Truth vs Fact

byNewbie John

292 followers

10 years ago

So what is true? So here we are, entering, for many of us, a new realm of business. We've had to adapt and overcome obstacles, great and small, brick and mortar verses cyber space and so on and so forth. I just want to take a moment and share something I heard several lustrums ago....okay almost 30 years ago.

Some time ago, five blind men were asked to describe in detail what an elephant appeared to them as. It's worth noting, these men have never had an encounter with an elephant prior to that day. They merely knew it was an animal of some type, big or small they knew not which.

The first man approached the elephant, his arms outstretched until he came across the elephant's trunk. He carefully moved his hands about the long trunk taking it in both hands before turning and walking away from the elephant. He stated as a matter-of-fact that an elephant resembled a large snake.

The second man, just as the first, approached the elephant with his arms outstretched until he came upon one of the elephant's ears. He felt around, noticed how thin the elephant appeared to be and turned to the others as he pronounced that an elephant was not like a snake but more like a giant tropical leaf.

The third man too approached the elephant as the second man was lead back to the others. The man reached out and touched the side of the elephant. Before him stood an impenetrable wall, tall and wide. He stood on the toes of his feet trying to find the top of the elephant, he could not. The man stretched out his arms to his sides trying to discover where the elephant ended...he could not reach that far He stated, to the chagrin of the previous two men, that elephant was like a very large wall.

The fourth man, convinced the other three were out of their minds, strolled over to the elephant and grabbed its tail. He pulled on it and he was even able to tie a loose fitting knot. "I knew it," he proclaimed..."you're all wrong...an elephant is more like a vine from a tree."

The fifth and final man hearing the opinions of the others was not going to let them effect his decision one way or the other. He approached the elephant and came across its front leg. He moved his hands about and tried to hug the massive muscled hulk that made up the elephant's leg. He was lead back to the others and he told them that they all had it wrong, an elephant in fact was very much like a tree trunk.

So there we have it. 5 individuals, each experiencing the same identical object and yet they have five distinctly different perceptions. They all touched this object, they interacted with this object yet they all came away with different opinions or in their individual cases, 5 different truths...yet they are all correct and all wrong at the same time. Truth is often and usually is a perception. Sometimes it can be a major obstacle when we are trying to get across our message or sell our product...I'm going to talk more about this in future posts I just wanted to throw this out there for now in an attempt to draw up some discussion.

I'm certain there are those of us there who share similar circumstances whether it be lack of support from friends or family, or a frustrated market place or even our own personal experiences. The forum is open....I graciously invite anyone to share or comment.