After a heart attack, a corporate manager was told by his doctor to spend several weeks on a farm to relax and recover. But just a few days into rural life, he was bored out of his mind. He asked the farmer for something anything to do. The farmer, amused, told him to clean up all the cow manure, expecting it to take a week.

To his surprise, the manager finished the smelly job in just one day. Impressed but curious, the farmer gave him a tougher task: to behead 500 chickens. Again, by sunset, it was done. On the third day, the farmer figured he’d test him with a simple job: sort a sack of potatoes into two boxes big ones and small ones.

By evening, the farmer found the manager sitting there, frustrated, with the potatoes untouched. “How come you managed such hard tasks easily, and now can’t finish this simple one?” he asked. The manager shook his head and replied, “All my life, I’ve been cutting heads and dealing with crap… but now you want me to make decisions!”

Later, this same manager took over a new office role and was told by his predecessor, “There are three envelopes in the drawer—open one when you hit a crisis.” Months later, chaos hit, so he opened the first: “Blame your predecessor!” It worked. The second envelope said “Reorganize!”—another win. The third one? “Prepare three envelopes…”