Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese in summary

This is a brief tale of two mice and two humans who live in a maze and one day are faced with change: someone moves their cheese. Reactions vary from quick adjustment to waiting for the situation to change by itself to suit their needs. This story is about adjusting attitudes toward change in life, especially at work.

What is the problem in Who Moved My Cheese?

Here, at last, is the reason why you and I don’t have everything we want out of life while it seems everyone else does: It’s because we don’t know who moved the damn cheese. This almost slipped past us regular schmoes undetected, even though “Who Moved My Cheese?” has been right there, inexplicably, atop many bestseller lists for weeks and weeks and, well, all right, a year.

1. Currently it’s No.2 in Business Week and No.1 on USA Today’s business books list.
2. This might be because there are people like the executive vice president for customers at Southwest Airlines, who bought 27,000 copies, one for everyone on the payroll-baggage handlers included.) There has been almost no press about “Who Moved My Cheese?”-no book tours, no one who wanted to interview the author, no advertising.

The cover makes it look like a misguided diet fad or a flatulence joke heard from the back of a minivan full of fifth-graders. Inside is a story that makes “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” look like Tolstoy.

It’s a parable for the workplace from Spencer Johnson, the medical-doctor-turned-efficiency-guru who co-wrote “The One Minute Manager” all those years ago, which, for a time, turned everyone’s boss into an attention-deficient cartoon character. Johnson now lives happily in Hawaii. When you call him, if you call him, he puts you on the speakerphone and you can hardly hear him over the surf.

“Who Moved My Cheese?” says something about the American work ethic, something about that underlying sense of panic, in a cute way. It takes America’s sometimes-onerous entrepreneurial gospel (outrun, outsell, set your goals, shake hands firmly, repeat the client’s first name to establish intimacy) and suggests that not only do you have to find your own reward, but you have to seek out new rat races as well.

• Bosses love this: Subtextually, the “Cheese” metaphor suggests that it’s your fault for looking in the wrong places for the wrong cheese.
• It’s either the fuzziest, most profound thing you’ve ever heard or it makes you want to wire up a pipe bomb to a consultant’s flip chart.
• It goes like this: Two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two humans (Hem and Haw) live in a maze and live off a pile of cheese.

When the cheese supply dries up, the mice go find some more and the humans stand around and stress out about it. Finally, one of the humans, Haw, does as the mice do and sets out for new cheese. Along the way, it occurs to him to write several insights on the walls of the maze (“The Quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, the Sooner You Find New Cheese,” etc.).

There you go. The secret of America’s top executives. More to the point, it is the secret that the bosses of the world like to drill into their employees, which, when you peel back the happy layer, is the same as it ever was: Get with the program, people. “Who Moved My Cheese” suggests that the program switches constantly and it’s your fault if you miss out.

Your boss has no idea where the cheese went, either, but he or she would like you to move without question. This is because our world is now addicted to change. We’ve confused the message: “Don’t stand around and whine about things for the rest of your life,” which sounds a lot like your mother, has become “Don’t wonder why the maze is so confusing; just learn it,” which sounds a lot like Mr.

1. Dithers. What “Who Moved My Cheese?” really is-on the second or third interpretation-is the same old lecture about your attitude problem, mister.
2. It comes at a time when everyone is looking for a better, wealthier raft on which to cling for a minute or two.
3. It’s so stupid, it’s smart; so unthreatening, it’s perky.

And it fits in a coat pocket. “The More Important Your Cheese Is to You the More You Want to Hold On to It.” (Page 36) The cheese phenomenon keeps moving, with more followers all the time. Ohio State University’s business school has offered classes on “Who Moved My Cheese?”; the book also has its advocates at the Harvard Business School.

Cheese enthusiasts, according to the book’s publisher, Penguin Putnam, allegedly abound at General Motors, Citibank and Dell Computer; “buying circles” of the book reported on Amazon.com (sales rank: 14) include customers at Eastman Kodak, Charles Schwab and others. At the recently morphed Exxon Mobil Corp.-the two petroleum giants are each listed in the book’s buying circles and presumably had a good part of their own cheese moved around lately-a spokeswoman says that while the book may or may not be used to train managers, “I’m lactose-intolerant, so I wouldn’t know.” Keep scratching your head; cheese devotees have a way of sneaking up on you.

A nurse in Kentucky gave it to patients facing long rehabilitations; the book has made it to church pulpits and high school psychology classes. At recent conventions of everyone from dentists to hotel managers, entire afternoons have been given over to discussing the cheese paradigm.

Washington Redskins running back Brian Mitchell told a Post sportswriter in November that “Who Moved My Cheese?” helped him better his game this season by turning “the negative into positive. My cheese is to get to the playoffs.” And look what happened. Set in large type for football player and CEO alike, “Who Moved My Cheese?” is touted as requiring only 45 minutes to read from cover to cover-perhaps faster, we’re thinking, if you read at a level beyond junior high.

Even faster if you skip the prologue, in which a bunch of people at a high school reunion gather close to hear a successful classmate tell his life-changing story of the maze and the cheese. (If you’re seriously pressed for time or boardroom synapse, author Johnson’s company-Whomovedmycheese.com-sells a 15-minute cartoon version on video.

• Aficionados also like the audiotape version; they listen to it over and over while they drive.) “Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old” (Page 52) It all began at management seminars.
• That makes sense.
• Have you ever been lost in a conference center or a convention hotel and stumbled into the wrong workshop, but lingered anyway? The overhead transparencies look the same.

The guru looks the same. The audience looks as bored. But the secrets are all different; the stratagems aren’t your stratagems, the goals not quite your own. What is process-mapping? Where am I on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? Who are the dolphin-thinkers? What would my weekly numbers be? Where are my millions? All we’ve ever known about people with real jobs we learned in bits and pieces, from “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” “Dilbert” and “Ally McBeal,” and various reconnaissance missions into the fern-and-Xerox jungle, where there are framed posters on the wall of waterfalls with sayings about Success or Teamwork and other twisted ideas.

• What do business people think about all day? Cheese.
• They think about cheese.
• Out where the palm trees sway, Spencer Johnson claims to be amazed at the success of “Who Moved My Cheese?” although in his many years as a hired motivational gun and author of the “One Minute” series, people were always begging him to stop what he was doing and once again tell the little story about the mice and the cheese.

Johnson also knows that, even as it finds eager ears in some blue-chip corporations, the book has plenty of critics. (“I read this book more than 20 years ago when it was called ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull,’ ” groused an Amazon.com reader. Another wrote: “I decided not to share this book with co-workers for fear they might take their cheese to another employer!”) “The irony is the people who dismiss it are the people who could benefit from it the most,” says Johnson, 62.

1. He wrote it, he says, as his gift to the world, since he has his fortune.
2. Everywhere I went, people were asking me to write this book.
3. I thought it was too simple or it wasn’t something the world needed.
4. I had enough bestsellers and money to not write for a long time.
5. Then I moved to the island and found some new cheese myself.” He talks for a stretch, punchily, about people who’ve had their lives changed by “Who Moved My Cheese?”-marriages saved, win-win situations, empires advanced.

“It’s so simple and unthreatening. As you watch the characters, you can discover yourself in the story. I wrote it very quickly.” Really? It doesn’t show. “Ha, ha,” he says. “Imagining Myself Enjoying New Cheese Even Before I Find It, Leads Me to It” (Page 58) Let’s quibble, then nibble.

1. Who Moved My Cheese?” never answers its own question: Who did move the cheese? See, you ask that because you are a cynic.
2. You’ve questioned the whole metaphor; you’ve torn away a curtain.
3. If you sense the futility of a world that ruthlessly giveth and taketh the cheese, then you probably get no cheese.

No amount of framed waterfall posters can save you. So it’s not where the old cheese went; it’s where the new cheese is going. What horrible news for people like you, people like me, people who want out of the maze entirely, people with-let’s face it-attitude problems.

1. We’re thinking here of another book, another mouse, which is far more complicated, ambiguous, not fixated on reward-“Stuart Little” by E.B. White.
2. In the end, Stuart has no idea where he’s going, and he’s learned a thing or two about the real world: “Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north.

As he peered ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.” But even Stuart Little has found new cheese, in Hollywood. It’s Geena Davis cheese.

Is Who Moved My Cheese still relevant

Genre: Self-help, Fiction Interesting rating: Very Star rating: 5 out of 5 stars Would I recommend it? Definitely – Change is stressful. Change can be traumatic. Change is hard. So even though Who Moved My Cheese? doesn’t need another review, I’d like to share a few thoughts here. On how I found the book and the lessons I learned on how to cope with change. Because you never know who else may need to read this.

• Who Moved My Cheese? is a popular book and has been since it was first published in 1998.
• It tells the story of two littlepeople Hem and Haw and what they do when their cheese is moved.
• Cheese serves as the metaphor for what you want in life.
• This could be success, a partner, a house of your own, a more spiritual life or something else.

Two mice Sniff and Scurry experience the same thing. Their cheese is moved too. But their response is very different to that of the littlepeople. We discover what happens in each scenario, and learn what to do when someone moves our cheese. I remember watching Who Moved My Cheese? The Movie by Dr Spencer Johnson during a Navigating Change workshop in 2019.

• But even though I knew the concept, reading the book gave me fresh insights.
• It’s a great read with practical ways to handle change.
• The author encourages us to keep moving forward.
• And to do so quickly.
• As all of us experience change, this book has value for everyone.
• Some lessons learned: Pay attention to the little changes.

Smell the cheese often so you know when it’s getting old. Hard times doesn’t last forever. Don’t be afraid to fail. Let go and trust what lies ahead for you. The Who Moved My Cheese? story is simple and easy to understand. Even though it was written long ago, it’s still relevant today.

What do the 4 characters in Who Moved My Cheese represent

Change is inevitable. Yet, most people are uncomfortable with it. Through a simple story, Spencer Johnson illustrates how people react to change, and how we can manage change more constructively and effectively. In this free Who Moved my Cheese summary, you’ll get a brief synopsis of the fable and its key ideas. The story provides an analogy to change in our work and personal lives. It’s about 4 characters searching for Cheese in a Maze. Cheese represents what we want in life (e.g. a successful career, money, health, freedom, spiritual growth), the Maze represents our complex world, and the 4 characters represent the 4 types of people we encounter in any change situation.

Is Who Moved My Cheese an allegory?

When Krista asked if I could contribute a book review to this month’s Fix encompassing the theme “Changes,” I sent out an email to a few friends asking, “What should I read?” The quick and enthusiastic response from a couple of them was ” Who Moved My Cheese? ” I had some recollection of the book as being a self-help business book so I figured, “sure, sounds good,” and went and got myself a copy.

1. Actually, I got two copies, one as a talking book and one from Polar Peak in hard cover.
2. Who Moved My Cheese? is an allegory about change, change in work, in life, in family situations.
3. While it does have a business focus, without a doubt the message is applicable to many situations.
4. The allegory has four characters, two “little people,” Hem and Haw, and two mice, Sniff and Scurry.

These characters live in a maze and spend their lives in pursuit of “cheese.” The maze’s inhabitants pursue the cheese, each in a different manner pursuant to their personalities and skills, each with different consequences. Haw is the character we spend the most time with in the allegory.

1. He fears that change leads to something worse, but ultimately, throughout the story, he discovers that change can lead to something better.
2. Ultimately Haw realizes that the sooner he moves, the sooner he will find cheese.
3. Hem on the other hand is the classic fearful friend.
4. Hem can’t see that his fear is holding him back as opposed to Haw who realizes that searching in the maze is safer than remaining in familiar surroundings.

Hem is stuck in his ways and stuck at the empty cheese station getting hungrier by the day. Contrary to the “little people,” Sniff and Scurry use instinct and natural ability to continually look for cheese. They aren’t encumbered by fear or over-analyzing the situation, they simply strive forward and sniff out as much cheese as they require.

Theirs is portrayed as a more straightforward existence, never running out yet never establishing lasting roots. Johnson emphasizes that it is natural for “change to continually occur whether you expect it not. Change can surprise you only if you don’t expect it and aren’t looking for it.” This premise is one of the overarching themes of Who Moved My Cheese? and Johnson succeeds with his message by emphasizing and re-emphasizing his points.

As Haw races through the maze in search of cheese he scribbles affirmations on the wall for his friend Hem to find. Johnson uses these affirmations to cement the purpose of the allegory and they are illustrated with sketches of cheese in the most recent version of the book.

1. The story continues with such affirmations as, “When you change what you believe, you change what you do,” “It all depends on what you choose to believe,” and “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?” Each set up through Haw’s experiences in the maze.
2. I commend Johnson, for he packs a big punch with his little book.

Getting one’s intention across in fewer than 90 pages takes some doing and a definite skill with the written word. If you are going through change or even if you are not, Who Moved My Cheese? is worth the quick read. Try the audio version as an option as one might listen to it more than once through changes in the seasons and changes in life.

What happens at the end of I Am the Cheese?

His bike trip, as is revealed at the end of the novel, occurs mostly in Adam’s imagination. In fact, his father and his mother are dead. Remembering ‘The Farmer in the Dell,’ the song his father used to sing, Adam is the one who says to himself near the end of the novel, ‘I am the cheese’—the cheese that stands alone.

Who Moved My Cheese conclusion?

Johnson’s cheese is a metaphor for what you want in life – a good job, a loving relationship, money, possessions, health, or spiritual peace of mind. The maze is where you look for it – the organization you work for, the family or community you live in.

1. And the problem is that no source of cheese lasts forever.
2. Life changes, whether we like it or not.
3. Favorite quote from the author: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” – Spencer Johnson Let me share some of Spencer Johnson’s great lessons about change with you in this article.
4. Who Moved My Cheese a story about two little people and two mice in a maze, searching for cheese, where each character represents a different attitude towards change, with cheese being what we consider success.

Here are 3 lessons about cheese and what you should do when someone moves yours: 1. Thinking too much about your cheese might paralyze you, so just start looking.2. Nothing lasts forever, so keep your eyes open for approaching changes.3. You can always find new cheese, and the minute you start moving things will get better.

• Are you ready to become a champion of change? Let’s look for that cheese! Lesson 1 : Stop thinking too much about your cheese and start chasing it.
• The two mice inside of our maze are Sniff and Scurry.
• They spend most of their time running up and down the corridors of the maze, looking for cheese.
• Turn a corner, run to the end, see if there’s any cheese, and if not, turn around and go back.

That’s their pattern, and, while it seems kind of mindless and unstructured, it actually saves them a lot of time and energy. Hem and Haw, two little people, also spend their days in the maze looking for cheese, but not because they’re hungry – they think finding it will make them feel happy and successful.

However, because of their complex brains, they think a lot about • how they can find the cheese the fastest • which strategies will work best in getting through the maze • how to keep track of those strategies • what finding the cheese will feel like • when they’ll finally find it and of course, they wonder if there even is any cheese in the maze at all every time they turn another empty corner.

Life is the same. Every minute you spend wondering what success looks like, how to get it, whether it’s possible, and how you’ll feel in the future is a minute not spent working towards it. Humans are complicated beings, but that doesn’t mean we have to make everything complicated.

Be more like a mouse and just start running Lesson 2 : Even the biggest cheese doesn’t last forever, so try to see change coming. Sniff and Scurry soon found a big supply of cheese at Station C, and even though they enjoyed eating a bit of it every day, they kept paying attention. The amount of cheese kept declining, slowly, but steadily, every day.

Once they realized they were about to run out, they decided to move on of their own accord and soon found another huge cheese at Station N. When Hem and Haw found station C, however, they settled there, and quickly grew accustomed to the new status quo.

The cheese-fest they indulged in every day soon became the center of their lives, as they thought it was the fair reward for all their hard work. They were so preoccupied with the cheese that they didn’t notice how it was disappearing, one piece at a time, and how some corners of it even got moldy. One morning, they woke up, only to find someone had moved their cheese.

This left Hem and Haw sad, depressed, feeling treated unfairly, and in denial. Instead of venturing out to find new cheese, they kept returning to Station C, getting ever hungrier and weaker. No supply of cheese can last forever. Change is always bound to happen, sooner or later.

Instead of fooling yourself that things will stay the same forever, always keep an eye open for change. Lesson 3: Don’t worry, there’s always new cheese to be found. The minute you start moving things will improve. The best part about cheese isn’t that once you’ve found it you’re set for life. It’s that there’s always more cheese to be found.

Haw eventually got sick of sitting around, so he decided to go looking for new cheese all by himself. Once he started moving, his situation instantly got better. Yes, he just found a few bits and pieces of cheese here and there at first, but this was a lot better than doing nothing and being paralyzed by fear.

After having found the courage to move on despite your fears once, fear’s grip on you will never be as strong as it used to be. Haw realized the accumulated fears in his mind were a lot worse than even the biggest challenges he encountered. Full of confidence, he kept exploring the maze, until he eventually found Sniff and Scurry at Station N, where the three of them shared the new cheese they had found.

Visualizing your goals helps you push through the fear that keeps you from dealing with change. Final summary The key message in this book: If there’s one thing we know about life, it’s that change is inevitable. So how do you handle change? To not only cope but thrive in a changing environment, you’ll need to develop the kind of attitude and mindset that makes adapting to change less frightening and more rewarding.

1. As the conclusion of Who Moved My Cheese proves, a positive adaptation of change requires one to abandon fear and self-satisfaction.
2. Just like Haw, it might seem hard to leave what one is used to; nevertheless, experience dictates that without leaving the seashore, one will never discover new oceans.

Ignoring the facts does not change them; therefore, it is good for people to accept change because change is unavoidable. My next article that will come soon will be WHO MOVED MY CHEESE WITH THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. Cause This novel ” Coronavirus” has moved all our cheese in ways that few of us imagined possible.

What does sniff and scurry represent

Toby’s Top Takeaway ✅ – In this summary of Who Moved My Cheese, you will see the principles of change in action. The book’s theme is universal. Everyone is always experiencing a change to some degree. Some people welcome it, some avoid it. “Each of us has our own idea of what Cheese is, and we pursue it because we believe it makes us happy.

• Sniffs – High awareness. They can sense change quickly and identify possible opportunities.
• Scurrys – Embrace change and quickly look to put it into action. These people can help create the initial momentum in your change journey.
• Hems – Feel afraid and anxious about change. It’s important to help them visualize a positive future and find new goals.
• Haws – Require evidence that any change is going to work and benefit them. Without the evidence, they won’t believe the change is worth it.

Who Moved My Cheese Coaching Exercise: Toby has used this exercise to help people impacted by change:

1. Share the book with each person impacted by the change
2. Ask everyone to read – It can easily be read in 30mins
3. Bring the group back together and ask for reflections
4. From the who moved my cheese characters, which do you resonate with most?
5. How does this story compare to your personal situation?
6. If you visualize a future goal, what is that?

This can draw out an open discussion about change in a safe way. One final point. I would highly recommend Forever Employable by Jeff Gothelf, This book shares practical ways you can embrace change in your career and stay employable. This quote from Forever Employable certainly relates: I was screwed because in five years I would be overpaid and unemployable,

What does the cheese moved mean

Cheese Moving: Effecting Change Rather Than Accepting It.

Who Moved My Cheese age limit

Product Details

What is the mouse with cheese analogy?

The Mouse – Cheese Analogy for Electricity In support of all the students who are displaced from school due to the Corona virus. Access to physics zone and chemistry zone lessons are now available free of charge, This will be maintained at least through August 1st 2020.

• Learn and be well.
• All matter is made up of positive charges and negative charges.
• The positives have mass and are not usually free to move.
• The negatives have no mass and are free to move through some materials (conductors).
• Negative charges are attracted to positive charges the same way mice are attracted to cheese.

Any time there is a natural attraction between two things we can use it to make the objects do work. The negative charges (mice) will gladly do work in order to get to the positive charges (cheese). Voltage: The amount of work that each charge (mouse) will do as it goes through the circuit. Can also be thought of as the amount of push on the charges or how hungry the mice are. Current: The number of charges (mice) passing a point per second. The rate of flow of charges. This set up has a voltage (desire on the part of the mouse) but no current flows because there is no conductive path. It has the ability to do work but no way to get there. The Mouse Cheese Circuit The mouse (electron) will gladly do work to get to the cheese (proton). Now that it has a path to allow the mouse to move, work can get done. The Mouse Cheese Battery (cell) The battery goes “dead” when all the negative charges make it through the circuit and get to the positive charges.

What does the writing on the wall represent in Who Moved My Cheese?

Book Summary: “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson With all the change that occurred in 2020 (such as the pandemic and related public health issues, disruptions to business operations and to our lives in general, economic misfortunes, the presidential election, social unrest, extreme weather), we thought we’d highlight a book that has been around awhile, but is as relevant as ever.

• Who Moved My Cheese is a simple parable about change,
• The story is set around characters (mice) who live in a “maze” (which represents life, your family, your community, the organization you work in, etc.) and who look for “cheese” (a metaphor for whatever it is you want to have in life).
• In the story, the mice handle things very differently from one another when they are faced with unexpected change.

As the mice come to learn, when you see “The Handwriting on the Wall,” you can discover for yourself how to deal with change, so that you can enjoy less stress and more success in your work and in your life, The Handwriting on the Wall ( with our augmentation ) Change Happens (They Keep Moving the Cheese): Change is inevitable.

1. And often the change that occurs is beyond our control.
2. Anticipate Change (Get Ready for the Cheese to Move): Be proactive, not reactive, in expecting that change is going to occur.
3. The better you anticipate change, the better you can respond and adjust (and possibly even help “shape” the change.) Monitor Change (Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When It is Getting Old): Continuously assess what you are doing, how you are doing it, and why you do it.

This helps you anticipate change or even get out in front of the change. Adapt to Change Quickly (The Quicker You Let Go of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese): It is said that “Commitment to the past hinders change in the future.” When change is occurring, holding on to the way things have been only delays the inevitable.

1. Change (Move with the Cheese): Don’t let things pass you by.
2. Be an active part of the change, or even lead the change.
3. Regardless, don’t get left behind.
4. Enjoy Change! (Savor the Adventure and the Taste of New Cheese!): Choose to see change as an opportunity to learn and grow as opposed to a time to resist or to shut down.

Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again (They Keep Moving the Cheese): Don’t get complacent. Change is not only inevitable, but it is also often constant. Being adaptable and resilient in the face of change can have an enormously positive impact on your life! For other postings on the topic of change, type “change” into the search box in this Blog section.

Which character stays behind and refuses to change in the story Who Moved My Cheese?

Employees learn what to do when their ‘cheese’ gets moved Robert Carter (left), a mission support manager with Lockheed Martin, discusses Dr. Spencer Johnson’s novel “Who Moved My Cheese” with Kisha Jennings, program manager for the Army Community Service relocation readiness program Tuesday.

• Jennings lead,
• Photo Credit: U.S.
• Army) For a story about two mice and two “little people” trapped in a maze looking for cheese, the story in Dr.
• Spencer Johnson’s novel “Who Moved My Cheese” holds a lot of relevance to those about to be displaced by the closures of Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem.
• May 24, members of the Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem community got to discuss the themes found in the book in an Army Community Service (ACS) sponsored program.

Kisha Jennings, program manager for the ACS relocation readiness program, lead the hour-long discussion, held in the ACS building (Bldg.62) classroom. “The book is such a hit because it pertains to so much in life; it excludes no one,” Jennings said. The book focuses on two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw.

All four live in a maze near cheese station C, where they receive all the cheese they need. However, one day the cheese disappears, and it is the reaction to this disappearance that drives the rest of the book. “The cheese is a metaphor for what makes you happy. It can be anything,” Jennings said. “The maze represents where you spend your time looking for what you want.” Like people confronting change, the four characters all react differently.

Sniff and Scurry, who noticed the cheese dwindling, were prepared for the disappearance and head off into the maze to look for new cheese. Hem and Haw stay behind, however, complaining and feeling victimized. Eventually, Haw realize he must move on to search for more cheese, leaving Hem, who refuses to leave, behind.

1. Still, Haw leaves his thoughts in messages chiseled into walls hoping Hem eventually follows suit and learns from the messages.
2. The book never says if Hem follows, but people at Fort McPherson and Fort Gillem can learn from Haw’s lessons, something Jennings tried to bring out.
3. Some of these lessons include: change happens, anticipate change, monitor change, adapt to change quickly, change, enjoy change and be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again and again.

Robert Carter, a mission support manager with Lockheed Martin, said seeing these important points broken down on a slide was helpful. Carter said he read and discussed the book before, but Jennings’ presentation helped bring out the points and helped him relate it to BRAC moving his cheese.

• It was a good refresher and gave me new insights as it relates to BRAC,” he said.
• It reminds me to always be ready for change.” Being ready for change though doesn’t mean the process will always be smooth.
• Jennings said it is normal to experience the reactions of all the characters.
• The good thing though is people aren’t locked into one of these character types, and, like Haw, can grow if they want to, Jennings said.

“Everyone goes through change, but not everyone grows through change. The stretch is not always bad and can make you better,” she said. Using the analogy of a stream, Jennings said a moving stream is always fresh, while still water gets stagnant and attracts bugs and filth.

It comes down to a comfort zone. You need to be willing to move out of our comfort zone. We always see why things won’t work, when we should focus on why things may work.” Even when one finally does move out of their comfort zone and finds another, like Sniff and Scurry, that person shouldn’t get complacent and think change is over.

For example, although some people may think the worst is over once BRAC occurs or they find their new cheese, be it a new job, home or retirement, Jennings said it is important to realize change never stops. “Your cheese will keep moving, so be ready for it to move,” she said.

• Always have your résumé ready, keep getting get training and keep the initiative.
• When we prepare we’re less likely to fail when change does happen.” Additionally, being prepared can help someone notice the small changes, much like Sniff and Scurry noticed the cheese in station C slowly dwindling away.

Noticing small things early is important because it allows people to adapt better to big things later, Jennings said. : Employees learn what to do when their ‘cheese’ gets moved

What does having cheese makes you happy mean in the story Who Moved My Cheese

In-text citation: (Kibin, 2023) Reference list entry: Kibin. (2023). Understanding the having cheese makes you happy quote in who moved my cheese, a short story, http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/understanding-the-having-cheese-makes-you-happy-quote-in-who-moved-my-cheese-a-short-story-BxdxAuxG Be sure to capitalize proper nouns (e.g.

Egypt) and titles (e.g. Macbeth) in the essay title portion of your citation. In-text citation: (“Understanding the Having Cheese Makes You Happy Quote in Who Moved My Cheese, a Short Story.”) Works Cited entry: “Understanding the Having Cheese Makes You Happy Quote in Who Moved My Cheese, a Short Story.” Kibin, 2023, www.kibin.com/essay-examples/understanding-the-having-cheese-makes-you-happy-quote-in-who-moved-my-cheese-a-short-story-BxdxAuxG Footnote: 1.

“Understanding the Having Cheese Makes You Happy Quote in Who Moved My Cheese, a Short Story.” Kibin, 2023. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/understanding-the-having-cheese-makes-you-happy-quote-in-who-moved-my-cheese-a-short-story-BxdxAuxG. Bibliography entry: “Understanding the Having Cheese Makes You Happy Quote in Who Moved My Cheese, a Short Story.” Kibin, 2023.

What did Amy do to Mr Crandall?

1 page / 1289 words Downloads: 267 Download Print “Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary.” – Joss Whedon Although the line between what makes a hero can become blurred, the basic traits of a hero remain the same for the most part, as proposed by Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

1. This theory has proven to be essential in the ingredients to a great story.
2. Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese can be considered a monomyth due to its depiction of a hero, shadow, mentor, and other classic figures in literature.
3. At first glance, Adam Farmer appears to be anything but a hero, with Amy Hertz running the show.

However throughout his epic journey to find his true identity, he proves the roles to be reversed. At the start of his story Adam has no idea that he is truly Paul Delmonte in clever disguise. He is your average student; he is shy, slightly awkward, but he cares fiercely for those he loves the most.

• When he first discovers that something is amiss in the sheltered bubble of his life, he refuses to ignore the urges to find the truth.
• When Adam first discovers a strange, sealed envelope in his father’s desk drawer he feels an unrelenting need to open it.
• He tells himself that the situation was “crazy, this was ridiculous.

It could all be explained easily. But he had to open the envelope. He had to find out. He had to know” (Cormier 64). This kind of curiosity is trademark of heroes, along with Adam’s bravery in the face of danger. Later when Adam has discovered who he really is he also realized, “almost guiltily, that a kind of adventure had taken hold of his life.

1. He felt set apart from the other kids at school.but it was a different kind of aloneness, something exclusive, almost sweet” (171-172).
2. This willingness to accept the challenges before him is a characteristic exhibited in any great hero.
3. Although the circumstances Adam has found himself in are less than favorable, he takes it maturely and with strength and courage.

While Adam is extremely daring when the situation calls for it, he would be nothing without his best friend and girl, Amy Hertz, who “brought brightness and gaiety to his life” (68). Even on Adam’s darkest days, he can find comic relief in the trickster of I Am the Cheese.

Amy entertains Adam and herself by pulling off Numbers, which are well- planned and elaborate pranks. Some of her best work was when “Amy had driven Mr. Crandall, a hated teacher, up the wall by sending him anonymous love letters, passionate letters obviously from a student. The Amy Hertz: giving the letters a definite masculine tone so that poor Mr.

Crandall thought he was being pursued by a passionate teenage homosexual” (112). Just like in every hero’s journey, Amy functions as Adam’s sidekick through even the most turbulent of times, whether she realized it or not. Adam found the most comfort in her quirks while venturing through his own journey with the rest of the monomyth’s characters.

• No great heroes journey would be complete without a herald, mentor, and threshold guardian.
• Adam discovered several pieces of information before he met these characters and the bulk of his journey began.
• Without David Farmer, Adam’s father, acting as the story’s herald, Adam would have been left in the dark.

David was reluctant at first to share the true identity of the Farmer family with his son. As any father would, he wanted to protect his son from his past for as long as possible. Once David realized that Adam knew just enough to make him a liability, he realized it was time to tell his son the truth.

Once he began to unweave the web of lies he and his wife had been telling, “is father talked and Adam listened. But Adam also asked questions, a hundred, a thousand it seemed. During those first few days after the discovery of his identity and the lives they led, he and his father talked incessantly, the terrible silence finally broken” (Cormier 128).

Adam’s father had no idea at the time, but sharing the very basis of the Farmer family’s double life, would start Adam on a journey to uncover every possible detail about who he was as Adam Farmer and who he had been as Paul Delmonte. Adam’s mother later steps in as I Am the Cheese’s mentor.

Soon after beginning his journey Adam noticed “that despite her gentleness and wistfulness, his mother was more defiant than his father about their situation” (158). The spiteful side of his quiet mother lends the perfect traits to be Adam’s mentor, for she is an expert on the past, and all too willing to guide him through it.

When she brings him to the basement to show him relics of the past, she explains that “‘for the sake of safety, we have to forget that other life.but I’ve cheated. I’ve kept a few things we had when we fled through the night'” (160). The fundamental blocks of truth laid down by Adam’s father coupled with his mother’s kind advice and wisdom help Adam to overcome his own guardian of the threshold, the secrecy behind his true identity.

When Adam first discovers that he had born Paul Delmonte, his father swears him to secrecy using the reasoning, “‘It’s life and death, Adam'” (161). The boundaries set up to protect the family from the past were created with good intentions, but when Adam became old enough and wise enough it was time to pass these guardians and face the real danger.

After Adam discovered his identity, he knew his life would never be the same. However, he was not aware that the real shadow in his own journey was also a shape-shifter. The gray man, “was a part of lives and yet not part of it. He was always there, someone took for granted” (Cormier 108).

• If the Farmer family had paid closer attention to the infamous Mr.
• Grey, he would not have had the means to turn into the shadow.
• At first, he appeared to be the family’s helper, willing to sacrifice anything and everything for their well-being.
• He was a guardian angel, swooping in at just the right moment to save the family.

Mrs. Farmer was the only one who was truly suspicious, admitting, “I sometimes think we were too unquestioning, Adam, too naive” (159). Mrs. Farmer’s idea that had seemed impious at one point, began to ring all too true when Adam’s family was sent away from Monument to the countryside.

• The safe retreat came to a nauseating end when Adam saw, “a car hurtling toward them, metal flashing in the sun.
• The car was upon them, sickeningly” (198-199).
• The shadow of Adam’s journey is finally revealed when he describes the attacker as, ” gray pants.
• Him” (202).
• After months of curiosity and revelations, Adam’s journey finally came to a close, as he realized that the one person his family had put their trust in, was not only a shape-shifter, but a shadow.

The heroic journey of Adam Farmer has anything but a happy ending. Although his journey did come full circle, at what cost? The defining traits found in characters of the monomyth are all demonstrated in Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese. Through the personification of a classic hero and sidekick model, a wise mentor and herald, and a former friend who shifts into the biggest villain of them all, I Am the Cheese further supports the idea that every great story’s characters can also be found in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. This essay was reviewed by Dr. Oliver Johnson

What is the message of I am the cheese

I Am the Cheese – By Robert Cormier Ben Marcus is the author of The Flame Alphabet. I Am the Cheese opens with Adam Farmer riding his bike. He carries a package for his father and needs to get it to him fast. So far, it’s a perfectly harmless adventure story.

• But something is strange about this bike trip.
• First of all, Adam’s father is far away.
• To get to him, Adam must ride from Massachusetts to Vermont, on a kid’s bike with a single speed.
• Can you even do that? He’s just begun, and he’s already exhausted.
• The troubling questions come flooding in.
• Why is Adam alone? What’s going to happen when it gets dark? I Am the Cheese made me worry.

I was 12, and until then, books were to be trusted, and their stories — the plots and characters — were exactly as they seemed. Had I heard of unreliable narrators? I had not. Did it occur to me that someone roughly my age could be separated from his parents, forced to make an impossible journey back to them? It did not.

• So I read it and I worried, and I couldn’t put it down.
• I Am the Cheese became a nail-biter about my own survival.
• Somehow, within just a few pages, the author Robert Cormier had transformed me into Adam Farmer.
• I was on that bike, pedaling furiously, and I had better get back to my parents before the night turned cold.

I read this book on a perfect Saturday, a day of legendary sunshine. After tearing through the first few chapters, I announced to my parents that I’d be returning to bed to read this thing through to the end. They nodded their approval, perhaps wondering what sort of book would lead their young son to forsake a day of baseball. Ben Marcus is the author of Notable American Women, The Father Costume and The Age of Wire and String, Michael Lionstar/ hide caption toggle caption Michael Lionstar/ Ben Marcus is the author of Notable American Women, The Father Costume and The Age of Wire and String, Michael Lionstar/ What ? At this point, my mind was officially blown. Who were those people who visited his home, the doctor asks Adam? Who was the “gray man” who would only speak to Adam’s father down in his cellar? And what were Adam’s parents always whispering about when they thought Adam was asleep? Meanwhile, Adam’s bike trip grows more difficult, but he presses on.

A dog threatens his progress. His bike is stolen, and he must fight someone to get it back. The landscape bends and shimmers around him, as it would in a nightmare. Is this really New England? Why does it seem like Adam is stuck in a hamster wheel, pedaling for nothing, going nowhere? How on earth will he get back to his father? I don’t want to spoil this book because I’m hoping you can do as I did: sacrifice a day in the sunshine and read it through to the end.

Trust me that the story grows only more urgent, taking on a terrifying logic, and when you find out where Adam has really been riding his bike, you’ll feel unzipped and undone and so blown away you’ll never read the same way again. I Am the Cheese is ultimately the story of a boy who has lived through such troubling times that his mind, to save him from the truth, creates a new, safer world for him to inhabit.

What does Pokey the Pig symbolize?

Pokey the Pig – The contents of the package Adam carries throughout the story, supposedly for his father, is revealed at the end of the novel. The package contains Adam’s childhood stuffed animal, Pokey the Pig, one of the few items that his mother saved during their relocation.

• The animal is a poignant link to Adam’s lost childhood.
• The pig also symbolizes Adam’s desire to understand his identity and past experiences, as well as his return to an infantile state when he cannot face the truth of his identity.
• The pig, a farm animal, also fits into the theme of family and domestic harmony.

The animal is the only piece of family that Adam has, and he clutches to it tightly.