Life's Lessons From A Baby Giraffe

Baby giraffes never go to school. But they learn a very important lesson rather early in life. A lesson that all of us would do well to remember. In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a newborn giraffe learns its first lesson.

The birth of a baby giraffe is quite an earth-shaking event. The baby falls from its mother’s womb, some eight feet above the ground. It shrivels up and lies still, too weak to move.

The mother giraffe lovingly lowers her neck to smooch the baby giraffe. And then something incredible happens. She lifts her long leg and kicks the baby giraffe, sending it flying up in the air and tumbling down on the ground. As the baby lies curled up, the mother kicks the baby again. And again. Until the baby giraffe, still trembling and tired, pushes its limbs and for the first time learns to stand on its feet.

Happy to see the baby standing on its own feet, the mother giraffe comes over and gives it yet another kick. The baby giraffe falls one more time, but now quickly recovers and stands up. Mama Giraffe is delighted. She knows that her baby has learnt an important lesson. Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet.

Why does the mother giraffe do this? She knows that lions and leopards love giraffe meat. So unless the baby giraffe quickly learns to stand and run with the pack – it will have no chance of survival. Most of us though are not quite as lucky as baby giraffes. No one teaches us to stand up every time we fall. When we fail, when we are down, we just give up. No one kicks us out of our comfort zone to remind us that to survive and succeed, we need to learn to get back on our feet.

If you study the lives of successful people though, you will see a recurring pattern. Were they always successful in all they did? No. Did success come to them quick and easy? No, no! You will find that the common streak running through their lives is their ability to stand up every time they fall. The ability of the baby giraffe!

Have you heard about a young sales executive from Kolkata who dreamt about becoming an announcer on radio? He auditioned with All India Radio for a job. The authorities felt that he didn’t have a particularly good voice and he was rejected. He refused to accept defeat and continued to chase his dream.

He came to Mumbai and tried for a role in movies. He got rejected. They thought he was too tall for all the heroines of Bollywood then. He had very unconventional looks and a non-filmi name which he was not willing to part with. He kept trying and got a few lucky breaks. But most of his early films flopped. He did not give up. He played an angry young man in a movie that became a super hit. And the failed radio announcer went on to become the country’s biggest superstar ever – widely admired for his baritone voice! Now a legend in his lifetime. His name? Amitabh Bachchan. Another person I adore and would like to write something about him here.

The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin. Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, "I write about people who sometime in their life have a vision or dream of something that should be accomplished and they go to work. "They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years they get nowhere. But every time they're knocked down they stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of their lives they've accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do."

The road to success is never an easy one. There are several obstacles, and you are bound to fall sooner or later. You will hit a road block, you will taste failure. But success lies in being able to get up every time you fall. That’s a critical life skill. And it is the habit of all successful people.

Learning to win in life is quite like learning to ride a bicycle. As you start to ride, you might fall and get bruised. It doesn’t matter. You need to get back up and continue to ride. Fall one more time? Get back up again. That is all it takes. Learn to get back up every time you fall.

And just remember one more thing. Next time you find a friend or a parent kicking you, don’t get upset with them. Like the mother giraffe, they may only be trying to teach you one of life’s most important lessons. It does not matter how many times you fall. What matters is your ability to pick yourself up and stand on your feet once again.

Reference:

Craig B. Larson - Adapted from "Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching" from Leadership Journal Baker Books