Life is funny. As a businessman, public speaker and author, I especially love clever stories with a message because they make important points more memorable.
Over the years I have collected a filing cabinet full of great material. Since April is National Humor Month, I thought I would package up some of my favorites, which cover a variety of topics. Enjoy!
Unless you are a one-person shop, teamwork is not optional. This story says it all:
A minivan pulled into the only remaining campsite. Four youngsters leapt from the vehicle and began feverishly unloading gear and setting up a tent. Two kids then rushed off with their dad to gather firewood, and two others helped their mother set up the camp stove and cooking utensils. A nearby camper marveled to the father, "That is some impressive display of teamwork."
"Actually," the father replied, "I have a system. No one goes to the bathroom until camp is set up."
It's all a matter of perspective. When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist.
It's like the two salesmen who fell on hard times and ended up broke in a small town in Montana. They needed money to move on and learned that the town paid $20 each for wolf pelts. They sensed an opportunity. That night, they set out with a couple of clubs and some borrowed supplies and made camp in the distant hills. They were no sooner asleep than one was startled by an eerie howl. He crawled outside the tent to find himself surrounded by hundreds of snarling wolves. Back into the tent he crawled and shook his buddy.
"Wake up!" he cried. "Wake up! We're rich!"
Believe in yourself, even when no one else does. At the end of a particularly frustrating practice one day, a football coach dismissed his players by yelling, "Now all you idiots, go take a shower!" All but one player headed toward the locker room. The coach glared at him and asked why he was still there.
"You told all the idiots to go, sir," the player replied, "and there sure seems to be a lot of them. But I am not an idiot."
Confident? You bet. And smart enough to coach that team someday.
Every survival kit should include a sense of humor. Albert Einstein's driver used to sit at the back of the hall during each of his lectures. After a period of time, the driver said to the famous scientist, "Boss, I've heard you give that speech so many times … I could give it in my sleep."
So, at the next lecture, Einstein and the driver switched places, with Einstein sitting in the back, dressed in the driver's uniform. The driver gave the lecture flawlessly. At the end of the lecture, a member of the audience asked a detailed scientific question. Without missing a beat, the "lecturer" replied, "Well, the answer to that question is so simple, I'm going to let my chauffeur who is sitting in the back answer it."
Mackay's Moral: You can take your work seriously, but be careful not to take yourself too seriously.
Harvey Mackay is a Minneapolis businessman. Contact him at 612-378-6202 or harvey@mackay.com.
