I’m loving listening to Tony Robbins… he has a way of explaining things that is easily understood by almost anyone.
This morning I was listening to a story he was telling about The Scorpion and The Frog.
If you’ve never heard it it goes like this:
There is a scorpion at the side of a river looking for a way to get across to his family on the other side. Not sure how to proceed he paces back and forth until he spots a frog hopping along. He yells out, “Mr. Frog, I’m trying to get across this river, will you let me ride on your back across the river so I can get to my family?”
The frog responded, “no way… you’re a scorpion and scorpions sting frogs…”
the scorpion responds, “you’re not thinking Mr. Frog, if I sting you, sure you’ll die, but I will die too, because I can’t swim”
The Frog, puzzled by this, said, okay and the scorpion hopped onto his back.
He started peddling out into the middle of the river when sure enough, the scorpion stung the frog.
As the frog is going down he turns over and looks at the scorpion and says, “why did you do that? now we’re both going to die?”
The scorpion replies, “I’m a scorpion, and scorpions sting frogs”
A Powerful Lesson
As Robbins explains, one of our strongest human needs is to be consistent with our identity.
At a deep level, how do you identify yourself? Be careful how you respond because it will actually shape your behavior and results.
remember, just because you’ve acted a certain way in the past does not mean that that behavior is your identity.
for example, “I am late” vs. “I arrived late” or “I’m not good at math” vs. “This math is challenging” or “I didn’t do well on that test”
“I’m not good at math” will lead to one result, regardless of capability… poor performance in math.
It has to.. otherwise we’re not being consistent with our identity
“I didn’t do well on that math test”, however, does allow for improvement in the future.
This is why internal dialogue is so important. What we tell ourselves every day does affect our results!
So catch those negative thoughts about yourself in your head and stomp on them.
Thanks for reading, following and sharing!
