This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Conditioning

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.”

- Jawaharlal Nehru

How to stop our elephant running away? Easy – tie one foot to a small stake in the ground. The elephant can easily pull the stake out. But it doesn’t. Why? Because when it was young, the elephant was tied to a stake it couldn’t pull out of the ground. It would pull, and pull and pull. To no avail. The baby elephant became conditioned. The truth was that the elephant simply could not uproot the stake. Now the elephant weights five tons and is ten feet high and it can easily pull up the stake. But it doesn’t. The elephant has a firm view of what it can and cannot do. And it knows it cannot uproot the stake, even although it really can. The barrier is in the elephant’s head.

Some people are conditioned in the same way. They are like the elephant – they know what they cannot do and they are right. This conditioning comes from our families – “don’t bite off more than you can chew”. Well meaning, but limiting. Conditioning also comes from society – the huge pressure to conform. This leads directly to mediocrity. Then there’s mistakes and failures – we are told these are bad, so we get embarrassed and the famous fear of failure is born. Failure itself is unimportant. Our attitude towards it is crucial. And as we have said before, our attitude is our choice.

How to break out of this? First – self-knowledge. Examine our habits, values and the things we believe in. Become aware of our strengths and our weaknesses. Decide what to change. Then set goals (of course) – to organise and direct our daily activity and make the best use of our potential. Finally – develop new attitudes and habits – the ones we want and need to deliver our goals.

Turn the tables on conditioning – let’s condition ourselves. Pull the stake out the ground! As Nehru said at the top, the way you play your cards is free will.

Next week…..

Free Will……whatever we gain from life is largely a matter of choice