247E-Book Story: Shark Bait

Shark Bait


During a research experiment a marine
biologist placed a shark into a large holding
tank and then released several small bait fish
into the tank.

As you would expect, the shark quickly swam
around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller
fish.

The marine biologist then inserted a strong
piece of clear fiberglass into the tank, creating
two separate partitions. She then put the shark
on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of
bait fish on the other.

Again, the shark quickly attacked. This time,
however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass
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
fiberglass 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: Many of us, after experiencing
setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and
stop trying. Like the shark in the story, we
believe that because we were unsuccessful in
the past, we will always be unsuccessful. In
other words, we continue to see a barrier in
our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists
between where we are and where we want to
go.