Mr. Les Brown narrates a story of 2 young boys who were on an ice-covered stream. One of the boys accidentally fell through the ice and was carried away by the current and trapped under the ice. He did everything he could, but he just couldn’t get out.
On seeing this, the other boy thought of the best way to save his friend. With no one in sight, he had to do his best to help his friend get out of where he was trapped. He looked around and saw a stick.
He grabbed it and began pounding the on the ice out to try and make it easier to pull him out. He tried desperately to pound the ice above his friend’s head to free him from what was sure to be his impending death.
He managed to remove all the ice that was preventing him from getting his friend out. Just then, a woman who was passing by saw them and called 911, and a rescue team was dispatched to the location.
This is when it got a little weird. One of the rescue people, after hearing the story of how the boy broke a big chunk of ice, doubted how the boy was able to go about breaking all that ice. He took the stick the boy had used and looked for a place where there was thick ice, like where the boy had pulled his friend out. He started pounding it with all his strength, but he couldn’t break it. Imagine… this 200-pound man could not break the ice with the same tool that the boy used.
Why? Maybe it was because the boy knew he could do it and no one had told him he couldn’t. All he knew was that he had to break the ice and rescue his friend, and therefore he did it without any limitation in his mind.
In another instance that happened in Lebanon, Oregon a tractor overturned and lay on top of the man who was driving it. It lay on his chest, making it impossible for him to breath or move. He had to cry out to get help, but he could barely make a sound because of the enormous weight that was on his chest. Any attempt to try harder to call for help made the tractor settle a little more on him.
Fortunately, his 14 and 16-year-old daughters heard his cry for help. They ran to where their father was and found him in desperate need of help. However, no one was around to help them, and they had to think fast and be creative. They found no other solution than to use their hands, their backs, and the deep love they hold for their father. Believe it or not, the two young girls combined their efforts and lifted the 3,000 pounds tractor off their dad’s chest. They lifted the tractor high enough so that their dad could climb out from under the deadly weight – together they had saved their father.
The two daughters didn’t have time to look or wait for help – or time to come up with a creative solution. They just had to lift it. They had no time to think that they couldn’t do it- they simply did it.
The bottom line is, whatever it is that you need, stop telling yourself that you can’t do it. Stop setting limitations for yourself – just do it with an open mind.
