Larry seemed always silent and didn’t have any friend. His teacher Mr. Brown ____ this. One day, he asked Larry to meet him after class. Mr. Brown said, “I see that you don’t talk to anyone or show any ____ in anything. What’s wrong?” Larry replied, “Sir, I have a very ____ life. I have to face some very sad incidents and I keep ____ them. Because of this, I can’t focus my attention on anything and don’t even feel like talking to ____.”

Mr. Brown listened carefully, thought for a while and said, “Would you like some lemonade（柠檬汽水）?” Larry felt a little ____ and nervously replied, “Yes, thank you!”

While ____ lemonade, Mr. Brown added more salt on purpose and kept the quantity of sugar low. Larry made a ____ face as soon as he drank a sip of that lemonade. Seeing this, Mr. Brown asked “You don’t like it?”

“Um…it’s just there is a bit too much ____ in it,” Larry answered.

Mr. Brown stopped him, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. I will throw it away.” As the teacher was lifting the glass to ____, Larry stopped him and said, “Sir, please don’t throw it away. ____ we put a little more sugar in the lemonade, it will be fine to drink.”

Hearing this, Mr. Brown said____, “This is what I want to hear from you. To improve the ____ of lemonade, we don’t need to remove the salt from it, we can just add some sugar to it. Similarly, we cannot remove sad things that have ____ happened to us, but we can add sweetness of good experiences in our life. If you keep on crying about your ____, neither your present will be right nor the future will be bright.”

Larry realized his problem and promised to live a positive life.

No one is born a winner. People make themselves into winners by their own _______ .

I learned this lesson from a(n) _______ many years ago. I took the head _______ job at a school in Alaska. It was a small school with a weak football program.

It was a tradition for the school’s old team to play against the _______ team at the end of spring practice. The old team had no coach, and they didn’t even practice to _______ for the game. Being the coach of the new team, I was excited because I knew we were going to win, but to my disappointment we lost the game. I couldn’t _______ I had got into such a situation. I felt there was a heavy weight on my shoulder as I walked home alone. Thinking hard about it, I came to _______ that my team might not be the number one team in the state, but they were depending on me. I had to change my attitude (态度) about their ability and potential (潜力).

I started doing anything I could to help them build a little _______ . Most importantly, I began to treat them like _______ . That summer, when the other teams enjoyed their ________ , we met every day and ________ passing and kicking the football.

Six months after suffering our ________ on the spring practice field, we won our first game and our second, and continued. Finally, we faced the number one team in the state. I felt that it would be normal for us even if we lost the game. But that wasn’t what happened. My boys ________ and beat the best team in our area, giving me a big surprise!

From the experience I learnt a lot about how the attitude of the leader can make a big difference to the members of a team. Instead of seeing my boys as losers, I pushed and ________ them. I helped them to see themselves ________ , and they built themselves into winners.

Winners are made, but born.

One windy spring afternoon, a father and his daughter went to Longtan Park. When they ______ there were already many adults and their children playing in the park. When the daughter saw the sky filled with colourful kites in different shapes, she was ______ and wanted to get one too. Her father agreed to buy one for her. So they went to a kite ______ and chose a beautiful one.

With the string (线) in hand, the daughter started flying the kite. Soon, the kite was high up in the sky. After a while, the daughter said, “Dad, it ______ that the string is stopping the kite from flying higher. If we cut it, it will be free and fly even ______. Can we cut it?” The father didn’t ______, but just cut the string off. Suddenly, the kite began to go higher and it made the daughter much happier.

However, to her surprise, the kite was coming down. They waited for quite some time. Slowly, it fell onto the ground. The daughter felt upset and asked, “I thought that after cutting the string, the kite would fly higher. ______ did it fall down?” The father smiled and said, “Dear, the string was not stopping the kite ______ flying higher, but helping it stay in the sky, because the kite itself can’t fly up. By using the string we help the kite go up in the right direction. When we cut the string, it could not support the kite.”

So in our life, we may ______ feel like there are certain things that are holding us back and stopping us from growing. But in fact, these might be the things that ______ us instead. We really grow up and become stronger by realizing the importance of them.