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# On elephants and riders and forging your own path
- URL: https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/on-elephants-and-riders-and-forging-your-own-path/
- Published: 2024-09-06T16:40:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-14T14:06:06.000Z
- Description: I've been contemplating what it looks like to be a professional with big emotions, and what it takes for that emotional power to be an asset in a world where we often ask people to bring their intellect to work but leave their hearts at home.
- Author: Maureen Carruthers
- Tags: #Migrated-1786716333653, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-14 14:05

Everyone who works with me knows when you ask me a question, you're in for a story. It's no different when I'm working on my own stuff.

I've been contemplating what it looks like to be a professional with big emotions, and what it takes for that emotional power to be an asset in a world where we often ask people to bring their intellect to work but leave their hearts at home.

This is the story that bubbled up to help me discover where to go next.

> A very talented rider and exceptionally powerful elephant were born into a family of well respected circus performers. It was a very nice circus. Everyone had plenty to eat and a place to sleep. Often, circus life was fun and fulfilling, but it was a business and that meant everyone had to do the job assigned to them at birth and the expectation was they would do it just like everyone else.   
>  
> So it was for the littlest elephant and her rider. The rider was very excited about the life ahead of her. She loved elephants, she loved the circus, and she wanted very much to follow all the rules and be the best elephant rider in the show.   
>  
> The elephant on the other hand was not having such a great time. She wasn’t mistreated. In fact, for a circus elephant, she had a pretty good gig. She was loved and cared for, and was rewarded for being well-behaved and following the script. The problem was she knew in her heart of hearts she was a wild elephant. She dreamt of stampedes across the savanna and drinking from beautiful lakes at sunset. So while the other elephants seemed really happy working for the circus, she felt stuck in a place where no one could really see her for who she was.  
>  
> Life went on like this for quite a while. Sometimes the elephant would get restless and go off script. A little extra flourish here and there to liven things up and see what happened. Her rider would get embarrassed and flustered though, and it made it hard for them to work together. As frustrated as the elephant was, she loved her rider and wanted her to be happy, so little by little she pushed aside the part of her that knew she was wild and settled into her cage.  
>  
> She thought that if she was better behaved her rider would be happier, and at first that was true. Over time, however, there was a shift. Her rider’s eyes lost their sparkle, and the show they did each night just wasn’t dazzling the crowds like it used to.   
>  
> One night, when the rider brought dinner, the elephant asked if they might go for a walk.  
>  
> “You don’t seem happy, Is something bothering you” the elephant asked?  
>  
> “I don’t know, said the rider. I don’t feel much of anything. I used to get so much joy out of being in the circus and performing our show, but now it’s all just a slog and I don’t know what to do.”  
>  
> “I see.” said the elephant. She walked a bit longer with tears streaming down her face and then worked up the courage to say “I have a confession”.   
>  
> “I think it might be my fault you are so unhappy. When we were young, I knew in my heart of hearts that I was a wild elephant, not a circus elephant. I thought about breaking out of my cage and go live in the wild, but I love you, and it’s so much safer in the circus than in the wild, so I tried to make it work. But the wildness would explode in my heart, and you’d get so embarrassed about it. So I buried my wildness so we could be happy.”  
>  
> The rider laughed dryly. “How’s this for happy? Sobbing together on the boardwalk?”  
>  
> “I guess it didn’t work.” shrugged the elephant.  
>  
> "So what do we do now? How can we both be happy and together and do what we were made to do?"

*Note: The core elephant and rider metaphor is loosely based on the work of* [*Chip and Dan Heath in their book Switch*](https://amzn.to/4dQf1hv?ref=nonviolentleadership.com)*, and I was inspired to expand on the relationship between the two in Molly Davis'* [*Becoming Boundried Bootcamp*](https://boundaried.com/bootcamp?ref=nonviolentleadership.com)*.*