Have you ever seen a photo of a huge elephant tied by a rope to a stake in the ground? If you have you might have wondered how that tiny stake and rope could hold such an enormous, powerful creature.

You might have thought it was some high-tensile steel rope with the stake buried 10 feet into the ground. But then you look, and no. It’s just a wooden stake and a frayed-looking rope.

How can this be?

While young and weak an elephant is tied by a heavy chain to an immovable steel stake. No matter how hard the young elephant tries to pull the stake from the ground or break the chain, it cannot. From then on no matter how big and strong the elephant gets it believes that when it’s tied to a stake it cannot move.

As long as the stake is there it is powerless.