The Rhino Principle

There is a certain rule in life worth considering. It particularly applies if you are confronted by challenge. It is called the Rhino Principle.

The rhino is not a particularly subtle or clever animal. It is the last of the antediluvian quadrupeds to carry a great weight of body armor. And by all the rules of progressive design and the process of natural selection the rhino ought to have been eliminated. But it hasn’t been. Why not? Because the rhino is single-minded when it perceives an object, it makes a decision - to charge. And it puts everything it’s got into that charge. When the charge is over, the object is either flattened or has gone a long way into cover, where upon the rhino instantly resumes browsing.

Few people think of learning from a rhino. When faced with challenges we may fuss about them or simply charge them. The Rhino principle may not produce the perfect results, but it does produce results. And once produced results can be adjusted, improved, polished and made satisfactory. But if the Rhino principle is ignored, there are no results.

Having established our central objective we must charge at it again and again until the goal is achieved. That’s what the rhinoceros does. It may not be a model animal but it does one thing very well. And that one thing we can learn: Charge!

- Adapted from an article by Paul Johnson, Forbes, January 2006