Cow or Buffalo??

Greetings Happy People,

When I attended the Toastmasters International Convention last week, I had the opportunity to meet Rory Vaden. Rory is the runner-up of the 2007 World Championship of Public Speaking. He gave an amazing leadership presentation about climbing stairs. The message behind this is in order to get to where you want to go; you got to put in the effort.

Throughout his dynamic presentation, there was one analogy that stood out for me. It was the comparison between the cow and the buffalo. Picture this. You have a huge pasture. On this pasture you have cows and buffaloes. A huge thunderstorm creeps over the mountains. This thunderstorm has powerful lightning, large volumes of rain, gusting gale force winds, and booming thunder.

Upon seeing the storm, the cows and the buffaloes have different ways on how to handle this rough weather. While the cows run away from the thunderstorm as fast as they can, the buffaloes would stand tall and charge right at the storm. With the different reactions at hand, which animal do you think will come out on top? The answer is…..THE BUFFALO!!

As the cows try to run away from the storm, they would unfortunately get caught by it. Buffaloes on the other hand, charge right at the storm. Once they get through the rain, thunder, and lightning, these fearless animals will come out on top – stronger than before.

In today’s world we can see these two animals in different people. On one end, we see the cows. No matter how hard they try, they choose to run away from different situations. No matter how far and how fast they run away, the situations will always catch up with them. On the other end, we see the buffaloes. Whenever they see a situation, they choose not only to face it, but conquer it too!! Buffaloes get stronger by facing more of these situations.

Throughout my nearly 35 years of existence, I have seen this in many people. While the cows do not gain anything from running, except more strife and negativity, the buffaloes gain experience. This will allow them to become strong leaders in society.

Call me crazy, but this is similar to a couple of posts I wrote several months ago: The Perpetual Victim and Lions. Both personalities are similar to these four legged animals. One deals with negativity, hopelessness, fear, and despair. While the other deals with positivity, hope, courage, and possibilities.

No matter how you slice it, the ideas are still the same!! You have a choice on how you can handle the different situations in your life. You can either be a cow or a buffalo. What do you want to be? The choice is up to you.

That is all I have for now. Take care and thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Jesse I-I-I