Lesson From The Salt Vendor and His Donkey

Dear loving people,
 

Working for your success whether at your business or a paid position, you have to work hard and deal with work related stress. Having been somebody who had too many irons on fire and with wax on them, I can say that while some workplace stress is normal, excessive stress can interfere with your productivity and impact your physical and emotional health. And your ability to deal with it can mean the difference between success or failure.

The fact is: you can’t control everything in your work environment, but that doesn’t mean you’re powerless—even when you’re stuck in a difficult situation. Finding ways to manage workplace stress isn’t about making huge changes or rethinking career ambitions, but rather about focusing on the one thing that’s always within your control: you.

There was a salt vendor in a village. He used to buy salt from a nearby town. He had a donkey to carry this salt load. There were many streams to be crossed to reach the town. One day, the vendor was returning after his purchase. The donkey was loaded with salt bags. While they were crossing a stream, accidentally the donkey slipped and fell into the stream. A lot of salt got dissolved in the water. When the donkey got up the load became very light.

From that day, whenever the vendor returned from town after salt purchase, the donkey began to tumble half-way across one stream or the other. The vendor became suspicious. Once the vendor purchased bales of cotton and loaded his donkey with bales of cotton. The donkey felt the load to be unusually light. He thought "Today, I am going to tumble and this load is going to become much lighter".

On their way home, as usual, the donkey tumbled and fell into a stream. But alas! When the donkey tried to get up, the load pulled the donkey down. The cotton had absorbed water and become heavier. The vendor gave hard beatings to make the donkey get up and walk. From then on, the donkey never tumbled while crossing streams.

Avoiding work leads to more work and consequently to work related stress. When you feel overwhelmed at work, you lose confidence and may become irritable or withdrawn. This can make you less productive and less effective in your job, and make the work seem less rewarding. If you ignore the warning signs of work stress, they can lead to bigger problems. Beyond interfering with job performance and satisfaction, chronic or intense stress can also lead to physical and emotional health problems.

The Brick Wall is a Message to You

Dear lovely people,

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.” Says Paulo Coelho in The Devil and Miss Prym.
 

The game of life is sweet, and even sweeter is the quest of success because while it puts you on the path to appreciating the real meaning of living, it equally sets you at cross-roads with many people, principles, stereotypes and you can name them. One mistake many a people make is that of trying to please all parties. In my experience, working for success means that you get to receive assignments from many parties, you pretty much receive input from many people at different levels. I agree that it’s really a tough job to be able to please all parties - usually you just have to push some aside. How do you deal with it? Try and be as sincere as possible and at least go through the motions of trying to get everyone's input implemented.

Even when you get to a brick wall, you have to bring yourself to clearly understand as Randy Pausch puts it in The Last Lecture “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

The brick wall is a message, read it, understand it and only then can you break through it.

Persistence is Your Magic

Dear loving people,

Most of you will agree with me that the one ingredient you’ll always need for the journey of entrepreneurship is persistence. It can take your further than any other quality alone. Probably that’s why Benjamin Franklin thinks that “Energy and persistence conquer all things.”

Talking entrepreneurship, I think of a young dynamic lady Justine. It was the fifth time Justine was refused a loan at the bank. The people around her quickly figured out that her dream of owning a restaurant was gradually being eroded. She went home that afternoon, dejected, with a thousand questions in her mind and ‘why me?’ was one of them but, she was not discouraged. An idea popped up in her mind and she told herself it was not over yet. Back home, she decided to change her strategy. 

That’s how she started a maize farm as a step towards raising the needed funds for her restaurant business. At the end of the next farming season, Justine was smiling to the bank. She became so attached to her farm and having seen the rewards, she decided to put in another year at the end of which she had what she wanted.

The same bank did not only give her a loan but doubled the amount she had requested the previous years. Justine was able to start her restaurant that is flourishing today. She equally maintained her maize farm that is still feeding her bank account with the needed cash to repay her loan.

Justine’s secrete was the fact that she clearly understood that the power to keep going will conquer all other obstacles. She combined that with the energy and passion to see new ways around the challenges she was facing and thus, she achieved her goals.

Persistence is not just about hanging onto what you are currently doing even when you hit a stone wall. Persistence is equally about changing strategy when what you have going on is not yielding fruits and keeping on the right track until you attain success. 

Calvin Coolidge says “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”