Important Warning!

Beware of ‘Hobbled Elephant’ Syndrome

Have you ever noticed how circuses keep their elephants from wandering?

Just a simple length of rope fastened to a large peg in the ground! And these are the animals they used to use to raise and lower the tonnes of canvas in the Big Top! (Haven’t you ever watched Disney’s “Dumbo”?)

It seems ridiculous that such huge, powerful animals can be kept in check by such a flimsy device.

That’s the first mistake.

By thinking that the rope is keeping the elephant in place, we mistake effect for cause.

How?

Because of false perspective. We don’t understand the mental and emotional conditioning the animal has gone through in its infancy.

When an elephant is big enough to stand and walk, it’s leg is shackled by a very strong rope or chain to a tree. The baby elephant hasn’t the strength to uproot the tree or break the rope or chain and, in just a few weeks, it forms the idea that this is the way things will always be.

So, no matter how big and strong it grows, the moment someone fastens a rope to its leg, it thinks it can’t go anywhere. (Unless it forgets that it’s hobbled in this way, such as when it gets mad. But you remember the old saying about elephants, don’t you? “An elephant never forgets!”)

It’s NOT the rope that shackles the adult elephant. The real shackle is its own mental and emotional conditioning!

Small business owners (including network marketers and party plan sellers) are no different.

Nor are their customers. Nor are their employees. Nor are their suppliers. They’re all human. And they’re all the product of lifelong emotional conditioning.

A crucial part of our make-up as human beings likes to be…

• Energetic — in order to be LAZY.

• Alert — in order to stay ASLEEP.

• Creative — in order to be DULL and UNIMAGINATIVE.

• Aggressive — in order to be PASSIVE and SECURE.

That same part of us always wants to RESIST CHANGE. (It’s not even the change itself as much as the mere idea of change.)

That part of us is not our minds. Our minds are rational. Not one of these attributes is the least bit rational.

To succeed in small business, we must learn to control that irrational part of us… or it will defeat us. That part of us is our emotions.

Otherwise, they’ll keep us in emotional RUTS — commonly referred to as habits or, less threateningly, as “comfort zones”.

From an early age, we learn that it’s “safe” to take the path of least resistance and simply do what everyone else before us has done. Convention. Tradition. Standard practice.

Ruts.

So we wend out way along life’s familiar ruts, worn so deep that all we can see is the ground below us and the safe, comforting walls on either side. We don’t have to think or take risks. We just put one foot in front of the other. We don’t have to worry about what lies ahead — others have already been there in large enough numbers to have worn the groove deep. The only place where risk exists is “up there”, out of the rut, where the choices are.

No choices, no risks.

Ruts are much safer, so we go on trading our freedom of choice for the security of our ruts… we get up in the morning, get ready for work, go to work, do the same old thing, come home from work, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, day in, day out. Except for weekends, when we cut the grass, weed the garden, watch football or other habitual, safe, comfortable weekend ruts.

On we go, until we finally come to the end of the rut. Looking up, we’re alarmed to discover that it’s well above our heads and looks suspiciously like something we don’t yet want to contemplate!

Climbing out of that rut is too dangerous and stressful. Besides, it would go against our ingrained habits. No… the only way to go is back along the rut. So we turn around… and discover the awful truth.

We discover that, all the while we’ve been plodding mindlessly along that rut, a team of workers has been busily filling it in behind us.

It’s now time to lie down and let them finish the job!

A rut is like a grave. The only real difference is the length. They just haven’t filled the ends in — yet. But they will, unless we get out.

How do we do that?

By allowing our emotions to be challenged. By not becoming defensive when long-held beliefs and emotional conditioning are questioned.

Don’t ask the question “will this work?” about any idea, tool or technique we discuss here on this web site, because we already know the answer to that question.

The answer is… “NO! It will not work!”

They won’t work anymore than sitting at your computer and wishing for it to go to this site. Or climbing into your car and waiting for it to take you to a training workshop. Or surrounding yourself with books you never read and thinking you’re smarter just because they’re there.

It’s plain nonsense.

We can show you how to get out of those ruts. We can even help you get out. But the most important thing is to help yourself up!

You can achieve that result by asking THIS question of every idea, tool or technique you find on this website…

“What do I have to DO to MAKE this idea, tool or technique WORK in MY business?”

No more “Hobbled Elephant” Syndrome.

No more ruts.

No more irrational, subjective, high-risk, emotional decisions about our BUSINESSES.

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