Be thankful

This is not original, but I thought it worth passing on as it makes a good point:-

“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. “I wrote: ‘Today is a beautiful day; but I cannot see it.'” Both signs told people that the boy was blind but the first sign simply said the boy was blind.

The second sign reminded people how fortunate they were to have their sight. 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. 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. It’s a beautiful thing to see a person smiling. But even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason for the smile! Faith is not about everything turning out OK faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out.is a true reflection of most of us life. Be strong….”

I think it makes more than one good point.  Clearly being grateful and appreciating what we have is always important, but makes another point about how we communicate with others.  I shows the power of building rapport with our audience, of ensuring we don’t just communicate information but also feelings.  If you seek to influence someone, don’t assume that they will take the time to think about you what your message means to them, tell them!  And don’t be afraid to ask for help…

Tags: appreciation, blind boy, gratitude, story

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at 15:10 and is filed under Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.