Not so long ago, a mule, belonging to a local farmer, fell into an old disused well. The mule brayed incessantly and stomped about in the confined space but it was no good; it was stuck. The distraught animal was just too far down and the farmer, try as he might, couldn’t pull him out. It was hopeless! Finally, the saddened farmer resigned to put the mule out of its misery. He decided that the best thing for it would be to fill the well with earth and bury the hapless animal. The old man fetched his truck and swallowed hard as tipped the first load of earth into the well. The mule panicked and instead of letting itself be buried, it kicked and stomped even more. In fact, the mule stomped so much that he trampled the earth down under its hooves and ended up climbing on top of it. The same thing happened with the second and the third load. Each time the mule would stomp and kick and trample the earth down, and each time the mule would climb higher and higher up the well shaft. Finally, the mule made it to the top and jumped free, having learnt a very valuable lesson.

And the moral of this little tale is this: Don’t allow your non-success to bury you alive; don’t allow it to become a permanent failure! Remember, successful people are just failures that kept on trying… so, keep on keeping on!

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential