out again. After he had been in the well a long time, a thirsty Goat came by. The Goat thought the Fox had gone down to drink, and so he asked if the water was good.

"The finest in the whole country," said the crafty Fox, "jump in and try it. There is more than enough for both of us."

The thirsty Goat immediately jumped in and began to drink. The Fox just as quickly jumped on the Goat's back and leaped from the tip of the Goat's horns out of the well.

The foolish Goat now saw what a plight he had got into, and begged the Fox to help him out. But the Fox was already on his way to the woods.

"If you had as much sense as you have beard, old fellow," he said as he ran, "you would have been more cautious about finding a way to get out again before you jumped in."

Look before you leap.

- Aesop's Fable

Balloons in a Room

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar.

Suddenly the speaker stopped and started giving each person a balloon.  Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen.  Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes.  Everyone was frantically searching for their name, pushing, colliding with each other, and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes, no one could find their own balloon.

Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it.  Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.  

The speaker began: This is exactly happening in our lives.  Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.  Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people.

Give them their happiness, you will get your own happiness.
And this is the purpose of human life.

- Author Unknown

The Story of Endurance

Already a celebrated polar explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton coordinated the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition with the goal of accomplishing the first crossing of the Antarctic continent, a feat he considered to be the last great polar journey of the "Heroic Age of Exploration."

In December 1914, Shackleton set sail with his 27-man crew, many of whom, it is said, had responded to the following recruitment notice: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success. —Ernest Shackleton."

Ice conditions were unusually harsh, and the wooden ship, which Shackleton had renamed Endurance after his family motto, Fortitudine Vincimus—"by endurance we conquer," became trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. For 10 months, the Endurance drifted, locked within the ice, until the pressure crushed the ship. With meager food, clothing and shelter, Shackleton and his men were stranded on the ice floes, where they camped for five months.

When they had drifted to the northern edge of the pack, encountering open leads of water, the men sailed the three small lifeboats they'd salvaged to a bleak crag called Elephant Island. They were on land for the first time in 497 days; however, it was uninhabited and, due to its distance from shipping lanes, provided no hope for rescue.

Recognizing the severity of the physical and mental strains on his men, Shackleton and five others immediately set out to take the crew's rescue into their own hands. In a 22-foot lifeboat named the James Caird, they accomplished the impossible, surviving a 17-day, 800-mile journey through the world's worst seas to South Georgia Island, where a whaling station was located.

The six men landed on an uninhabited part of the island, however, so their last hope was to cross 26 miles of mountains and glaciers, considered impassable, to reach the whaling station on the other side. Starved, frostbitten and wearing rags, Shackleton and two others made the trek and, in August 1916, 21 months after the initial departure of the Endurance, Shackleton himself returned to rescue the men on Elephant Island. Although they'd withstood the most incredible hardship and privation, not one member of the 28-man crew was lost.

You usually gain perspective on the other side of it...

That was certainly the case for Giuseppe, who is named for his father, and immigrant from Italy who had settled in California.  Because they lived in America, the family called him Joe.  But his father had his own nickname for him:  “good-for-nothing.”

Why did the elder Giuseppe call him that?  

Because Joe hated fishing.  That was seen as a terrible thing by the father, because he was a fisherman.  He loved the fishing business.  So did all of his sons - except for Good-for-Nothing Joe.  The boy didn't like being on the boat and the smell of fish made him sick. 

The boy offered to work in an office or to repair nets, but his father was simply disgusted with him and said he was good for nothing. 

The boy who was not afraid of hard work, deliver newspapers and shined shoes, giving the money to the family, but since it wasn't fishing the elder Giuseppe saw no value in it. 

Young Joe hated fishing but he loved baseball.  His older brother used to play sandlot ball and Joe used to follow them there.  And he was good - something of a legend among his playmates.  When Joe was sixteen he decided to drop out of school to become a baseball player.  By the time he was through with baseball, he was a legend.  He was christened as Giuseppe, but the nation came to know him as Joe DiMaggio, called the most complete baseball player of his generation.

And his father, the elder Giuseppe, what do you think about it?  Though he had wanted all of his sons to enter the family business, he was finally proud of his son and respected his accomplishments.  How could he not?  

Joe took the bad experiences and turned them into great experiences through the perspectives of learning.

Taken from:

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn

by. John Maxwell