Put a shark in your tank

Jngrbrdman

New member
I got this from my manager today in my email. It is interesting as well as helpful. :)

The Japanese have always loved fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish. If the return trip took more than a few days, the fish were not fresh.

The Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little thrashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive.

Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. So how did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?

To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish were challenged and the most active ones survived the journey and flourished (albeit just a little longer than the ones that gave up and were eaten by the shark).

The analogy here is not that we should all be active till eaten! It was observed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's. "Life thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment".

Therefore, instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Beat the heck out of them. Enjoy the game. So, put a 'shark in your tank' today………..:)
 
I have to do motivational lectures for a living, so I eat this stuff up. If anyone ever gets anything good like this, then by all means feel free to forward it to me. I typically don't like chain letters, but nice stories like this work well for me. :)
 
Great story.

A story that I use for getting people to think outside the box is as follows. Unfortunately I can not remember where I heard or read it.

A small company that made breakables was trying to decrease the packaging time needed to wrapping the pieces in newspaper prior to shipping. The problem was that the folks on the line would see an interesting article in the newspapers and stop to read it. Management became frustrated.

So they met and brain stormed on what could be done. One suggestion was to buy foreign newspapers so that the line workers wouldn't understand the language. Unfortunately this was found to be cost prohibitive. A wild suggestion from a supervisor was to poke out their eyes so that they could not read the papers. This suggestion led to the company hiring blind line workers and become one of the largest users of handicapped workers in the area.

This is the reason I always tell people that even the craziest idea when looked at objectively can have some merit.

Jim
 
The analogy here is not that we should all be active till eaten! It was observed by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's. "Life thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment".

I like the story. Too bad ole L. Ron died a broke fugitive. Guess Xenu got ticked at him or something.
 
Back
Top