A man found an eagle's egg and placed it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.

All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air like chicks, he never explored his true capabilities.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

The old eagle (living like chicks) looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.

"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth -- we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.

Don’t restrict your true capabilities by thinking that you can’t do it. Your surrounding plays a vital role in shaping your future; it’s true that a man is known by the company he keeps.