I’ll tell you the story the way I heard it, or the way I remember it. After all, it’s been a little over 2 years since I heard it at a literary festival in Dubai.
The session in question was one by Jamil Qureshi, a sports psychologist & author of The Mind Coach. He had been billed as a hypnotist, a magician, a former cricketer and a practitioner of performance-enhancing psychology – intriguing enough for me to attend!
He began with insights about success, failure and change – concepts adequately and eloquently covered in his book, before proceeding to this fascinating anecdote about the Rogue Monkey.
The Experiment
So a group of researchers conduct an experiment. They place 3 steps inside a cage. The 2nd step is hooked up to an electric shock, the 3rd step has a bunch of bananas, and there is also a cold shower overhead. A monkey is introduced into the cage.
The monkey sees the bananas and thinks, “Bananas!”. He jumps onto step 1, jumps onto step 2, gets a shock and before he has recovered he is showered with cold water. No bananas for him!
A second monkey is then introduced into the cage. “Bananas!” he thinks. But he is blocked by Monkey #1, who bites, kicks and scratches this monkey into submission.
Monkey #3 is introduced into the cage and makes his way for the bananas, but this time, both Monkey #1 & #2 bite, kick and scratch him until he gets the message. Note how Monkey #2 who has not directly experienced the shock or the shower is equally violent as Monkey #1!
More monkeys are introduced into the cage, all of them bitten, kicked and scratched by the preceding monkeys. Meanwhile, unknown to the monkeys, researchers quietly switch off the shock and the shower.
And then, one more monkey is added to the melee. This particular monkey is also scratched, bitten and kicked, but he does not submit. This monkey jumps onto step 1, jumps onto step 2, jumps onto step 3 – and claims the bananas. He is the Rogue Monkey.
The researchers then concluded that 1 out of every 53 monkeys is a rogue monkey. Qureshi closed on that note, challenging us to understand the meaning of the story ourselves.
What have you understood?