'Are you a 'Peter The Positive' Frog - or a Nigel The Negative Frog?'

I want to share a story I heard some years ago whilst speaking at a conference.

You may know that one of the stories I use is about the two frogs. The frog that’s able to jump out of a bucket even though other frogs told him he couldn’t. How was he able to do that because he was deaf and thought the other frogs were cheering him on. That’s certainly the short version of that story.

Anyway there I was at this conference and I used the full story of the two frogs as my speech ending, it was really appropriate to the audience and the speech I’d made.

At the coffee break, one of the people running the seminar, a man called

Chris came up to me and asked if I’d ever heard the story about another two frogs – Peter the positive frog and Nigel the negative frog.

No I haven’t I replied, so he told me the story.

I loved it - here it is.

One day two frogs, Peter the positive frog and Nigel the negative frog

were off on their usual daily adventure to find food. You can imagine, by

the way that I was pleased to hear that Peter was the name of the

positive one. And by the same token I sure that anyone called Nigel

would probably not be so impressed that the negative one bears his name.

OK well back to the story.

Searching around in a dairy they’d hopped into, Peter and Nigel spotting a large barrel of milk.

They jumped up onto a wall and after some difficulty managed to find their way to a position where they could see right into the barrel.

Taking their lives in their hands, somewhat like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, they made the leap across the gap and landed with an almighty splash right in the barrel.

Spluttering to the surface they started to swim around whilst lapping the milk.

When their thirst for milk was well and truly quenched, they started to swim round and round the surface of the milk in the barrel when suddenly the realisation came to them that they had no way of getting out.

Nigel the negative frog started bemoaning their lot, uttering such expressions as ‘we’ll never get out of here’. It was stupid of us to jump right in without thinking how can we get back to the safety of the wall.

Peter the positive one you’ll recall replied ‘something will come up just keep swimming while I think’.

Oh no it’s hopeless Nigel groaned, we’re done for we’ll never do it.

Just keep swimming Peter admonished him – keep taking action, something or someone will help us if we don’t give up.

I just can’t go on said Nigel and flipping over onto his back he slowly but surely sank below the surface and settled peacefully, but dead on the bottom of the barrel.

Peter kept on swimming knowing that if he preserved something would happen and sure enough it did.

As Peter continued to swim it became harder to do so, the milk was getting thicker and thicker.

By now I’m sure that like me, you’ve guessed the end of the story.

Yes, as Peter continued to swim, to take action the milk slowly but surely turned first into cream and then into butter. And there he was sitting on top of a barrel of butter basking in the sun waiting for the flies, one of his favourite foods to be attracted to the butter.

He was one happy and contented frog.

Now do I really need to draw out the points of the story for you?

Probably not, I’m pretty sure you know where I going to go with this.

But let me just make a couple of observations just for the heck of it.

When I heard the story it got me thinking.

Were there areas of my life where I’d stopped taking action, where I’d given up far too soon, where but just a bit more action I’d be sitting pretty on top of a barrel of butter.

Yep there were!

And does this apply to you in the same way?

As you look back at some of the goals you set for yourself, are there ones where just a little more activity on your part would see you accomplish them? You’ll know if this resonates with you.

So let me leave this section with my usual urging, take a moment and think about this story and the message it contains.

Just think how does this apply to my life?

How can I use this, are there people I should share this story with, would it make a great bedtime story for the kids – what do I learn?

After all I know that you and I whatever name we use would rather be a positive frog than a negative one.

Action really is the key to achieving - would you agree?

Please take a moment, to let me have your comments - I'd really appreciate it

Peter

Peter Thomson

P.S - Attention Fellow Achievers:

www.theachieversclub.com/invite