It is said that Thomas Edison tried three thousand different materials in search of the perfect material for the filament of his light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, “All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing.”
Edison replied very confidently, “Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.”
Author: The Storyteller
Many years ago, I visited Thailand – a wonderful country. The people are so friendly, the prices are reasonable, and the weather is great.
One evening I went to a little outdoor market where a small boy was selling t-shirts. He couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old, but he was a fine little salesman. He was jabbering away in Thai to a couple of folks when I arrived and they both bought a t-shirt. Then there was a Japanese guy in front of me, and the little boy switched to Japanese – not good Japanese by any means, but he was able to say a few words – enough to get another sale.
When I came up, he saw my white face and he immediately switched into English.
“Hello Sir, how are you Sir. You like t-shirts, Sir?”
And within just a couple more minutes, he had sold me five t-shirts and given me this story and lesson free.
He was flexible – he could jump from one language to another to match the customer, and even if he only knew a few words, he was flexible enough to use his gestures to get the rest of the meaning across. That little kid could change his behavior to be flexible to sell just about anyone!
You could see that this little guy was thinking about how his current goal fit into the rest of his life. Selling a t-shirt meant getting money and that was a very good thing. Sure, he made mistakes in his communication, but he didn’t lose anything by making mistakes. In fact, it was an opportunity to improve his language skills, too!
He was in a good state. He clearly enjoyed selling those t-shirts and his face was wearing a beautiful smile throughout. Sure it was work – but he enjoyed it – he was relaxed and focused and in a good state.
And he had a very clear outcome had a clear goal of what he wanted – he wanted to sell t-shirts, as many t-shirts as possible and that outcome was in the front of his mind at all times.
The little kid was also paying very close attention to the reactions of his customers and potential customers. When the Japanese man looked away for a moment, that kid noticed and made sure that he changed his behavior to get his attention back again. And he seemed able to look in all directions for potential customers and somehow draw them in to his stand.
Finally, that kid was a do-er. He had decided that he wanted to sell t-shirts, and that is exactly what he was going to do, so he took the appropriate actions to sell those t-shirts.
©Copyright 2012 by Brian Cullen
Two old mountaineering friends, Simpson and Yates decided to climb a dangerous mountain together.
On the fourth day the pair were stuck in a very bad situation. They had run out of food, there was a terrible snow storm and many miles from the nearest house. They were tied together by a rope but suddenly Simpson slipped and fell off the side of the mountain. Simpson could not climb up the rope, Yates could not pull him back up, and the cliff was too high for Simpson to be lowered down. They remained in this position in the powerful storm for some time, until it was obvious that the snow around Yates was about to give out. Because the pair were tied together, they would both be pulled to their deaths. Yates had little choice but to cut the rope.
When Yates cut the rope, Simpson plummeted down the cliff and into a deep crevasse. Exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, Yates dug himself a snow cave to wait out the storm. The next day, Yates carried on descending the mountain by himself. When he reached the crevasse he called for Simpson and hearing no reply, Yates was forced to assume that he had died and so continued down the mountain alone.
Simpson, however, was still alive. He had survived the 150-foot fall despite his broken leg, and had landed on a small ledge inside the crevasse. When Simpson regained consciousness,he realized that he had to save himself. Simpson spent three days without food and water, crawling and hopping the five miles back to their base camp. Exhausted and almost completely delirious he reached their tents only a few hours before Yates planned to return to civilization.
Simpson’s survival is widely regarded by mountaineers as amongst the most amazing pieces of mountaineering lore. He did it by knowing his overall goal but focussing on each stone ahead of him and just getting to that one. When he reached that stone he would focus on the next one ahead of him and slowly but surely he got home.
The farmer was excited when an eagle nested his property and then devastated when he found the eagle had been shot. He climbed the tree to look at the nest and saw it contained a single egg. He carried it carefully down the tree, took it back to his barn, and slipped it under a brooding hen.
The eaglet eventually hatched along with the other eggs that were lain under the hen. It was raised with the chickens and thought itself to be nothing but an unusual chicken. It spent its time scratching the ground for seeds, searching for worms, and clucking senselessly.
One day a dark, ominous shadow fell across the barnyard. In terror the eagle fled for shelter with its companions. Looking up, the eagle saw the outstretched wings of a huge bird effortlessly carrying itself in graceful circles as it glided on currents of warm air. Entranced by the majesty of such a huge and powerful bird, it turned to the chicken beside it and asked, “What’s that?” “That,” said his companion, “is the king of birds. Its realm is the sky. It controls the air. It is called an eagle. We are chickens. We belong on the ground.”
The eagle looked up at the bird and saw their similarities with himself. It looked at the chickens and, for the first time, saw how different he was from them. The eagle now had a choice. It could live and die as a chicken in the backyard coop or it could spread its wings and soar into the air with the majesty, skill, and power of the bird above.
A friend of the author’s was going to a party where he would be meeting his wife’s coworkers from her new job for the first time. He felt anxious as the time for the party grew near, and wondered whether they would like him or not. He rehearsed various scenarios in his mind in which he tried in different ways to impress them. He grew more and more tense.
But on the way to the party, the man came up with a radically different approach, one which caused all of his anxiety to melt completely away. Find out what he decided to do, and how it all turned out, in this true story that could serve as inspiration for us all.
He decided that, instead of trying to impress anyone, he would spend the evening simply listening to them and summarizing what they had just said. At the party, he spent the evening listening carefully to everyone, responding with phrases like, “I understand what you’re saying, you feel strongly that. . .” and “Let me see if I understand what you mean. . .” He also avoided voicing his own opinions, even though at times it meant biting his tongue to keep from doing so.
To his amazement, he discovered that no one noticed or remarked on the fact that he was just listening. Each person he talked to during the evening seemed content to be listened to without interruption. On the way home, his wife (whom he had not told about the experiment) told him that a number of people had made a point of telling her what a remarkable person he was. The word “charismatic” was used by one person to describe him, while another said he was one of the most “articulate” people she had ever met.
Could it be that charisma and brilliance have as much to do with how we listen as what we say? Imagine a world where people actually listen to one another, rather than just waiting for the other people to stop talking so they can give their opinion.
A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for 40 days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.
Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.
The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.
“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something”, said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill”.
The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.
“Well”, asked the wise man, “Did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”
The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.
“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world”, said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house”.
Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.
“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.
“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you”, said the wisest of wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.
The Smell of Soup and the Sound of Money
A beggar was given a piece of bread, but nothing to put on it. Hoping to get something to go with his bread, he went to a nearby inn and asked for a handout. The innkeeper turned him away with nothing, but the beggar sneaked into the kitchen where he saw a large pot of soup cooking over the fire. He held his piece of bread over the steaming pot, hoping to thus capture a bit of flavor from the good-smelling vapor.
Suddenly the innkeeper seized him by the arm and accused him of stealing soup.
“I took no soup,” said the beggar. “I was only smelling the vapor.”
“Then you must pay for the smell,” answered the innkeeper.
The poor beggar had no money, so the angry innkeeper dragged him before the qadi.
Now Nasreddin Hodja was at that time serving as qadi, and he heard the innkeeper’s complaint and the beggar’s explanation.
“So you demand payment for the smell of your soup?” summarized the Hodja after the hearing.
“Yes!” insisted the innkeeper.
“Then I myself will pay you,” said the Hodja, “and I will pay for the smell of your soup with the sound of money.”
Thus saying, the Hodja drew two coins from his pocket, rang them together loudly, put them back into his pocket, and sent the beggar and the innkeeper each on his own way.
People used to believe that it was impossible for a person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. For decades, people tried to achieve this record, but experts agreed that it was impossible. Then in 1954, Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. So, he beat what people believed was impossible by 0.6 seconds.
But what is really interesting is that just 46 days later, Bannister’s record was broken by a man called Landy who took an additional amazing 1.5 seconds off the record and achieved a time of 3 min 57.9 seconds. Then later in the same year, Bannister again smashed that record by running a mile in 3 min 43.8 seconds.
Within a few years, hundreds of other runners had also broken the previously impossible 4 minute mile limit and changed people’s beliefs for ever.
Bannister himself left us a lovely quotation.
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or a gazelle–when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
Incidentally, and interestingly for NLP folk, Bannister went on to become a neurologist for 40 years and considered his work in this field to be far more important than his amazing achievements on the running track.
This is a story of a village where once a year all the inhabitants write down their sorrows, their problems and difficulties from the last twelve months. They then pin their list on a special tree, the tree of sorrows, for a day where all the villagers can read them. At the end of the day each person has a choice to take home their experience of the past year or choose the experience of another villager. As the story goes they all choose to take back their own experience as that seems easier to bear than any of the others they have read.
Recently I decided to start iceskating and I went to the icerink with a friend. When I got on the big bulky boots, I could hardly stand and as soon as I went out on the ice, I slipped and fell on my ass. So I eventually stood up again, but this time I held on to the railing.
Meanwhile my friend, once he got on his boots, he immediately pushed himself off the wall and skated right out into the middle. Of course, he fell down, too. And getting up was a little more difficult for him. But he got help from some people and when he stood up again, he immediately skated off again. And then he fell down again. And he kept doing that all day, and it’s funny but by the end of the day, he had learned to skate pretty well.
Meanwhile, I was still holding on to the wall, afraid to let go of the wall. And I never did learn to skate. Because I was too afraid to fall.
But my friend wasn’t worried about making mistakes. In fact, the more mistakes you made, the more you are able to learn from your mistakes. Mistakes are little learning steps.