During our visit today I would like to tell you about an interesting experiment that contains a life-changing principle. The experiment begins in this manner: one time some research scientists took a large glass tank and filled it with water. Inside the tank they placed a large fish and a good number of small minnows. At this point, what do you suppose happened? If you said, the fish ate the minnows, give yourself one correct answer. You see, we are off to a good start already, but we continue, and the concept gets more difficult as we go along.

After several days of feeding the minnows to the fish, the scientists then placed a glass partition in the tank, which separated the fish from the minnows. In other words, the fish was on one side and the minnows were on the other. Now hopefully you can see this in your mind’s eye: as the fish got hungry and would start for a minnow, the glass partition would stop him, or her, as I am not sure how you tell. Ha! But the point is that the glass partition would stop the fish and in essence say, “No, you can’t.” Over the next several days, this experience was repeated hundreds of times. Each time the fish went for a minnow, the partition was there to say, “No, you can’t.”

Finally, after several more days, the scientists removed the glass partition. Now, what do you suppose happened? Well, the fish was so conditioned that as the minnows swam all around this big fish, he would not even make an attempt to go after them. In a few weeks, this big fish literally starved to death.

Now, here is the point of this story. In a tank where a banquet was being served, a big fish starved to death because he had been preconditioned by a glass partition that said, “No, you can’t.”

Now to the obvious: if we are not using our full potential, and it matters not what area of life we are talking about, it is because someone, someway, sometime has preconditioned us by saying, “No, you can’t.” The sad reality is simply this: If we keep hearing the words, “No, you can’t” often enough, like the big fish, sooner or later we will begin to believe them. In time this will severely limit the amount of our true potential we are using.

Now, if you follow me, you will begin to think about the environment in which you were reared, and think about where you are at this time in your life. If you were lucky enough to win the parent lottery and were reared in a two-parent Godly home, where there was encouragement, creativity, love, respect, discipline, rules, order, the right priorities, the importance of education, and an emphasis on serving and giving back, you are blessed indeed. Now, to be sure, not all children are so blessed. We see evidence of this every day in the news. My heart goes out to the children who are growing up and missing out on the blessings many of us take for granted. To be sure, I love them.

Statistics compiled by ProLiteracy, an organization that studies statistics on the high cost of illiteracy, note that there are 43 million adults in our country who cannot read, write or do basic math above the third-grade level. If we could increase this to just the sixth-grade level, it would mean an additional $2.2 trillion for our country. Also, 75 percent of our incarcerated individuals do not have a high school diploma.

As one who truly believes in the value of a good education, I thank you for allowing me to end this column by sharing these important statistics.

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(Editor’s Note: For a personally signed copy of my new book ‘Your Future Begins Today’ send $20, which includes postage and handling, to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR 72034.)