OPPORTUNITIES, WE MAKE THEM FRESH EVERY DAY By Robert D. Foster Good Morning! While watching the news on CNN the other morning, I was captured by the advertisement of Wall Street's American Stock Exchange: OPPORTUNITIES...WE MAKE THEM FRESH EVERY DAY Leaders don't simply drift from one idea to another. Effective leaders do more than live from day to day; from the bull market to the bearish swing. They devise a game plan, work out the kinks and then implement it! Danny Cox, a master storyteller, relates this fictional story: The snow was falling that night in early 1901 as good friends met at their favorite inn. As they sat round the table in front of a large stone fireplace, they stared at a question one of the four had written on a card and placed at the center of the table: What will the world of the 21st century hold for our descendants? A man with bushy hair...the oldest of the group...was the first to attempt to answer the question. "I believe that when the year 2000 dawns, men and women will have harnessed the power of electricity to accomplish things that the most daring of today's writers would scarcely admit to imagining. For instance, the men and women of the 21st century will calculate huge sums with absolute accuracy using tiny electric machines. They will fit the glorious sounds of the symphony into a device they can hold in the palm of a hand, and they will use miniature ear-pieces that will allow 20 people to listen to 20 different performances in a single room, each with perfect clarity..." The proprietor of the establishment had heard enough. "Edison, you're a dolt," he said. "You have gone too far. I will not have my inn turned into a haven for crackpots. There are limits, Mr. Edison, there are limits." A ten-year-old boy at the adjacent table rose and walked to Mr. Edison's side. The great inventor turned and two bright sets of eyes locked. "Are there really limits?" Mr. Edison got from his chair, and then bent to his knees so that he could look the little fellow squarely in the face. He placed both hands on the boy's shoulders, and after a long pause, said emphatically, "Son, there are only the limits we place upon ourselves. It's when you look beyond those barriers that you see...THERE ARE NO LIMITS!" "A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up but there is also mushrooming opposition." (I Corinthians 16:9) Have a good one! The rooster crows but the hen delivers the goods. Reprinted with permission from "Take Three on Monday Morning," written and published by Robert D. and Robert L. Foster.