Inspirational Stories Be encouraged by these inspirational stories; we hope they positively influence your thinking. Many of these are true life experiences that we or people we know have gone through. Stories are like inspirational quotes, reading one can change the way you think about a situation.  Popular Inspirational Stories The Farmer and The Mule  While the story does make us smile, it does have wisdom in it; it reminded me about defeating adversity. How we handle adversity determines our success in life. How we handle adversity determines our success in life. One of my thoughts on adversity is, "Adversity is a fact of life. It can't be controlled. What we can control is how we react to it." When faced with adversity we can give up and adopt the poor me attitude. Or we can look at adversity as an opportunity to find other ways to do things. We can be determined, persistent and persevere. It all comes down to . . .  Found in a Book  As many of you are aware by my past writings I have a love of books. In reading books I have found mentors, stories of people an aha moment! who have faced challenges and overcame them; people whom I admire. I have also found wisdom, and words that make me stop and think, words that have given me an "aha" moment! And, some books have given me hope. These writings that have encouraged me to continue with my goals, or have inspired me to take action. I was recently reading a book of poetry that was written in the 1930's. I bought this book at an . . .  No More Self Doubt  You may have heard from some so-called friends that what you have been striving for is not within your reach. Have you ever heard words like these or maybe they have come to you from supervisors through their annual review of your work performance. The question is, do you believe them and alter your dreams or goals? No chance to succeed? Throughout the centuries, so-called significant or important people have told people of various walks of life, that they have no chance to succeed. In a lot of cases, many people cower from these kind of comments and start to . . .  Hope And Decide  You probably have met people who know that what they do gets them into serious trouble, and at the same time life will not change without taking action are really looking for someone else to make a decision for them that would effectively change them. They seem to hope that their life will change without having to make a decision or take action. I have met more than one person who desired a change and hoped for a better life but were more than willing to let another decide the best for them. In some cases, the person would change only if another life promised more than they had . . .  That Is Not My Job  I got up without much enthusiasm, rolled out of bed and sat there not wanting to believe I had to go to work again. What came to mind was that this must just be a bad dream; a dream that never seemed to end with the same old being done over and over again. I jerked my body up to a standing position and glanced slowly around back towards my comfortable and warm bed and had to use very last once of strength not to head back into its embrace.  To Make Rainbows You Need  For as long as I can remember, my aunt had stained glass hanging in her window. She had pieces from all over the world, each one hand crafted by a stained glass artist. She had small ones and larger ones, all created by various artists. They were beautiful to look at and when the sun hit them there brillance shone through. She loved them all, but there was one piece that hung in her kitchen window and she often referred to it as her "motivational stained glass".