John, a woodcutter, worked for a company for five years but never got a raise. The company hired Bill and within a year he got a raise. Then John resented Bill's getting a raise after only a year and went to his boss to talk about it. The boss said, "You are still cutting the same number of trees you were cutting five years ago. We are a result-oriented company and would be happy to give a raise if your productivity goes up." John went back, started hitting harder and putting longer hours but he still wasn't able to cut more trees. He went back to his boss and told him his dilemma. The boss told John to go talk to Bill. "Maybe there is something Bill knows that you and I don't." John asked Bill how he managed to cut more trees. Bill answered, "After every tree I cut, I take a break for two minutes and sharpen my axe. When was the last time you sharpened your axe?"

Andrew Carnegie came to America from Scotland as a young boy. He started out by doing odd jobs and ended up as one of the largest steel manufacturers in United States. At one time, he had 43 millionaires working for him. A million dollars is a lot of money today, but in the 1920s it was worth much more!
Someone once asked Mr. Carnegie how he dealt with people. Andrew Carnegie replied, "Dealing with people is a lot like digging for gold: When you go digging for an ounce of gold you have to move tons of dirt. But when you go digging you don't go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold."
Andrew Carnegie's reply has a very important message. Through sometimes it may not be apparent there is something positive in every person and every situation. We have to dig deep for positive.

There was a man who made his living selling balloons at a fair. He had balloons of many different colours, including red, yellow, blue, green and many more. Whenever business was slow, he would release a helium-filled balloon into the air. When the children saw the balloon go up, they all wanted one. They would come up to him, buy a balloon and his sales would go up. All day, he continued to release a balloon whenever the sales slowed down. One day, the balloon man felt someone tugging at his jacket. He turned around and a little boy asked, "If you release a black balloon, would that also fly?" Moved by the boy's concern, the man replied gently, "Son, it is not the colour of the balloon, it is what's inside that makes it go up."