Friday, 4 September 2009

The Parable of the Eagle

The "Parable of the Eagle" written by James Aggrey in the early 1920's:
It begins ...
Once a man found a young eagle in a forest and took it home and put it in his barnyard. The eagle ate the chicken feed and behaved just as chickens do. One day a naturalist friend noticed it and asked the owner why the eagle, king of all birds, was confined with the chickens.
"Since I have given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it has never learned to fly," answered the man.
"Still," insisted the naturalist, "it has the heart of an eagle, and certainly it can be taught to fly" ...
To learn what happened next, we invite you to enjoy our short free online movie about this poignant parable at: http://www.EagleParableMovie.com
It was Marianne Williamson who so eloquently wrote in a Return To Love : "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness that most frightens us."
We are all Eagles. Once we have really taken beautiful flight, we can never go back to live like a chicken. It is not a delusion to think we can fly; it is a delusion to think we can't. Manage your fear of greatness and then ... stretch forth your wings and fly toward the dreams that are awaiting you. And equally as important ... to accomplish your dreams requires treating others with the same, compassion and high regard you are learning to embrace for yourself.
Walt Disney once said, "You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world... but it requires people to make the dream a reality." Utilize the Power of Compassion in urging your Eagle's to lift off the rock ...and fly!
John Rockefeller, the brains and the organizational genius behind the Standard Oil Company, the # 1 oil refining company in the world in his day, said that the most important characteristic he sought in his leaders and managers was the ability to get along with people and to get others to work in harmony together. He stated in his memoirs that keeping harmony among the wild and wooly members of his team was his most important role, and that it was entirely responsible for the tremendous growth and the keeping of his organizations' greatest assets: it's key people, throughout all those years.Experts agree that your professional success depends primarily on human relations skills.
To see the truth in this, just look around you. It's not necessarily the technical skills, hard knowledge, or intelligence that makes "fast-track" professionals super-effective in their jobs. Skills and knowledge are useless in a vacuum. Many times, it is the power of compassionate skill in handling people that propels careers, boosts productivity, ensures job satisfaction and sky rockets prosperity.
The attitudinal harsh-mindedness we launch at people in an attempt to control or punish those we view as "under performers" is as energetically real as pushing someone down on the floor, putting you foot on their shoulder and yelling, "Get Up!" If you don't like how they are responding to your requests, change your attitude ... try compassion!
If you really want to affect your own personal economy, you may want to embrace Goethe's advice ...
"Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a person as if he were what he could be, and he will become what he could and should be."

2 comments:

Cherrie said...

wow, i love this post...it really do happen in everday life. it teaches me a good lesson. hoping for more =)

Doria Tai said...

Dear Cherrie, Yes, this is so true in our life ! We are all like eagles, we have to potential to soar high but our education and life experience tell us we are not good enough! As a leader to train youths, we must first understand the Parable of the Eagle !