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A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business.

Instead of choosing one of his Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you." The young executives were Shocked, but the boss continued. "I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.
I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO."

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing.

By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn't have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by -- still nothing in Jim's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn't say anything to his colleagues, however, he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Jim told his wife that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful -- in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives.

Jim just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the CEO. "Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!"

All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, "The CEO knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!"

When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed - Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, "Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!

His name is Jim!" Jim couldn't believe it. Jim couldn't even grow his seed.

"How could he be the new CEO?" the others said.

Then the CEO said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new
Chief Executive Officer!"

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust

* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness

* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment

* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective

* If you plant hard work, you will reap success

* If you  plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later.
Think about this for a minute....  
If I happened to show up on your door step crying, would you care?

If I called you and asked you to pick me up because something happened, would you come?

If I had one day left to live my life, would you be part of that last day?

If I needed a shoulder to cry on, would you give me yours?

This is a test to see who your real
friends are or if you are just someone to talk to you  when they are bored

Do you know what the relationship is between your two eyes?

They blink together,
they move together,
they cry together,
they see things together,
and they sleep together,
but they never see each other;
....that's what friendship is..
Your aspiration is your motivation, your
motivation is your belief,
your belief is your peace,
your peace is your target,
your target is heaven, and life is like hard core torture without it!

It's 'World Best Friends Week'

Who is your best friend?

Send this to all your good friends, even me, if I am one of them.

See how many you get back.

If you get more than 3 then you really are a lovable person...

Save the Earth.... it's the only planet with chocolate!!!!  


"IF I WORRY ABOUT TOMORROW I HAVE WASTED TODAY"


Be obedient, no matter how much the Master's' plan doesn't make sense to you.

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Amen

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I love this so much, I'm going to repost.

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I like it!

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Well, I think it's a good thing for Jim that he had his wife's influence.

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I think it's a nice story but as a business person...I would want someone to speak up about the problems with the project before it was a complete failure  

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I get emails like this from friends......but I delete them.

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Originally Posted by Ron Bradley:
I get emails like this from friends......but I delete them.

I always get religious fanatic emails from the same few people and I never read them. What seems humorous to me is that they keep sending me things like this after I've sent them crass jokes, copies of articles I've written, or just general silliness, but NEVER religious stuff. I dunno, I'd like to think they'd take the hint, but maybe they just think I NEED religion.  

I dunno, I think I'd rather have   than religious goop filling up my inbox  

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Originally Posted by Wendy Vinca:
I think it's a nice story but as a business person...I would want someone to speak up about the problems with the project before it was a complete failure  

I agree with you on this. I used to be in a position were I was responsible for new projects regularly. Unfortunately the 'boss' really didn't understand the limited capabilities of his business software and 'problems' arose regularly. But since he had very little understanding of the capabilities of his software, he couldn't comprehend why his instructions couldn't always be carried out exactly as he wanted them and he'd get damned pissy every time we tried addressing problems. I couldn't do this to my people if I were the boss; I'd want people feeling comfortable and safe in coming to me with problems. How else can one expect their business to be a good place to work? Tyranny and ignorance in the workplace equals chaos

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Originally Posted by Shawn Ishness:

Originally Posted by Wendy Vinca:
I think it's a nice story but as a business person...I would want someone to speak up about the problems with the project before it was a complete failure  

I agree with you on this. I used to be in a position were I was responsible for new projects regularly. Unfortunately the 'boss' really didn't understand the limited capabilities of his business software and 'problems' arose regularly. But since he had very little understanding of the capabilities of his software, he couldn't comprehend why his instructions couldn't always be carried out exactly as he wanted them and he'd get damned pissy every time we tried addressing problems. I couldn't do this to my people if I were the boss; I'd want people feeling comfortable and safe in coming to me with problems. How else can one expect their business to be a good place to work? Tyranny and ignorance in the workplace equals chaos

That's quite a different situation, lol

I personally doubt I'd work for a year for somebody who was grading my performance on plant growth, lol....I kill every plant I get so I'd be out the door once I heard the rules for this little fiasco  

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Thanks for the comments folks ... (maybe I should post this entry in the WTF thread ... LOL)

It's called symbolism ... sorry it's lost of some of you.  Doubt it was meant literally or that it actually happened ... who knows ?  I personally like the message.   I normally do not pass along this type of e-mail either BUT on occasion I read one that hits home with me, has some symbolic meaning ... and I post it.  

Sorry those of you who did not like it, or laughed at it and took your time to read it and felt it wasted.  I did not clutter anyone's inbox with it, I posted it in a public forum where you can choose to read it or not.

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It was not lost on me, nor was it a waste of my time. There were some valid points in there that caught my eye and made quite a bit of sense to me. I simply meant that while I wouldn't normally read these from my "friends" who send this to me, I did take the time to read yours.

So with that being said, thank for sharing that with the group.

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thanks for sharing Teri. Honesty is always the best policy, but I agree with Wendy that the problem should have been disclosed earlier.