Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player so far. Once he was making a television advertisement. All Michael needed to do in the advertisement was to miss a shot. For Michael, this was difficult. He always succeeded whenever he was throwing the ball. Every time he threw a basketball, it went in. Every time he tried to miss a shot, he failed. In total, it took him over 20 times before he missed a shot.

For Michael, success is a strong habit. He had formed a habit which was so strong that it took him a lot of time to break it and “fail”. Just like drinking, smoking and collecting things, success is also a habit. Like all habits, once it is established, it is difficult to break. Many people think that success is difficult to maintain（维持）. They feel that it will be hard work and will need too much action and focus. The truth is that it is simply a habit, and as easy to keep as any other habit.

Spend some time making success a habit in your life. Once you have developed it, it is not something you will want to change again. Then, the only thing you will fail is failing.

    Although people everywhere seem to enjoy drinking coffee, they don't all have the same coffee culture. In Europe for example, coffee shops are common places for people to meet friends and to talk while they drink coffee. On the other hand, places like this were not as common in North America in the past. Instead, people in North America liked to drink coffee in their homes with friends. The coffee culture in the USA changed when Starbucks coffee shops spread across the country.

    The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in downtown Seattle, Washington, in the USA. It was a small coffee shop that cooked its own coffee beans. The coffee shop's business did well, and by 1981 there were three Starbucks stores in Seattle.

    Things really began to change for the company in 1981.That year, Howard Schultz met the three men who ran Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen equipment（设备）. He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, which caused his great interest. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did. In 1982, the original Starbucks owners hired （雇佣）Schultz as the company's head of marketing(市场营销).

    In 1983, Schultz traveled to Italy. The special environment of the espresso（浓 咖啡） bars there caught his eyes. Back in the USA, Schultz created an environment for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable and casual, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Starbucks began opening more stores across the USA. Then the company opened coffee shops in other countries as well. Today, there are more than 16,000 Starbucks coffee shops all over the world.

    However, that does not mean Starbucks has not had problems. In fact, many Starbucks stores have closed over the past few years. On the one hand, this is because there were too many coffee shops competing for business in one small area. On the other hand, stores in some countries closed because the coffee culture there did not match with the “feel the same everywhere” environment offered by Starbucks.

    Daisy is a teacher who works in a primary school. She often plays games with her students so they like her class a lot.

    One day, Daisy decided to have her class play a potato game. She told each student to carry a bag with a few potatoes in it to school. Each student would "name" their potatoes after people they did not like, so the number of potatoes would be different depending on*their own situations.

    The next day, all of the students brought their potatoes to school. Some children had just one or two potatoes, while others had as many as five or six. The children were taking about names of their potatoes happily when Daisy came into the classroom. She then told the children that they would have to carry their potatoes with them for one week wherever they went, even when they went to the restroom. The children laughed and thought the game was really interesting.

    A few days passed by. Some of the students started to complain, as their potatoes began to rot and had a strong and bad smell. The students who carried more potatoes also complained about how heavy their bags were.

    One week later, the kids were so happy to hear their teacher say that the game was over. Daisy asked, "How did you feel about carrying around your potatoes for a week?"

    The students complained once again. Daisy simply smiled and said, "This is what it's like to carry hate* in your heart. You have to carry it with you wherever you go. If you can't bear* carrying rotten potatoes for one week, can you imagine having hate in your heart for your lifetime?"

    One morning, a blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet .He held a sign which said, "I am blind. Please help me."

    There were only a few coins(硬币) in the hat. A man was walking by. He took out a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words on it. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by could see the new words.

    Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and ask, "Are you the one who changed my sign in the morning? What did you write?"

    The man said, "I only wrote the truth. I said what you said, but in a different way."

    What he had written was, "Today is a beautiful day, but I can't see it."

    Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

    Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply told people to help by putting some money in the hat. The second sign told people that they were able to enjoy the beauty of the day, but the boy could not enjoy it because he was blind.

    The first sign simply said the boy was blind, while the second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.

There are at least two lessons we can learn from this simple story.

    The first is: Treasure(珍惜) what you have. Someone else has less. Try your best to help those who need your help.

    The second is: Be creative. Think differently. There is always a better way.

    Mr. King lives in a city. He has some shops and makes a lot of money. His son, Mike, studies at a middle school. The boy likes everything but he doesn't like studying. He doesn't listen to his teachers in class and he never finishes his homework on time. He always plays football when he has any free time. He can never pass(通过) the exams.

    Mr. King is busy with his trade that he has little time to stay at home. He never cares about his son's studies, so he doesn't know how he is doing.

    One day Miss Read, Mike's teacher, calls Mr. King. On the telephone she tells him all about the boy's studies. She wants him to try to help his son at home. When the man hears this, he doesn't feel very happy.

    In the afternoon, when his son comes back from school, Mr. King gives him a good telling-off(责罚), but soon feels sorry for it when he sees Mike crying in the bedroom. The next morning, Before Mike goes to school, he says to him, "Study hard and I'll buy you a car when you pass the exam next year."

    Another term is over. Mike doesn't pass the exam once more. Mr. King looks at the grades on the school report for a few minutes. Then he asks his son," You don't pass the exam again, Mike. What did you do at school this term?" "I learned how to drive a car, dad" answers the boy.

    "Doctor Johnson, I don't want to eat now, that's because nothing has a taste for me. It's been like this for long. In fact, I didn't have a delicious meal after I caught a terrible cold last month, What can I do?"

    "Here are some medicine, Mrs. Harris. Take three pills three times a day for seven days and come back and see me. But remember, don't eat anything during the week, or you can just drink some water."

    Next week an upset Mrs. Harris came into Dr. Johnson's office. "Doctor! I'm doing it just as you told me, but delicious food is still tasteless for me. I don't know what was in those pills, but the problem is worse! What do you have to say for yourself?"

    "But when and how do you take these pills?" asked the doctor.

    "At first, I took these pills three times a day, just before dinner," continued the woman, "but these pills are too bitter (苦). So I had to take these pills after three meals."

    "Calm down, Mrs. Harris," said the doctor soothingly. "Now that we've fixed your taste problem, It's OK now, we'll work on your hearing!"