Forwarded Messages

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. The man said, 'I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.'

Preparation    Look, I pray on Sunday, It's what you're supposed to do on church day," Kevin stated. "On Monday, it's business. Don't mess up my life asking me to mix the two." All I wanted was for him to consider introducing his employees to Faith Notes. Frankly his words stunned me. Somewhere in his past, Kevin, like many of us, began compartmentalizing his life, his identity. Each compartment has shaped its own version of Kevin. He has become a handful of different people: a churchman, a family man, a businessman, a networker, a public and a private guy. His calendar organizes it all and keeps his identities separate. Some would say he is gifted at it, but the real Kevin, the original Kevin, has gotten lost somewhere among all the copies. As Kevin walked away, he turned and said, "I'm doing pretty well keeping everything separate and that's the way I like it."

A partially deaf boy trudged into his home one day after school. In his hand, he carried a note. It was a note from school officials, suggesting that his parents remove him from school. According to those wise officials, this boy was "too stupid to learn." Upon reading the note, the boy's mother vowed, "My son Tom isn't stupid to learn. I'll teach him myself." And that is exactly what she did. Many years later when Tom died, many Americans paid tribute to him by turning off their lights for one full minute. This was a fitting tribute, for Tom Edison invented the light bulb - along with motion pictures and the phonograph. In all, he was credited with more than a thousand patents.

 A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old Gentleman's' yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had  said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.' --- Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted. A little girl said, 'I know all about adoption, I was adopted.'  'What does it mean to be adopted?', asked another child. 'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!' --- On my way home one day, I stopped to watch a Little League baseball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first- ba...

The person you truly are is the person who emerges when no one is looking... Marty Logan was a skilled and loyal carpenter who worked almost two decades for a successful contractor. One day, the contractor called Marty into his office and said, "I'm putting you in charge of the next house we build. I want you to order all the materials and oversee the job from the ground up."

In January 2000, leaders in Charlotte , North Carolina , invited their favorite son, Billy Graham, to a luncheon in his honor. Billy initially hesitated to accept the invitation because he struggled with Parkinson's disease. But the Charlotte leaders said, "We don't expect a major address. Just come and let us honor you." So he agreed. After wonderful things were said about him, Dr. Graham stepped to the rostrum, looked at the crowd, and said, "I'm reminded today of Albert Einstein, the great physicist who this month has been honored by Time Magazine as the 'Man of the Century.'

If you are a boss or hope to be one someday, consider these suggestions for managers, written from an employee's viewpoint: - My mind doesn't hold the same information, the same experience, that yours does. As you instruct me, please go slowly so that I can keep up with you. - My eveys have not seen the business world as yours have. Let me explore it some on my own. Please don't restrict me unnecessarily.