The Boastful Wrestler
Akbar-Birbal Stories · 1 min read
A powerfully built traveling wrestler arrived at court, boasting that his stance was so unshakeable that no man in the kingdom, however strong, could move his feet even an inch from where he planted them. Several of the court's strongest men tried, straining and pushing with all their might, and every one of them failed.
Akbar, impressed but slightly suspicious, asked Birbal to try. Birbal studied the wrestler for a moment, then simply walked up and asked to see his sandals, admiring them as if genuinely curious about the craftsmanship. The flattered wrestler slipped them off to show him.
While the wrestler stood barefoot, distracted by the compliment, Birbal calmly picked up the sandals — planted a foot's distance away — and asked him to step over and retrieve them, since he'd clearly need his shoes back eventually. The wrestler, without thinking, stepped clean out of his "unshakeable" stance to reach for them.
"There," Birbal said simply. "I never needed to push you at all. I only needed to give you a reason to move yourself." The court roared with laughter, and the wrestler, good-humored about it, admitted that strength alone was no match for a clever mind.
Moral of the story
You don't need force to move someone — sometimes you just need to give them their own reason to move.