Fear

The beast and the boy faced each other, the crowd becoming silent. The only sound was the beast’s hoofs coming down hard on the earth as it pranced about, ready to clobber the boy to death. The boy did not move but observed the animal from his place. “This is madness. Ask him to come out of the enclosure,” pleaded the mother to the father. Philip, the father, remained passive, while his anxious eyes observed the boy’s movements.

No one had been able to tame the horse. Philonicus, the horse trader from Thessaly, quoted a high price for the animal, 13 talents, which in 2024 would be approximately $3,50,000. And in ancient Greece, this amount could have been paid by Philip if he wanted to, for he was the king of Macedonia. But since no one could tame the black monster that reared on its legs all the time and threw down everyone who tried to control it, Philip did not want to waste money on that horse.

But now, Philip’s son was in the enclosure, a young boy, hardly in his teens, trying to control the horse. The crowd was tense. Six expert horsemen had been thrown down that day, two of them knocked senseless. The boy removed the fluttering cloak from his body, walked calmly towards the horse, took hold of the reins, and gently tugged the horse towards the other side, making it face the sun. He then patted the horse and whispered soothing words in its ears.

With the horse still facing the sun, the boy vaulted himself on the horse in one smooth leap. The horse reared. The boy held his grip, and the horse pranced about wildly, trying to shake the boy off. But after a few tries, the horse calmed down. The boy nudged the horse, and it took off on a gallop. He came back only after the sun was up high in the sky, at noon. The boy had observed that the horse was frightened of its own shadow. He made it face the sun and helped it overcome its fears. After many years, the gigantic black horse with a white star on its forehead, Bucephalus, went around the world and helped its master, Alexander the Great, to conquer the world.

You will have many people at your workplace, frightened of something, intimidated by someone. Help them overcome their fears.

They could become your best buddies. Even if they don’t, you still would have helped them conquer their doubts or fears and given them wings. And who knows... you might get to conquer the world!