The Story of the Boy Who Broke His Head. How did 5 extraordinary lessons from 5 extraordinary People help him become one of the Greatest Leaders of the World?

5 Extraordinary Lessons

The Boy fell down and broke his Head. Doctors said that he would never be like others again. But God had other plans for him. He met 5 extraordinary people who helped him to become better than the rest of the world.

What did the Monk teach him?

The First Person whom he met was the Monk. The monk taught him the art of Focus. The monk put his hand on the head of the boy and asked him to close his eyes. The monk took the mind of the boy to the mountains.  The mountain was covered with snow. It was beautiful.  The monk asked the boy to take five deep breaths. As the boy started taking deep breaths, all his worries calmed down. The Monk asked the boy to sit down and count the birds. The whole day the boy sat there on the top of the mountains and counted the birds he saw. He enjoyed the focus he had.  

Toward the end of the day, the boy understood the first lesson.

When the monk asked the boy, what did you learn?

The boy said, “The art of Focus is to be distraction-free.”

1.      Start with a few deep breaths to help calm our minds of all the worries.

2.      Work in a clean arranged space without any distractions. This helps us to Focus.   

But the boy had a question.  He asked the Monk, “In today's world, how can we always remain distraction-free?”

The Monk smiled and answered, “The idea is not to remain distraction-free all the time. It is to limit the distraction to a particular time. Schedule your distractions”.

1.      Have dedicated time for distraction where you engage social media, and worry about all the problems in your life. This will help you be distraction-free the rest of the time.

2.      Don’t neglect your problems. The problems in the back of our mind prevents us from focusing. Schedule time to address the problems you are facing. What gets scheduled gets done.

The monk brought back the mind of the boy to his body and said, “Focus is a muscle that becomes stronger with practice. Practice what you have learned every day. Soon you will be ready for the next lesson.”

What the Teacher Taught Him?

After the Monk helped the boy enhance his focus, he started returning to school. He was doing better than before but was still much behind his friends. There he met the Teacher who gave him the second lesson. “How to study?”

One day the boy was crying. The teacher saw him and asked. “What is the matter dear?” The boy replied, “I cannot cope with my studies. I am unable to handle so many subjects. I can’t remember anything I have studied the previous day.”

 The Teacher understood the boy’s problem and called him to his cabin. He Gave him a textbook and asked him to read a chapter. The boy did it with utmost focus. After the chapter was over the teacher gave the boy a paper and said, “Close the book. Recall everything you have read and write it on the paper”. The boy struggled but still could recall some of what he read and wrote on the paper. The teacher then said,” Now open the book, find out what you could not recall, and complete your notes.”  The boy did it.

The teacher gave the paper to the boy and said, “Go home, revise the notes for 4 days once in the morning and once at night. Focus more on what you could not remember.  Meet me after that”.

At the end of 4 days, the boy was amazed to find out how much he understood and could remember. The Boy went back to the teacher and thanked him.

But the boy was curious. He asked the teacher, “Sir, how did this happen?”

The Teacher smiled and replied,

1.      “Active recall is important for memory formation and improves understanding.”

2.      “We forget 70 % of what we read in 24 hours. Research says systematic spaced revision helps us retain the information much longer”

What did the Student taught him?

The boy approached the brightest student in the class and asked, “Can you help me? I have a very poor memory.”

The student replied, “There is nothing called a poor memory. There is only trained or untrained memory”. The student continued, “Do you remember anybody who has taken money from you and hasn’t returned it yet”.

The boy replied, “Yes, my neighbour took 20 bucks from me 3 months back. He hasn’t returned it yet.”

The student said, “See you remembered it for more than 3 months. What we need is motivation to remember something.”

The boy said, “Wow!! I never thought it that way.”

“How can I train my memory to be like yours”, the boy asked the student.

The student said, “Let's play a game”. He took out 10 flashcards that had photos of different persons on them. The flashcards contained the names of the persons, their professions, and some additional information about their professions. The student gave the cards to the boy and asked him to remember as much information as he could.

After some time, the student took back the cards and showed the cards to the boy one by one. The student asked the boy to recall whatever information he could remember. The boy could not recall the names. However, he could recall their professions.

The boy was surprised, “Wow!! I could recall at least the professions. How did that happen?”

The student replied, “We can drastically improve our memory by using the power of Visualization and Association. You unknowingly used them”.  

1.      Visualisation: Our brain thinks in terms of pictures. If we visualize, we can remember better. Visualizing a profession such as a doctor, policeman, Baker, etc. is easier than visualizing a name. 

2.      Association: It becomes easy to remember new information if we associate it with something we already know.  We know what is a doctor, policeman, or baker. It was easy to associate it with a new person.

 What did the Guru Teach him?

The student took the boy to his Guru. Both of them entered the library where the guru was busy reading. The library was full of books. The boy was amazed to see the speed with which the Guru reading his books.  He asked the student, “Is he really reading?”. The student replied, “Yes! My Guru reads one book every day”.

The boy had some doubts.

He asked the Guru, “Does not speed reading take away the joy of reading?”

The Guru replied, “This is a rumour spread by those who can’t speed read. Speed Reading gives you the flexibility. You can read the areas which are less important or interesting very fast and read slow or even reread the areas which you find interesting or important.”

The boy asked,” Can faster readers comprehend well?”

The Guru replied, “Yes, they comprehend much better than the slow readers. The slow reader's attention doesn’t remain in one place. It wanders here and there while reading. A speed reader's mind can't wander”.

The boy asked,” Isn't speed reading hard and takes more effort”

The Guru replied, “No, speed reading requires less effort. The slow readers stop at words, reread them, go back, and continue this throughout the reading. This takes lots of effort and drains our energy. Unlike Slow readers, Speed readers are trained and require much less effort”.

The boy was satisfied and the Guru taught the boy the art of ‘Speed Reading’.

What did the Leader teach the Boy?  

With all the skills he had learned, the boy started applying all the skills. He was visibly much better than others.

He was shining like a star. That’s why the leader picked him up to be his successor.

The leader taught him how to think – with the concept of “Six Thinking Hats” devised by Dr. Edward Bono.

Suppose we have a problem and we need to solve it.

1.      The first task is to put on the ‘White Hat’ and gather all the information possible related to the problem.

2.      Then Wear the ‘Yellow Hat’ and think of all the positives in the problem.

3.      Next put the ‘Black Hat’ to look at the negative sides of the problem.

4.      Then the ‘Red Hat’ to think about the problem emotionally.

5.      Next wear the ‘Green Hat’ to turn on the Creativity mode. Try to think how to solve the

problem creatively.

6.      Last put on the ‘Blue Hat’ to think about the problem through Management Mode. Think like a manager on how to solve the problem.  

If we think through different directions, we get the best solution to the problem.

With all the above lessons the boy learned, the boy became the Greatest Leader of the World.