When I was still a trainer with a real estate company in the Philippines, there was a story that I would often end my sessions with. The story was a short and simple one -- the story of the chicken and the eagle. There have been many different versions of that story and I have to admit that I never managed to find the original version of the story and who wrote it. All I know is that it is a very touching and motivational one and, more than once, I have noticed participants teary-eyed as I tell it. Now, I am sharing the story with you and hope I am still able to do it justice.
There was a curious little boy who imagined himself to be a scientist. He loved to experiment with different things. One day, he was climbing up a hill, he chanced upon an eagle's nest that had eggs in it. Being the little scientist he is, he took one of the eggs with him and decided to hide the egg among those of the chickens his parents kept behind their home. He wanted to see what would happen
The hen never for a moment noticed anything amiss and tended to the egg as if it was one of her own. After a time, the egg hatched and a little chick came out. The hen took care of the chick as she did her other chicks and raised it as she did her own -- as far as she was concerned, it was her chick
So it came to pass that the eagle grew up thinking that it was a chicken and doing the things chickens do. It would scratch the ground to find food and would do the leaping-flight that chickens do. It never wondered why it looked different at all
One morning, as the eagle was resting atop a fence, it looked up at the sky. As it did, it saw a beautiful and powerful bird soaring through the skies with its wings spread wide as if it owned the heavens. The eagle asked it's chicken sister what kind of bird it was because he thought it was the most majestic thing he has ever seen. The chicken sister told his brother, "That bird is an eagle. But it is nothing to concern yourself about. You are a chicken and chickens are not eagles." With that, the eagle who grew up as a chicken did as his sister told him and paid the soaring eagle no mind. After all he is a chicken. He lived as a chicken until the day he died.
An eagle soaring
In many ways, a lot of us are like that eagle that grew up believing it was a chicken. We never try to spread our wings and fly. If only that eagle had tried to extend his wings... If only he took a really good look at himself and noticed he looked like that soaring eagle... If he only tried to fly, he would have been able to fly high in the sky because he was an eagle and he was meant to soar.Instead he decided to stick with what he was used to and lived his life without truly realizing his full potential.
Sure, he would have fallen the first few times he tried to fly. After all he has never really flown like an eagle -- he grew up thinking he was a chicken! But if he had kept at it... If he had kept trying... He would have managed to truly fly towards the heavens. All it would have taken was the will to try.
