This content was created by Kim Gaskill. This content was uploaded by Kim Gaskill. This is a YouTube video titled "071 FroginHotWater" (Daily Spark) created April 30, 2019. It features Kim Gaskill delivering a short monologue: she shares a personal anecdote about waking with a numb hand and uses the frog-in-boiling-water metaphor to warn about how small, gradual increases in stress and disruption can accumulate. The piece is a brief motivational/reflection segment encouraging listeners to notice incremental changes and stop them before they become overwhelming.
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Welcome to a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill, and this is the Daily Spark. I woke up this morning, and I must have laid wrong on my arm. My hand was asleep, and it wouldn't work for about 5 or 6 minutes. It had to wake up. You know, I didn't even notice. I didn't even know that it was asleep. I was just comfortable and laying on it in the wrong position, and I didn't move. I didn't change my position because it slowly lost feeling and I didn't even notice it. I didn't even feel how uncomfortable it was until I tried to wake up and use it and then I realized it was totally numb. And it reminded me of that metaphor of the frog in the boiling water. I know you've heard it. If you take a frog, put it, throw him into a pot of boiling water, he'll jump right out. But if you put a frog in room temperature water and you slowly increase that water to a boil, the frog won't notice the slight changes in temperature until it's too late and he's boiled to death. He just stays in there because the gradual increase in temperature is so unnoticeable. He's just basically ignoring it. He doesn't sense enough change. He's getting used to those small incremental changes, and as he gets used to it, the next increase is so gradual that he doesn't recognize that. And I think we do that a lot in our business. We get used to situations that are uncomfortable, or even our daily lives and stress. We let stress build up and we tolerate a little bit more every day. We, we get used to the noise or the confusion or the disruption. And as we get used to it and it becomes the new normal, more can be piled on. And before we know it, we've piled on 10 levels of new frustrations and stresses and changes away from where we started, which if we would have just loaded all that up right on at the first, all 10 levels, we would have totally thrown our hands up and said, no, that's enough, I'm not doing that. But because we do it gradually and we tolerate and accept these small gradual increases in stress and, and disruption and don't do anything about them, don't hold our hand up and say, no, that's enough. We allow those several layers of stress to pile up, and then we break down. So I challenge you today, try to notice those gradual changes and do something about them. Put your hand up, say stop before it gets 7 or 8 levels strong, and then you feel overwhelmed and can't deal with it. Catch you again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.
