 an old lady went to the fruit seller to buy some mangoes. Her eyesight wasn't very good, her hearing wasn't very good, she was walking really slowly. You could tell that she was quite frail. The mango seller saw her coming from far away and he rubbed his hands and he thought, aha, today I am going to sell this old woman all of my slightly rotten, slightly overripe mangoes because well she won't know any different. So when she got to him, he said to her, he said, you know these are the best mangoes in the market today. They're all fresh and they're all firm and they're all really sweet. You can pick any mango that you like with your eyes closed, they'll all be perfect. The old lady however had a slightly strange request. She said to him, she said, I've got this new recipe for a chutney and for this I need the slightly overripe mangoes. You know the ones that are started to go a bit soft. So my eyesight isn't very good. Would you mind very much separating them for me? The fruit seller was absolutely delighted because it's not every day that somebody actually asks to buy your slightly bad fruit. So he very carefully took out all the slightly overripe, slightly soft mangoes, made a separate pile of them and said to her, there you go. Now you can pick the ones that you want. And the old lady smiled sweetly at him. She thanked him with all her heart and then she turned to the other pile, the one with the fresh firm mangoes and she picked all the mangoes that she wanted. You know this is one of my favorite stories. I use it very often in my corporate training sessions and typically the first reaction is one of anger that she was dishonest, that she cheated the fruit seller. Hey, where did she cheat him? He was planning to cheat her. He was planning to sell her all of his soft overripe fruit. It's just that she was one step ahead of him. She got there before he did. Then you realize that it has nothing to do with her being dishonest or her cheating the fruit seller. It's just that society does not like people who are self-sufficient, people who can take care of themselves because then you're more difficult to control. You know strength comes in many, many different ways and even the concept of strength itself changes with circumstances, with situations, with age, with gender. There's no equation, there's no formula for strength. So don't let anyone guilt you into thinking that if you're not conforming to their idea of strength that you're not good enough or don't let people make you feel inferior if their strength is not your strength. Just remember your strength comes from within you. It is very individual to you. Recognize your own strengths and work to those.