The Elephant Story of Belief Bias
A gentleman was walking through an elephant camp, and he spotted
that the elephants weren’t being kept in cages or held by the use of chains.
All that was holding them back from escaping the camp,
was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs.
As the man gazed upon the elephants, he was completely confused as to
why the elephants didn’t just use their strength to break the rope and
escape the camp. They could easily have done so, but instead,
they didn’t try to at all.
Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why
the elephants were just standing there and never tried to escape.
The trainer replied;
“when they are very young and much smaller we use the same
size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them.
As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away.
They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The only reason that the elephants weren’t breaking free and
escaping from the camp was that over time they adopted
the belief that it just wasn’t possible.
Moral of the story:
No matter how much the world tries to hold you back,
always continue with the belief that what you want to
achieve is possible. Believing you can become successful
is the most important step in actually achieving it.
