The Next CEO

I am very pleased to share this exciting but thought-provoking short story with you. This story is not written by me, but I only feel obliged to post this in my blog so people can benefit from the lessons of the story as I have myself already done. It was sent to me via my e-mail address by a friend some couples of months back. I really found this story interesting, charming, educating, and thought-provoking. It's really full of compact lifetime lessons and I do hope you can also relate with it and share with your loved ones or whoever personality you come in contact and work with throughout your entire lives. So, Good-luck and enjoy!

 

Enjoy knowing!

It is interesting!

The Next CEO

 

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!'

 

 

Moral of the story?

 

Share the lessons YOU learnt from the story with every member of your team.

Let’s learn from one another... 

•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.

 

'Whatever You Give To Life, Life Gives You Back‘. Live our CORE VALUES, and Reap the returns!

 

Happy  Excellent Service To Humanity!

'Occupy Till I Come'

 

THE THEATRE SCENE

WHEN PLACED UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ANESTHESIA 

I do not remember when last I had been so much terrified with fear, but the event of last semester which came suddenly left behind its indelible mark upon the hollow corners of my veiled memory. Memory caught in a mysterious space between waking and dreaming…As I steeped deeper to figure out what was really happening to me, I was caught even more within fragments of memory that left behind only words, partial thoughts, stories without text, songs without lyrics, and empty anthems that trusts the indirect route to a deeper truth that can only be found with the inner eyes alone.

I was so much terrified that I finally realized when I woke up that sometimes, somehow, we can never control our fear or run away from it, no matter how hard we try. I actually realized that that event suddenly strutted in to reveal the weaker aspect of me-a true reflection of every man.

Two weeks to the exams last semester, I had been experiencing a kind of strange but chronic pain in my stomach. This happened on the 3rd of October, 2001. That day, I quickly rushed to my doctor to complain. It was already dark, so I couldn’t go through the major examination. The following day which was Thursday, the 4th of October 2001 at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital; my doctor diagnosed me and later announced to me that the cause of my chronic stomach pain was ‘appendicitis’.  He said the condition was complicated and demanded a very urgent medical attention before it would be too late for me.

As he told me this, I understood him right away…”Your case is a case of maximum inflammation of the appendix and we need to urgently operate you, otherwise…Hun…RUPTURE!!!” I imagined. Suddenly my head started pounding like a big drum and my heart raced so fast that I almost lost my breath at that point; my mouth gaped and adrenaline quickly rushed through my spines. I was sweating profusely and my body was shaking, I could not move. I lost my thought completely and never found my speculation. There was too much panicking for me and for a few moments, I stood before my doctor like a lifeless statue. Later, I discovered that FEAR had already stolen upon me leaving behind this deadly terrible cold.

Oh! It was a terrible day that I thought it was all over for me. My doctor stood at a corner right in the middle of his office watching me as I was completely lost in my thoughts. The raging sound of the ambulance outside the gate sent me back to my reality, and as I looked up straight to my doctor’s eyes, I found this brave reassuring expression in his face “Don’t you worry my dear, we will take care of it by God’s permission and you ‘ll get over it”.

In the night, I was finally wheeled into the operation hall (Theatre) and you can imagine what could have happened to me at the theatre scene! Five minutes I was moved into the theatre hall, I was quickly transferred to the operation bed and pulled right against the wall. There, I was left all alone to battle between reality and dream. Few minutes later, I turned my head to the left side and stood on the wall was a very little giant mosquito. With fear of malaria usually caused by this kind of anopheles mosquito, I raised my left hand to destroy her completely against the wall, but something incredible I didn’t know held back my hand. Wasn’t that strange?

I started wondering what could have actually held my hand that moment when I saw something that could complicate my condition. Then, I realized that it was the same FEAR that has dealt its blow once again. The fears of death triggered by the echoes of the mosquito’s warning call “No! Don’t try that! DO NOT TRY TO KILL ME! REMEMBER…? (My thoughts now…”you are already half dead: if you kill me, then soon, you’ll join me! Ha..ha..hahahahahaaaaaa!!!!”)…suddenly my heart jumped and I withdrew my hand immediately. I thought that this mosquito, my companion that night might be right after all, whose death that night might eventually represent my own last.

I had to withdrew my hand completely and seriously thought about death even though I knew I was going to die any time according to God’s will; I knew I could not escape death that night if it comes but I could not even control the strange FEAR that envelopes me that night, though I tried hard to bury such strange but cold feelings.

Finally, I concluded out of fear and decided to leave the mosquito alone to live. I thought may be if she lives, I may survive the operation and come out of my discomfort zone, fine theory! Funny enough, the mosquito, which for many years had been under my wrath incredibly won my love and friendship that night, and I longed for her companionship throughout the operation but she finally left. My fear that had already risen before gradually subsided and there was a great assurance in the mosquito’s absence. “My theory was going to work out for me if God wills” I wished.

At 10:00pm in the night, the surgeon experts came and pulled me into the operation room. Later I was set under a very big round machine with an oval florescent lamps round it and was lured into some funny jokes  under the strong influence of anesthesia until I was dead. In my death, I began to chant to the circle of my fellow sojourners in the other world:-

WHEN YOU SNORE DEEP

When you snore deep,

You wish your lord thy soul to keep.

But when death doth beckon,

You snore deeper to reckon.

For little rest thy soul desire,

But now, thou journey deeper than higher.

To a place of no permanent return,

Where thou shall dwell and wished to be reborn.

No reborn! Thy Lord’s servant shall cry and rave,

On the soul that will tremble in grave.

I woke up in the morning at ward 5 feeling serious pain at my stomach. “It’s all over now!” I exclaimed; and then thought that my theory had actually worked out, the mosquito lives and here I am breathing. Thanks to God! But I tell you, this terrible strange but funny experience will never escape my memory for the rest of my life for this was the very first time I came so close to DEATH. 

©golobathepoet 2011