Motivational speaker and life insurance guru Lou Warke once told the story of the seven cow wife…

There was a King of the Fiji Islands who had an unattractive daughter. It was the custom of the day to offer a cow or two as dowry to the father of a potential new bride. The offers weren't exactly coming in by the droves. The island King was worried that no one would ever marry his daughter.

One day a Prince, who was clearly the most eligible bachelor in the entire kingdom, visited from an adjoining island. In fact, he was so eligible, he owned his own island.

The Prince saw the King's daughter and immediately fell in love. He instantly made an offer of seven cows for the daughter of the island King, who would have been content to take one cow. "No, I insist on seven," said the Prince. "No, one will do," countered the King. The back and forth continued until the Prince stated unequivocally, "It's either seven cows or the deal is off!"

The King couldn't believe his good fortune because no one in his kingdom had ever offered seven cows for a new bride. Not only was he able to marry off his less than attractive daughter but he garnered seven cows in the dowry.

Six months later, the chief decided to have his guys paddle him over to visit his daughter and new son-in-law in their new digs on the other island. As they docked, there was a beautiful woman there to greet the King and his entourage.

The King introduced himself and said "I am here to visit my daughter." There was a long pause and the beautiful woman looked puzzled and said to him "Father, don't you recognize me?" Clearly, the Prince had treated his new bride like a "seven cow wife" and she became a "seven cow wife."

My friend Pat Barry told me this story on the way to his cabin on Lake Tie in British Columbia recently. He went on to tell me about a young man named Wayne who was dating his youngest daughter Katie. Pat had shared the "seven cow story" over lunch with Wayne one day, making it clear that Katie deserved to be treated a "seven cow wife."

The story had a major impact on Wayne and was not forgotten. This was proven out some months later. In fact, just before Pat picked me up at our hotel in Calgary, Alberta to transfer to his cabin on Tie Lake in the shadows of the Canadian Rockies in the beautiful province of British Columbia, Wayne invited Pat out to lunch.

Over lunch, Wayne very nervously presented Pat with a gift, a slate of tile on which seven cows were mounted. He had custom-made the gift for his future father-in-law as he asked for Pat's permission to take his daughter's hand in marriage.

Touched by the gift, Pat was honored that Wayne had remembered the story. He embraced his new son-in-law-to-be and said he would be privileged to give his daughter's hand in marriage and blessed to have a son-in-law like Wayne in his family.

What if we treated others like seven cow people? They might become just that!

THE CHALLENGE:

Think of what you can do to reach out to the special people in your life… your spouse, your family, your friends, your colleagues and others and to make them seven cow people!