Skip to main content

Short Motivational Stories

The Elephant Rope As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.         He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”         The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.         Like the elephants, how many of us g...

Inspirational Story - " Positive Thinking "

 Positive Thinking


Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”


        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 away 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 a 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 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.


        By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz


      

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Father,Son And a Donkey

Banwarilal is a simple soul who believes whatever he is told.  The village boys are aware of this and exploit his simplicity for a few laughs. One day, Banwarilal is on his way to the market with his son to sell their donkey. He comes across some village boys out to have fun. Seeing the father and son duo walking with the donkey, they first suggest that the son ride on the donkey and save the effort. The son is put on the donkey’s back. The boys then ridicule the boy for riding while the father walks. The father and son switch places. The father rides while the son walks. The boys then taunt the father for making the poor son walk and advise the duo to ride the donkey together. Thinking it a good idea they comply. The poor donkey collapses from exhaustion.  The boys then express their disgust at the duo for ill-treating the donkey and advice that they take the donkey to an animal doctor. The duo again follows the advice. On the way, they co...

" Why Should I Feel Bad " - A Love Story

Once, there was this guy, who was in love with a girl. She wasn’t the most beautiful and gorgeous but for him, she was everything. He used to dream about her, about spending the rest of life with her. His friends told him, “why do you dream so much about her, when you don’t even know if she loves you or not?  First tell her your feelings, and get to know if she likes you or not”. He felt that was the right way.   The girl knew from the beginning, that this guy loves her.   One day when he proposed, she rejected him.  His friends thought he would take alcohol, drugs etc and ruin his life.  To their surprise, he was not depressed. When they asked him how was it that he is not sad,  he replied, “‘why should I feel bad? I lost one who never loved me and she lost the one who really loved and cared for her.” Moral:  True Love is Hard to Get.  Love is all about giving to other person without greed of gaining anything in return, i...

Building Bridges

Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery, and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart. It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally, it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence. One morning there was a knock on John's door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter's toolbox. "I'm looking for a few days work," he said. "Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there. Could I help you?" "Yes," said the older brother. "I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That's my neighbor, in fact, it's my younger brother. Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have don...