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Pull a String and it will follow...


 I live in a small village in Mexico, and as I was taking my daily walk into the town centro, I came across a little girl and her mother. The child, who was about 3 years old was riding what appeared to be a brand new trike, and was stuck. You see, our streets and sidewalks are very rough with broken sections of concrete and cobble stones, and she did not have the strength to get over a bump. 

I tried to come to the rescue by pushing the bike from the back wheels, but it would only start to fall over, as the front wheel was stuck on broken concrete. The pushing just turned the front wheel hard to the left making it a brake, the result of this, and the triangular design now making it want to tip over. 


Then I was reminded of Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said ‘Pull a string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.’


From there, I turned the front wheel in the right direction and pulled! The bike with the little girl made it over the hurdle, and they carried on their way. (By the way, when she looked at me and said ‘gracias’ it was priceless, and completely changed my otherwise miserable day, the details of which I will spare you from.)


This was a physics analogy of a Leadership concept; however, how many of us have been stuck with someone pushing us, we were not certain of which direction to turn, and we couldn’t move forward at all?!

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