http://www.thesparkmovie.com/
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"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power." --Abraham Lincoln
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YOU WERE MEANT FOR THE SKIES
--From Steve Goodier's popular book “One Minute Can Change A Life”

This story reminds us how important a healthy self-image really is.

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The
eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his
life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a
barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked
and cackled. And he thrashed his wings and flew a few feet in the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent
bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty
among powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong, golden
wings.

The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the
eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky.
We belong to the earth - we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died a
chicken, for that is what he thought he was. (Author unknown)

You were meant for the skies - not the chicken coop. Who will believe
in you if you do not believe in yourself?
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THE STRING AND THE SPOON

A timeless lesson on how consultants can make a difference for an
organization. Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and
noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt
pocket. It seemed a little strange. When the busboy brought our water
and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then
I looked around saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, "Why the spoon?"

"Well", he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen
Consulting to revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they
concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It
represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per
hour. If our personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of
trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift."

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace
it with his spare. "I'll get another spoon next time I go to the
kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now."

I was impressed. I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of
the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had
the same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off, I
asked the waiter, "Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string
right there?"

"Oh, certainly!" Then he lowered his voice. "Not everyone is so
observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save
time in the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of you know what,
we can pull it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash
our hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent.

I asked "After you get it out, how do you put it back?"

"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the others, but I use
the spoon."
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