Sharpening skills - Key to success

Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. His salary was really good and so were the working conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.

His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to fell the trees. The first day, the woodcutter brought down 15 trees.

" Congratulations," the boss said. " Carry on with your work!"

Highly motivated by the words of his boss, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he only could bring 10 trees down. The third day he tried even harder, but he was only able to bring down 7 trees.

Day after day he was bringing lesser number of trees down.

" I must be losing my strength", the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.

" When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" the boss asked.
" Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees..."

That's right. Most of us NEVER update our skills. We think that whatever we have learned is very much enough. But good is not good when better is expected. Sharpening our skills from time to time is the key to succes

Ant story

One morning I wasted nearly an hour watching a tiny ant carry a huge feather cross my back terrace. Several times it was confronted by obstacles in its path and after a momentary pause it would make the necessary detour.

At one point the ant had to negotiate a crack in the concrete about 10mm wide. After brief contemplation the ant laid the feather over the crack, walked across it and picked up the feather on the other side then continued on its way.

I was fascinated by the ingenuity of this ant, one of Allah's smallest creatures. It served to reinforce the miracle of creation. Here was a minute insect, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to reason, explore, discover and overcome. But this ant, like the two-legged co-residents of this planet, also shares human failings.

After some time the ant finally reached its destination - a flower bed at the end of the terrace and a small hole that was the entrance to its underground home. And it was here that the ant finally met its match. How could that large feather possibly fit down small hole?

Of course it couldn't. So the ant, after all this trouble and exercising great ingenuity, overcoming problems all along the way, just abandoned the feather and went home.

The ant had not thought the problem through before it began its epic journey and in the end the feather was nothing more than a burden.

Isn't our life like that?

We worry about our family; we worry about money or the lack of it, we worry about work, about where we live, about all sorts of things. These are all burdens - the things we pick up along life's path and lug them around the obstacles and over the crevasses that life will bring, only to find that at the destination they are useless and we can't take them with US......


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Self confidence

A businessman 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 cheque, 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 cheque 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 cheque 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 cheque. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the cheque 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.

Only place without challenges

Once a there lived a busy Doctor called Dr. Sam. He was busy not because of his skill as a Doctor but due to his talent in handling his patience. It was about 10:30 pm when Dr. Sam was about to leave his clinic. Suddenly a patient came running to the doctor’s room. Dr. Sam asked him what was his problem? The patient said - “Dr. Sam, I have a great regard for you. Now all I require is a straight forward answer for my question”. “What is your question?” asked Dr. Sam. He replied - “I wanted to know whether there is any place on earth where there are no challenges?” Dr. Sam asked him why he was asking it. The patient replied that he wanted to be in that place.
Dr. Sam said that it was too late and asked him to come to his house early in the morning by 7:00 am and he promised him that he would take him to the place. The patient went home and was wondering where the doctor would be taking him, the next day. He never slept for the night and was waiting for the sunrise. Then he visited the doctor’s residence by 7:00 am, where the doctor was waiting for him. Then both of them walked down to the nearest taxi stand and took a taxi.
It took about one hour of drive from the place and they reached the place. It was a big area with a high-raised walls and the entrance had a big gate. The patient was wondering and started thinking whether the Dr. Sam had gone mad or what? Yes, Dr. Sam had brought the patient to the cemetery. And Dr.Sam got down from the taxi and said - “from my experience, this is the only place without any challenges”.

Moral of the Story:

Overcoming Challenges are part of the life.
Challenges make us strong and stable.
It is only when we have Challenges, we are Alive.

Impact of beautiful writing

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help." There were only a few coins in the hat.



A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.





Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"



The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."
What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?




Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.


Great men say, "Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness.... In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience."

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling...
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!