A man went to the zoo and, at one point, found himself
walking past some elephants. A bit
confused, he turned back to where the elephants were tied up and looked at the thin rope tied to their front leg. The man knew the elephants could easily break the thin rope and wondered why they were not
housed in a cage or even had chains to secure them in place.
A member of the zoo staff walked past and the man stopped
him, asking about the use of such a small rope. “You
see,” said the park attendant, “when the elephants are babies, we tie them with
this size rope, which easily holds them in place. As the elephants grow and
become much bigger it has been ingrained in them that they are not able to
break the rope. It’s called ‘conditioning' . . . we condition them from birth to believe that
they can never break free of the rope and this conditioning lasts throughout
their lifetime.”
The man stood in amazement at such a simple explanation and
what a huge effect this had on these giant animals. HE knew that they could, at
any time, break free of the rope, but the elephants believed that they could
never be free.
Do WE think like these trained elephants by believing that
we cannot do something just because we have never done it before, OR tried once
and failed?
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Henry Ford
