The title of this posting is actually the title of a portion of a book written by Jeremy Gutsche, a sought after keynote speaker in business circles as well as the founder of trendhunter.com and host of Trend Hunter TV. I had the pleasure of hearing this awfully young, brilliant man speak and soon my age discrimination gave way to soaking in some of the frankly profound changes in thinking that Jeremy was suggesting in the context of business. I thought I would include this object lesson, story and share my interpretation relative to the practice of Audiology or really life for that matter.
"Long ago five menacing monkeys were placed in a cage. In that cage was a ladder that led to a ripe bunch of bananas. The catch was that a powerful water hose was connected to the ladder.
When the first monkey raced up the ladder to reach for a banana, the entire cage was drenched with water. Another curious monkey made an attempt. She rushed up the ladder, greedy to grasp the yellow bundle, but she too triggered a shower on the cage. At this point it became clear to the monkeys that if one of them reached for the bananas, they all would get soaked.
Each time one of the original monkeys was swapped out of the cage for a new monkey, the newcomer would immediately race toward the alluring fruit, but the group would beat him down before he made it up the ladder. This cycle repeated each time a new monkey was introduced to the cage .
Later the hose was removed, but it didn't matter. The monkeys already .had their lesson hardwired: don't reach for the bananas. One by one the monkeys were replaced until none of the original five were in the cage. The same behaviour persisted.
Why? Because that's the way we do things around here. "
I first considered this story from my own perspective especially in the context of how I do business. I tried to consider what walls I had put up that perhaps needed to come down. I also considered this from the perspective of the patient. There are those folks who fail to move towards making decisions that might mean an improvement in their lifestyle and functionality in communication environments, because they have heard "somewhere" that they may not succeed in this pursuit. We all have friends and family with hearing loss that we know to have put up the walls that inhibit not only the solving of problems but even the pursuit of solution.
With this story in mind, I personally approach each patient in a way that hopefully helps them break down the walls a little bit at a time taking little steps toward success. There are times when we need to leave our preconceptions aside and open our mind to current possibilities rather than dwell on past failures or the failure of others and find our successes where ever they are, even in places of previous failure.
