No Limits: The Art and Science of High Performance

by Mukesh Bansal

The impact of mindset is also captured in a folktale about an elephant who is tied up in a spot with just a tiny rope around one of his legs. A passer-by notices this and is amazed by the fact that the elephant hasn’t pulled hard and broken free, as he is obviously stronger than the small rope. Intrigued, he asks the caretaker how he manages to keep the elephant in check with just a small rope. The caretaker replies that it is all about mental conditioning. He explains that the elephant has been kept that way ever since he was a baby. When he was small, the rope was strong enough to hold him. If he tried to pull hard, the rope would pull him back with greater force. After some time, the elephant got conditioned into believing that the rope was stronger than him and just stopped trying altogether. He soon grew into a strong and powerful adult elephant. But by then, he had given up all hope of ever breaking free from the rope and never even tried. This little story has a strong message about a psychological pitfall that many people fall into and is emblematic of the fixed mindset that holds numerous people back from discovering their full potential. Your mindset can be the single-most powerful tool in your journey to reach your full potential. A mindset, as the folktale illustrates, can hold you back from achieving what you are truly capable of. But it can also be the ingredient that transforms your journey from average to great, simply by allowing you to pursue your ambitio...