Elephant Mindset
Ty Bennett
Keynote Speaker, Author, Researcher On a mission to redefine high performance. Sharing new research on what drives high performance, what stops it & how leaders can unlock it in their teams
When I was 19 years old I had a mentor who taught me a lot about the importance of correct thinking. He told me that anything was possible if we had the right thinking. What Henry Ford said is true: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!”
One way my mentor helped me to understand the power of your thoughts was through the example of elephants. He said, “When a baby elephant is born in captivity, the captors will use a large, heavy chain to tie the elephant’s leg to a solid post, driven deep into the ground. The baby elephant will pull and pull with all its might, but will not be able to break the grip of the chain. After enough pulling, the elephant learns that it can’t escape and begins to think, “What is the use in trying. I’ll never break free.” As the elephant grows in size and strength, it develops enough strength to break free, but the captors can replace the chain with a simple string that will keep the elephant tied to the stake. The grown elephant is not limited at all by his captors, but by his thinking.