• Mind Your Mind 202: Are You A “Chicken Eagle” Musician?

    in Motivational Minutes,Self-Improvement

    chicken eagle

    The eagle has an image that is more distinguished than any other bird and that’s why it’s the king of birds and winged creatures.

    Put beauty, courage, determination, and nobility together with strength and other rare abilities and you’ll come close to the description of the eagle.

    In a previous post, we looked at the qualities of an eagle. Now, it’s time to find out what will happen to an eagle if it is nurtured in a certain environment.

    The Tale Of The Chicken Eagle

    Here’s a story of an eagle that was nurtured into a chicken.

    Part 1 – Losing The Eagle

    There was an eaglet that fell from its nest into the unfortunate hands of a poultry farmer.

    Although the poultry farmer knew she wasn’t a chicken, he nurtured the eaglet in his poultry among his many chickens.

    The eaglet, after eating with chicken and seeing chicken all around her, eventually grew up to be like a chicken. Even though, by nature, she was an eagle with talons, wings, and a beak, etc.; yet by nurture, she had become a chicken.

    The farmer, who once believed he had an eagle in his possession, eventually got disappointed to see his eagle act like a chicken – pecking at the ground and strutting around like every other chicken in the poultry.

    And suddently it dawned on him that he had lost his eagle because the eaglet in his poultry had been nurtured into a chicken.

    Part 2 – Finding The Eagle

    Although the eagle had been nurtured into a chicken, there was still more to it.

    Considering that she was hatched as an eaglet from the egg of a mother eagle implies that she has the nature of an eagle within her, which had been adulterated by nurture.

    One day, the farmer decided to reach out to the part of the eagle that remained untouched – its nature. It was time for some exposure. So the farmer put the eagle on the fence of his poultry farm where she could fly free and said “Eagle! Oh eagle, stretch out your wings and fly.”

    The eagle flew slightly from the poultry fence back to the coop to where her counterparts were – where it belonged. That was when it dawned on the man that the eagle in the eaglet was really lost. It was at this point he named the eagle a chicken eagle.

    Being a determined young man, he decided to change his strategy.

    “I must find the eagle in this eaglet. But how can I make this eaglet forget about the poultry and chicken life?” he said to himself. He decided to take the eaglet off the poultry farm to the mountain top where she belonged.

    The poultry farmer set off to the mountains the next morning with the chicken eagle.

    It was an entirely different environment for the eaglet – something different from the usual. She sure was missing “home” but from the mountain, the poultry was entirely out of reach. It was just the sky, vegetation, and the bright sun above.

    After a while, in the new environment, the chicken eagle had an encounter that changed it forever.

    There was a mighty screech that reached out to her. Although it was an unfamiliar sound, yet she felt a strong connection to that sound. It reached out to her inner part.

    When she looked around to find out where the sound was coming from, she saw another eagle in the sky, soaring with grace, beauty, and nobility. At this point, the chicken eagle had seen her real identity – it was a moment of truth. She was set free from the chicken mindset.

    The chicken eagle stared skyward into the bright sun, straightened her large body, and stretched her massive wings. Her wings moved, slowly at first, then surely and powerfully.

    Then, with the mighty screech of an eagle, she flew high into the sky to the amazement of the poultry farmer.

    * There are two possible ends to this tale. It’s either the eagle flew away forever, or it came back to the farmer and they lived happily ever after. I’ll give you the liberty to end the tale your own way. ;)

    Nature Vs Nurture

    “Man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture […] with the exception of the instinctoid reactions in infants to sudden withdrawals of support and to sudden loud noises, the human being is entirely instinctless.”Ashley Montagu

    Man has the ability to become anything and there are two factors that determine who he’ll become – nature and nurture.

    While nature talks about the inherent features that you possess like talent and other abilities and endowments, nurture talks about the process that leads to the development and harnessing of an individual into a personality.

    We are a product of nature and nurture. Even though nature plays an important role in our personality, nurture matters a lot more.

    How many of us would have the same religion, eat the same food, talk the way we do, and have the same personality we have now if we were nurtured in a different part of the world? None!

    Johnny Rich once said “You inherit your environment just as much as your genes” and that crowns it all.

    “Are You A Chicken Eagle Musician?”

    You just saw how the eagle lost touch with her identity just by being nurtured in the wrong environment. That’s the story of a vast majority of musicians all over the world.

    If you’re not in the right place where your talent can be nurtured for the best, your story could be a similar story of the chicken eagle in the making.

    We all need to be in environments where our potential can be harnessed. We need to leave the company of other birds who don’t belong to the mountain and skies like we do, if we must realize our potential.

    Being an eagle-minded musician is not enough.

    You need to find yourself in the company of eagle-minded musicians as well. That saying that “birds of a feather flock together” should underscore the importance of this truth.

    Final Words

    In case you’ve lost your nature via nurture like the chicken eagle, all hope is not lost.

    Reach out to the inner you before it is lost forever by leaving where you are to where you’re supposed to be. I call this the principle of dislocation and relocation. You need to lose touch with where you are and then relocate to where you’re supposed to be.

    Thank God for the effort of the poultry farmer to find the “lost eagle” in the eagle. Today, I want to say his very words to you:

    Eagle-minded musician! Oh eagle-minded musician, stretch out your wings and fly.”

    Pause and ponder!!!

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    Hi, I'm Jermaine Griggs, founder of this site. We teach people how to express themselves through the language of music. Just as you talk and listen freely, music can be enjoyed and played in the same way... if you know the rules of the "language!" I started this site at 17 years old in August 2000 and more than a decade later, we've helped literally millions of musicians along the way. Enjoy!




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