Sweet Confidance

A business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out.

Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him. "I can see that something is troubling you," he said. After listening to the executive's woes, the old man said, "I believe I can help you."

He asked the man his name, wrote out a check, and pushed it into his hand saying, "Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time."

Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

The business executive saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world!

"I can erase my money worries in an instant!" he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe. Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business, he thought.

With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.

Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed check. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the check and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.

"I'm so glad I caught him!" she cried. "I hope he hasn't been bothering you. He's always escaping from the rest home and telling people he's John D. Rockefeller."

And she led the old man away by the arm. The astonished executive just stood there, stunned.
All year long he'd been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him.

Suddenly, he realized that it wasn't the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.

Being Poor

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.


They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, 'How was the
trip?'

'It was great, Dad.'

'Did you see how poor people live?' the father asked.

'Oh yeah,' said the son.
'So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?' asked the father

The son answered:

'I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.'

The boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, 'Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.'

Isn't perspective a wonderful thing?

Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for everything we have, instead of worrying about what we don't have.

Appreciate every single thing you have, especially your friends!!!

Mistakes

This is a story about a famous research scientist who had made several very important medical breakthroughs. He was being interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked him why he thought he was able to be so much more creative than the average person. What set him so far apart from others ?

He responded that, in his opinion, it all came from an experience with his mother that occurred when he was about two years old. He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it fell, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor — a veritable sea of milk !

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing him, she said, “Robert, I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up ?” Indeed, he did. After a few minutes, his mother said, “You know, Robert, whenever you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up and restore everything to its proper order. So, how would you like to do that ? We could use a sponge, a towel, or a mop. Which do you prefer ?” He chose the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk.

His mother then said, “You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands. Let’s go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it.” The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he could carry it without dropping it.

What a wonderful lesson ! This renowned scientist then remarked that it was at that moment that he knew he didn’t need to be afraid to make mistakes. Instead, he learned that mistakes were just opportunities for learning something new, which is, after all, what scientific experiments are all about.

Even if the experiment “doesn’t work,” we usually learn something valuable from it. Make mistakes, you learn from them . . . . but never repeat mistakes.

Miracles

A little girl went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet.

She poured the change out on the floor and counted it carefully. Three times, even. The total had to be exactly perfect. No chance here for mistakes.

Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door.

She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention, but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good. Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!

"And what do you want?" the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages," he said without waiting for a reply to his question.

"Well, I want to talk to you about my brother," Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone. "He's really, really sick..and I want to buy a miracle."

"I beg your pardon?" said the pharmacist.

"His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now. So how much does a miracle cost?"

"We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry but I can't help you," the pharmacist said, softening a little

"Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs."

The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man. He stooped down and asked the little girl, "What kind of a miracle does your brother need?"

" I don't know," Tess replied with her eyes welling up. I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money."

"How much do you have?" asked the man from Chicago .

"One dollar and eleven cents," Tess answered barely audibly.

"And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to."

"Well, what a coincidence, " smiled the man. "A dollar and eleven cents---the exact price of a miracle for little brothers. "

He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said "Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the miracle you need."

That well dressed man was Dr Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neuro-surgery. The operation was completed free of charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.

Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place.

"That surgery," her Mom whispered. "was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?"

Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost...one dollar and eleven cents....plus the faith of a little child.

APJ Abdul Kalaam Speech

Mr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in  Hyderabad......A must read for every  
 Indian  
 
 Quote:  
 I have three visions for India. In 3000 years  of our history people  
 from   all   over the world have come and invaded us,  captured our lands,  
 conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards.  The Greeks, the Turks,  
 the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the  French, the Dutch, all of  
 them   came and looted us, took over what was ours.  Yet we have not done  
 this to any other nation. We have not conquered  anyone. We have not  
 grabbed their land, their culture, their  history and tried to enforce  our  
 way of life on them. Why? Because we respect  the freedom of others.  
 That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM.  I believe that India  
 got   its   first vision of this in 1857, When we started  the war of independence.  
 It   is   this freedom that we must protect and nurture  and build on. If we are  
 not free, no one will respect us.  
   
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For  fifty years we have been  
a developing nation. It is time we see  ourselves as a developed nation.  
We are among top 5 nations of the world in  terms of GDP. We have 10  
percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty  levels are falling. Our  
achievements are being globally recognized  today. Yet we lack the  
self-confidence  to see ourselv es as a developed nation,  self-reliant and self-assured.  Isn't this incorrect?  
 
I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to  the world. Because I  
believe  that unless India stands up to the world, no  one will respect us. Only  
strength respects strength. We must be strong  not only as a military  
power but also as an economic power. Both must  go hand-in-hand. My  
good fortune was to have worked with three  great minds. Dr. Vikram  
sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor  Satish Dhawan, who  
succeeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of  nuclear material. I was  lucky to have worked with all three of them  closely and consider this  
the  great opportunity of my life.  
 
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we  in India so embarrassed  
to recognize our own strength s, our  achievements? We are such a great  
nation. We have so many amazing success stories  but we refuse to  
acknowledge them. Why? We are the first in milk  production. We are  
number one in Remote sensing satellites. We are  the second largest  
producer of wheat. We are the second largest  producer of rice. Look at  
Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal  village into a  
self-sustaining,  self-driving unit. There are millions of such  achievements but our  media  is  only obsessed in the bad news and failures and  disasters. I was in Tel  Aviv  once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper.  It was the day after a  
lot  of attacks and bombardments and deaths had  taken place. The Hamas  
had struck. But the front page of the newspaper  had the picture of a  
Jewish gentleman who in five years had  transformed his desert land into  
an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring  picture that everyone  
woke  up to. The gory details of killings,  bombardments, deaths, were inside  
in  the newspaper, buried among other news. In  India we only read about  
death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we  so NEGATIVE?  
 
Another question: Why are we, as a nation so  obsessed with foreign  
things?  
We  want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We  want foreign technology.  
Why this obsession with everything imported. Do  we not realize that  
self-respect  comes with self-reliance?  I was in Hyderabad  giving this lecture,  
when a 14 year old girl asked Me for my  autograph. I asked her what her  
goal in life is: She replied: I want to live in  a developed India. For  
her, You  and I will have to build this developed India.  You must proclaim. India  
is  not an under-developed nation; it is a highly  developed nation. Allow  
me to come back with vengeance. Got 10 minutes  for your country?  
YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU  say that our laws are  
too  old. YOU say that the municipality does not  pick up the garbage. YOU  
say that the phones don't work, the railways  are a joke, the airline is  
the  worst in the world, mails never reach their  destination. YOU say that  
our  country has been fed to the dogs and is the  absolute pits. YOU say, say  
and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person  on his way to  
Singapore. Give Him a name - YOURS. Give him a  face - YOURS. YOU  
walk out of the airport and you are at your  International best. In  
Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on  the roads or eat in the  
stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground  Links as they are. You  
pay  $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard  Road (equivalent of Mahim  
Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM.  YOU comeback  
to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket  if you Have over stayed  
in  a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of  your status identity.  
In  Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU  wouldn't dare to eat in  
public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not  dare to go out without  
your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare  to buy an employee  
of the telephone exchange in London at 10  pounds (Rs.650) a month to,  
"see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed  to someone else." YOU  
would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kmph)  in Washington and  
then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala  main kaun hoon (Do you know  
who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two  bucks and get lost."  
YOU  wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere  other than the  
garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and  New Zealand. Why don't  
YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why  don't YOU use examination  
jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We  are still talking of the  
same  YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a  foreign system in other  
countries but cannot in your own. You who will  throw papers and  
cigarettes on the road the moment you touch  Indian ground. If you can  
be an involved and appreciative citizen in an  alien country why cannot  
you be the same here in India. Once in an  interview, the famous  
Ex-municipal  commissioner of Bombay Mr. Tinaikar had a point  to make.  

"Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets  to leave their affluent  
droppings all over the place," he said. "And  then the same people turn  
around to criticize and blame the authorities  for inefficiency and  
dirty  pavements. What do they expect the officers to  do? Go down with a  
broom every time their dog feels the pressure  in his bowels? In America  
every dog owner has to clean up after his pet  has done the job. Same in  
Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?"  He's right. We go to the  
polls  to choose a government and after that forfeit  all responsibility. We  
sit  back wanting to be pampered and expect the  government to do  
everything for us whilst our contribution is  totally negative. We  
expect  the government to clean up but we are not going  to stop chucking  
garbage all over the place nor are we going to  stop to pick a up a  
stray  piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We  expect the railways to  
provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to  learn the proper use  
of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air  India to provide the best  
of food and toiletries but we are not going to  stop pilfering at the  
least  opportunity. This applies even to the staff who  is known not to pass on  
the service to the public. When it comes to  burning social issues like  
those related to women, dowry, girl child and  others, we make loud  
drawing room protestations and continue to do  the reverse at home.  
Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to  change, how will it  
matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a  dowry." So who's going to   change the system? What does a system consist  of? Very conveniently  for us it consists of our neighbors, other  households, other cities,  other communities and the government. But definitely  not me and YOU. When   it comes to us actually making a positive  contribution to The system we   lock ourselves along with our families into a  safe cocoon and look into   the distance at countries far away and wait for a  Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a  majestic sweep of his hand. Or we   leave the country and run away. Like lazy  cowards hounded by our   fears we run to America to bask in their glory  and praise their system.  When New York becomes insecure we run to  England. When England   experiences unemployment, we take the next  flight out to the Gulf.  When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be  rescued and brought   home by the Indian government. Everybody is out  to abuse and rape  the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the  system. Our conscience is  mortgaged to money. Dear Indians, The article  is highly thought  inductive, calls for a Great deal of  introspection and pricks one's  conscience too....I am echoing J.F.Kennedy's  words to his fellow   Americans to relate to Indians..... "ASK WHAT  WE CAN DO FOR INDIA  AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT  AMERICA AND  OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"