Today’s post I will like to tell a joke that I heard a while back but it has tremendous value in it? So without further ado let me tell you the story of the leopard, the dog and the monkey.

A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet dog along for company. One day the dog starts chasing butterflies and before long he discovers that he is lost. So, wandering about he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch.

The dog thinks, “Boy, I’m in deep doo doo now.”

Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by, and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dog exclaims loudly, “Man, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here?”

Hearing this the leopard halts his attack in mid stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. “Whew”, says the leopard. “That was close. That dog nearly had me.”

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes.

But the dog saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up.

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The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The cat is furious at being made a fool of and says, “Here monkey, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine.”

Now the dog sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back, and thinks,” What am I going to do now?”

But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers pretending he hasn’t seen them yet.

And just when they get close enough to hear, the dog says, “Where’s that monkey. I just can never trust him. I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard, and he’s still not back!!”

Ok so what can we learn from the story? We see the importance of filtering what people are saying to us! If we believe everything people are saying about us, it can have serious consequences in the way we decide to live our life. That leopard could have eaten that dog so easily if he had only learnt to think for himself. Another thing we can learn from this story is that not everyone who comes to tell us something good may have the right intention as well!! The monkey went to talk to the leopard primarily so that he can be saved from the leopard! He wasn’t concerned about the leopard, all he was concerned about was not being eaten by the leopard! It’s the same way with people. Some of us may have friends or associates who may appear to be really nice to us but we aren’t sure what there true intentions are!!!

We need to be careful of the voices that we allow to enter our mind. One of my mentors said that you can’t stop  the birds from flying over your head but you sure can stop them from building a nest there!! What he meant by that is that you can’t stop people from speaking about you but you do have the power to decide whether you allow what is being said about you to impact you or distract you from what it is you are trying to achieve!!! So my question to you is whose voice are you listening to?

Whose voice are you listening to? is a post from: Brian’s Motivational Blog