The Dreaded Monkey Trap! Are You a Victim?
March 3, 2008 | Written by annliu | Filed Under Success Tips
I find this great writing piece, which is written by Thomas Prendergast, CEO of Veretekk.
It is not only a fun read, through his own life story sharing, he also give lots of great advices toward to how to achieve success,
“Use set lofty goals, and take action to achieve them and never let your dreams go. And remember, to have a forgiving spirit. Success is the process, not the goal. Failures are the milestones marking your path to success when you refuse to quit.”
Here is Thomas entire article, hope you find it helpful and learn something from it:
Many of you have heard me talk about the Monkey Trap. It is a great analogy of the human condition. I had read somewhere sometime ago in National Geographic how they caught Spider Monkeys in the Jungles of South America.
Trappers exploit the greedy nature of the monkey. They hollow out a gourd and make two holes in it. One of the holes is attached to a rope and tied to a tree. The other hole is just big enough for the monkey’s hand to squeeze into it. Then they put the monkeys’ favorite food in the gourd and leave many of these “Monkey Traps”, scattered below the monkey’s favorite trees.
When the trappers come back later all the traps have Monkeys stuck to them with their hands firmly clinched inside the gourds refusing to let go even when impending doom approaches.
Oh and how much we humans behave so like these monkeys in our affairs. This applies to you. It may be spiritual, financial or physical in your regards but we all have our hands stuck one way or another.
Perhaps you refuse to let go from an unfortunate episode in your life where you made a mistake but refuse to forgive yourself. This is why you fail to set your sites too high because deep down you know you will fail. You know this because you refuse to let it go. You refuse to forgive yourself and pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move forward.
Maybe your greed refuses to let your good sense make the right business decision, so you keep at it hoping your good sense is wrong, like the marketer in a binary opportunity watching that one leg grow and grow while you fail to build that tiny leg, but keep paying astronomical monthly fees so your potential volume in that power leg won’t flush.
It could be that your lack of faith blinds you to God’s promise as new doors of opportunity open before you. But your fear prevents you from taking action. You are too easily convinced that taking risk exposes you to yet another failure so you never just close your eyes, let go, and jump with all your heart into anything.
I know this because I have been a victim of this trap many times in my life. Like my bad marriage, I kept with it because after all I gave my word, but really, I was petrified of having to go through a divorce, so for years I was miserable and accepted my misery instead of walking through the fear. Eventually the marriage failed anyway and I went through a terrifying divorce. But when I look back at it now, it was the best thing for me and I am better off today because of it. I lacked faith.
Having faith has always been my battle. Time and time again, God has come through when I put my fear aside and instead rely on my faith in God. Many of you who know me, will find this hard to believe but I do struggle with my faith. It is our human condition and we all struggle with this. But I have learned to face the fear and rely totally on prayer.
Today we hear of so much bad news about the economy. Oh my, the fear starts digging in. But like Franklin Roosevelt said when we faced the beginnings of WW2, that the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. In reality, we have so much opportunity ahead of us on the Internet. In my opinion, the economy is getting better for those of us on the Internet, not worse. And this fear driven media will only drive our online businesses to greater success. Experts all agree that the next 10 years will eclipse the past 30 years in Network marketing growth. I totally agree. It is like the perfect storm all coming together!
So I say to you, turn off the TV and build your future. Have faith and take hold of your life. Pray as if your life depends on it (it does) and take positive action everyday and when you see fire in your path, look up, have faith, and keep on walking, because after all, you will find your life is really all about your attitude. Let the monkey traps go, clean out your closets, and build for a new future. Set your goals to lofty places.
I have an interesting anecdote regarding setting lofty goals. You see back during my divorce my son lived with me and my daughter lived with her mother. When my daughter started 7th grade her mom told her, don’t worry honey just get Cs and you will be OK. Well a year later she was failing miserably in school. The following year she lived with me and I helped her set her sites and commit to getting As instead. Guess what, she got an A a few Bs and a C. Today both my children have lofty goals in their lives and they live full lives. Will they achieve those goals, I don’t know, probably. But their pursuit for their lofty goals has turned them into solid people. Their priorities are set well. They will succeed well in life.
So I say to you, set lofty goals, and take action to achieve them and never let your dreams go. And remember, to have a forgiving spirit. Success is the process, not the goal. Failures are the milestones marking your path to success when you refuse to quit. May you be richly blessed in all that you pursue!
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