Echo

"A son and his father were walking on the mountains.

Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

Curious, he yells: "Who are you?"

He receives the answer: "Who are you?"

And then he screams to the mountain: "I admire you!"

The voice answers: "I admire you!"

Angered at the response, he screams: "Coward!"

He receives the answer: "Coward!"

He looks to his father and asks: "What's going on?"

The father smiles and says: "My son, pay attention."

Again the man screams: "You are a champion!"

The voice answers: "You are a champion!"

The boy is surprised, but does not understand.

Then the father explains: "People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE.

It gives you back everything you say or do.

Our life is simply a reflection of our actions.

If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart.

If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence.

This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life;

Life will give you back everything you have given to it."

God had given the ducks wings with which to fly

A parable is told of a community of ducks waddling off to duck church one Sunday to hear their duck preacher. After they waddled into the duck sanctuary, the service began and the duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly.

He pounded the pulpit with his beak and said, “With these wings, there is nowhere we ducks can not go!

”There is no God-given task we ducks cannot accomplish!

”With these wings we no longer need walk through life. We can soar high in the sky!”

Shouts of “Amen!¨ were quacked throughout the duck congregation.

The duck preacher concluded his message by exclaiming, “With our wings we can fly through life! WE CAN FLY!!!!¨

More ducks quacked out loud “AMEN!” in response.

Every duck loved the service.

In fact all the ducks that were present commented on what a wonderfully convicting message they had heard from their duck preacher....and then they left the church and waddled all the way home.

Too often we waddle away from worship the same way we waddled in....unchanged.

LUCK MATTERS

With a pile of 300 resumes on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

"Throw away 250 resumes?" I asked, shocked.

"What if the best candidates are in there?"

"You have a point," he said.

"But then again, I don't need people with bad luck here."

Marvelous Answer

Real story happened with famous Heart Surgeon Lt. Dr. Nitu Mandke. He had done many heart operations. 

 

A mechanic was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted the famous heart surgeon in his shop, who was standing off to the side, waiting for the service manager to come to take a look at his car. 

 

The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hello Doctor! Please come over here for a minute." The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic. 

 

The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked argumentatively, "So doctor, look at this. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind 'em, put in new parts, and when I finish this will work as a new one. 

 

So how come you get the big money, when you and me is doing basically the same work?" The doctor leaned over and whispered to the mechanic... . . . . 

 

"TRY TO DO IT WHEN THE ENGINE IS RUNNING".

Story re-written

Story re-written

Once upon a time, there was a software engineer who used to develop programs on his Pentium machine, sitting under a tree on the banks of a river. He used to earn his bread by selling those programs in the Sunday market.

One day, while he was working, his machine tumbled off the table and fell in the river.

Encouraged by the Panchatantra story of his childhood (the woodcutter and the axe), he started praying to the River Goddess.

The River Goddess wanted to test him and so appeared only after one month of rigorous prayers. The engineer told her that he had lost his computer in the river.

As usual, the Goddess wanted to test his honesty.

She showed him a match box and asked, "Is this your computer?" Disappointed by the Goddess' lack of computer awareness, the engineer replied, "No."

She next showed him a pocket-sized calculator and asked if that was his.

Annoyed, the engineer said "No, not at all!!"

Finally, she came up with his own Pentium machine and asked if it was his.

The engineer, left with no option, sighed and said "Yes."

The River Goddess was happy with his honesty.

She was about to give him all three items, but before she could make the offer, the engineer asked her, "Don't you know that you're supposed to show me some better

computers before bringing up my own?"

The River Goddess, angered at this, replied, "I know that, you stupid donkey!

The first two things I showed you were the Trillennium and the Billennium, the latest computers from IBM!".

So saying, she disappeared with the Pentium!!

Moral: If you're not up-to-date with technology trends, it's better keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Lakshmi Mittal - Success Story

Lakshmi Mittal - Success Story
Born: June 15, 1950, Sadulpur, Rajasthan, India.

Age: 59

Country Of Citizenship: India

Residence: London , United Kingdom, Europe & Russia

Religious stance: Hinduism

Occupation: Chairman & CEO of Arcelor Mittal

Net worth: $51.0 billion USD

Fortune: Inherited and growing

Source: Steel

Industry: Manufacturing

Website: mittalsteel.com

Marital Status: Married, 2 children

Education: St Xavier's College Calcutta, Bachelor of Arts / Science.

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Lakshmi Narayan Mittal (born June 15, 1950) is a London-based Indian billionaire industrialist, born in Sadulpur Village, in the Churu district of Rajasthan, India, and residing in Kensington, London. He is the fifth richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of US$32.0 billion according to Forbes 500.The Financial Times named Mittal its 2006 Person of the Year. In May 2007, he was named one of the "100 most influential people" by Time magazine.

Lakshmi spent his first years in India, living with his extended family on bare floors and rope beds in a house built by his grandfather. His family, from the Marwari Aggarwal castel, was from humble roots; his grandfather worked for the Tarachand Ghanshyamdas Poddar firm, one of the leading Marwari industrial firms of pre-independence India. They eventually moved to Calcutta where his father, Mohan, became a partner in a steel company and made a fortune.

Lakshmi was a keen student and his classmates knew him as a sharp student who was good with numbers. He graduated at the top from St. Xavier's College in Calcutta (Now known as Kolkata) with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Business and Accounting in 1969.

Lakshmi Mittal began his career working in the family's steelmaking business in India, and in 1976, when the family founded its own steel business, Mittal set out to establish its international division, beginning with the buying of a run-down plant in Indonesia. Shortly afterwards he married Usha, the daughter of a well-to-do moneylender. In 1994, due to differences with his father and brothers, he branched out on his own, taking over the international operations of the Mittal steel business, which was already owned by the family. The family of Mittal never spoke to the public about the reasons for the split, although, there were rumors it was due to financial instablity between the brothers.

Controversy erupted in 2002 as Plaid MP Adam Price exposed the link between U.K. prime minister Tony Blair and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal in the Mittal Affair, also known as 'Garbagegate' or Cash for Influence. Mittal's LNM steel company, registered in the Dutch Antilles and maintaining less than 1% of its 100,000 plus workforce in the U.K., sought Blair's aid in its bid to purchase Romania's state steel industry. The letter from Blair to the Romanian government, a copy of which Price was able to obtain, hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union.

The letter had a passage in it removed just prior to Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend."

In exchange for Blair's support Mittal, already a Labour contributor, donated £125,000 more to Labour party funds a week after the 2001 U.K. General Elections, while as many as six-thousand Welsh steelworkers were laid off that same year, Price and others pointed out. Mittal's company, then the fourth largest in the world, was a "major global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry, Corus, formerly known as British Steel." Corus and Valkia Limited were two of the primary employers in south Wales, particularly in Ebbw Vale, Llanwern, and Port Talbot.

Since 2005, Mittal has been the richest person residing in the United Kingdom. He is the President of the Board of Directors and CEO of Arcelor Mittal; Arcelor Mittal is the world's largest producer of steel, with assets in France, Belgium, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, South Africa, Poland, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Bulgaria, United States and Brazil. On July 13, 2005 it was announced that he had donated £2 million to the Labour Party, and on January 16, 2007 it was announced that he had donated a further £3 million. Although Mittal has been living abroad for many years, he claims he will remain an Indian.

In March 2007, Mittal was reported to be the 5th wealthiest person in the world by Forbes Magazine (up from 61st richest in 2004). The Mittal family owns 44% of Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel company. His residence at 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens was bought from Formula One car racing boss Bernie Ecclestone in 2004 for £57.1 million ($105.7 million), the world's highest price ever paid for a house. Formerly, this house was the residence of Paul Reuter, the founder of the Reuters news service.

Mittal has two children. His son, Aditya Mittal, is the CFO of Arcelor Mittal. Mittal paid over £30 million to host his daughter Vanisha's wedding celebration in Vaux le Vicomte on 22 June 2004 and an engagement ceremony at the Palace of Versailles on 20 June 2004, the world's most expensive wedding ever. He even hosted a Bollywood night where superstars like Rani Mukerji, Saif Ali Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai performed. Kylie Minogue also sang on stage.

Mittal's house in Kensington, London is decorated with marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal. The extravagant show of wealth has been deemed the "Taj Mittal."

Recently, Mittal has emerged as a leading contender to buy Barclays Premiership clubs Wigan and Everton, but has so far refused to comment.

As of 8th October 2007, the 44.79% stake which the Mittal family have in Arcelor-Mittal was worth $47.159 billion dollars, down from $48.4 billion in late September. This makes him the world's 5th wealthiest man after Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim and Ingvar Kamprad. As of 11th October 2007, his stake was worth $50.56 billion dollars, making him the fifth person in the world to have more than $50 b wealth.

After witnessing India win only one medal, bronze, in the 2000 Olympics, and one medal, silver, at the 2004 Olympics, Mittal decided to set up Mittal Champions Trust with U$9 million to support 10 Indian athletes with world-beating potential.

For Comic Relief 2007, he matched the money raised (~£1 million) on the celebrity special BBC programme, The Apprentice.

Learning to Dance in the Rain

An excerpt from

Learning to Dance in the Rain

by Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher

The date was July 16, 2008. It was late in the afternoon and I was sitting in my hotel room in Louisville, Kentucky. I was scheduled to speak that evening for the Kentucky Association of School Administrators (KASA). I was a little "down in the dumps." I hadn't gotten to exercise lately because of my traveling schedule and recently I'd experienced some mild bouts of vertigo (that inner ear condition that can cause the room to start spinning.) You got it...speaking and "spinning" are not good partners!

My keynote presentation was scheduled for 7:00 PM, but I had been invited to show up at 6:00 to see a performance they said I'd enjoy. Little did I know that I was about to see something I would never forget.

They introduced the young musician. Welcome...Mr. Patrick Henry Hughes. He was rolled onto the stage in his wheelchair, and began to play the piano. His fingers danced across the keys as he made beautiful music.

He then began to sing as he played, and it was even more beautiful. For some reason, however, I knew that I was seeing something special. There was this aura about him that I really can't explain and the smile...his smile was magic!

About ten minutes into Patrick's performance, someone came on the stage and said..."I'd like to share a 7-minute video titled, The Patrick Henry Hughes story." And the lights went dim.

Patrick Henry Hughes was born with no eyes, and a tightening of the joints which left him crippled for life. However, as a child, he was fitted with artificial eyes and placed in a wheelchair. Before his first birthday, he discovered the piano. His mom said, "I could hit any note on the piano, and within one or two tries, he'd get it." By his second birthday, he was playing requests (You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star). His father was ecstatic. "We might not play baseball, but we can play music together."

Today, Patrick is a junior at the University of Louisville. His father attends classes with him and he's made nearly all A's, with the exception of 3 B's He's also a part of the 214 member marching band. You read it right...the marching band! He's a blind, wheelchair-bound trumpet player; and he and his father do it together. They attend all the band practices and the half-time performance in front of thousands. His father rolls and rotates his son around the field to the cheers of Patrick's fans. In order to attend Patrick's classes and every band practice, his father works the graveyard shift at UPS. Patrick said..."My dad's my hero."

But even more than his unbelievable musical talent, it was Patrick's "attitude of gratitude" that touched my soul. On stage, between songs, he would talk to the audience about his life and about how blessed he was. He said, "God made me blind and unable to walk. BIG DEAL! He gave me the ability...the musical gifts I have...the great opportunity to meet new people."

When his performance was over, Patrick and his father were on the stage together. The crowd rose to their feet and cheered for over five minutes. It gave me giant goose bumps!

My life was ready to meet Patrick Henry Hughes. I needed a hero, and I found one for the ages. If I live to be a hundred, I'll never forget that night, that smile, that music, but most importantly, that wonderful "attitude of gratitude."

I returned to Chicago and shared Patrick's story with my wife, my friends, and our team at Simple Truths. About two weeks later, I received a letter from a friend. He said, "Mac, I don't know who said it, but I think you'll love this quote."

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...
it's about learning how to dance in the rain!"

I thought...that's it! We all face adversity in our life. However, it's not the adversity, but how we react to it that will determine the joy and happiness in our life. During tough times, do we spend too much time feeling sorry for ourselves, or, can we, with gratitude...learn how to dance in the rain?

It almost sounds too simple to feel important, but one word...gratitude, can change your attitude, thus, your life, forever. Sarah Breathnack said it best...

"When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present....we experience heaven on earth."