When I started my company, a customer service number was put on the company’s website to better the communication with users. Somehow it rarely rang. So we abandoned it.

However, I thought phone support would have made sense. So, last year, I ________ putting another service number on our homepage.   

“Again? We tried this before, but it didn’t work!” they responded, casting ________ on me.

“But companies evolve; circumstances change.” I argued.

Late last year, I convinced my company to give it a shot. So we started a two-week ________. During the first few days, the volume of calls, around 20 per day, was not much but ________. Then, over the following days, the volume increased dramatically, which ________ them all. So successful was it that we finally decided to adopt the service phone number ________.

This experience reminded me of the elephant-and-rope story. Baby elephants were ________ with a small rope. Because they’re too ________ to break free from the rope, they grow up being conditioned that the rope is stronger than they are. So, as adults, they think they can still be ________ by the rope. In my company, those who thought we couldn’t because we once ________ were like a baby elephant who was living with a ________ mindset. They drew a conclusion based on specific ________, but they forgot to revise it when things changed.

In business, not to mention life, all sorts of invisible mental ropes may hold us back. It results in missed opportunities and wasted ________. So don’t hold onto the ________ that you can’t grow or learn from past failures. All it takes is ________ eyes to reexamine the situation.