Motivational and Inspirational Stories – Two Shoe Salesmen (Short Story # 24)
In the story of the Two Shoe Salesmen, one sees a market full of potential, while the other sees only failure. Their contrasting perspectives highlight how mindset shapes success. Embrace optimism to unlock opportunities and achieve your goals.
In life, everyone needs some motivation and inspiration. Whether you are a student. a working professional; or a startup founder; every one need some source of motivation and inspiration. We cover inspiring stories in our “Motivational and inspirational Stories Series“. Continuing the same, let me share with you one of the most famous motivational stories on the entrepreneurial circuit – Two Shoe Salesmen. The story is about two shoe salesmen who travel to a third world country in search of new business opportunities and assess the market for shoes. This is one of the most empowering short stories I’ve read and very close a my heart being a startup mentor and having entrepreneurial family background.
Motivational and inspirational Stories # 24 – Two Shoe Salesmen
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a successful American shoe manufacturer company that manufactured and sold shoes. Due to market changes, the sales of company went down sharply. The management was concerned about the decline in company’s product sales in America. A board meeting called up to discuss this issue. In the board meeting, a new business strategy emerged out to explore and open new markets abroad. It was decided to send two salesmen to Africa to determine the market potential for their products. The Sales Director called his two top salesmen and proposed that they travel to Africa and assess the market there to increase their sales.
Both salesmen left by boat for Africa with instructions to make a first survey of the market. Each of them would go to a different country to have two opinions about the potential of the African market.
Also read: Footprints in the sand (Spiritual Short Story) – God is always with you
Within a month of arriving, the first salesman completed a basic survey of the target market and called his sales director, informing him that after several days visiting cities, he had concluded that the African potential for shoe sales was null. The first sales man said “Boss, there is a bad news, here they all go barefoot. No one here wears any shoes, there is no market for us here! We are not going to be able to sell a single pair of shoes.” The salesman was sounding very dejected and disheartened.
After couple of days; the second of the salesmen called back to the sales director. He was extremely excited and said, “Boss, good news. It’s fantastic place and a great business opportunity for us. No one here wears shoes. No one sells shoes. There is a huge potential market for us. We are going to sell thousands of pairs… what all we need to do is to educate them on the benefits and importance of wearing shoes.”
Moral of the Inspirational Story
This inspiring short story highlights the importance of ATTITUDE in our life. Why do some people get what they want, while others don’t?
An optimistic attitude makes you see opportunities in all the difficulties that life holds around you. Whereas, a pessimistic attitude makes you see difficulties in all the new opportunities that life holds for you.”
There is also a famous Henry Ford quote that emphasizes how much attitude determines success or failure.
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right,”
There are opportunities everywhere. When you are mindful enough to explore them you will find the one. It all starts with that optimistic attitude. You will find the right people, you will move in the right circles, and you will ‘bump’ into the right solutions.
The story also encourage to look at the things in totality. There is always a positive perspective and a negative perspective to everything and every circumstance. You can either look at a glass as “half full” or “half empty”. But, technically the glass is always full. You can look at the hole of the doughnut or in totality the doughnut itself. The choice is yours and yours alone. But remember that the choices you make will determine your success or failure. Look at the things in wholistic way and tap the opportunities. In the Story; of course, Salesman Two was a real entrepreneur, the person who sees opportunity where others do not. It’s a story designed to motivate you to find hidden potential, take risks, and turn obstacles into opportunities.
It’s never too late to change your personal filters!
Want to read More Inspirational Stories?
- The Saint and the Scorpion (Inspirational Story #20)
- The Fisherman (Inspirational Story #15)
- Sharpen your axe (Story #11)
- 100 Camels (Inspirational Story #7)
- Empty your Cup (Inspirational Story #5)
So that’s all from my side in this post. Over to you now, I and invajy readers would love to hear your thoughts and learning from this inspiring story. Please feel free to share them in comments section.
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