A shark research experiment was carried by a marine biologist. He placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank.
As expected, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish.
The biologist then inserted a strong piece of transparent glass into the tank to demarcate the tank into two path. He then put the shark on one side of the clear glass and a new set of bait fish on the other.
Again, the shark quickly attacked. But this time, however, the shark hit into the glass divider and bounced off. Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behavior every few minutes to no avail. Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition. Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.
This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks. Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether.
The marine biologist then removed the glass divider, but the shark didn’t attack. The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.
The moral:
Like the shark in this story, many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. we easily concluded that things are not going to work, just because we were unsuccessful in the past. In other words, we are made to believe there's a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go.
In fact, if you are not failing every now and again, it's a sign that you are not doing anything innovative.
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