# The Story of the Deaf Frog - URL: https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/blog/the-deaf-frog-story/ - Published: 2023-07-31 - Updated: 2026-09-29 - Category: Entrepreneurial thinking and action - Publisher: Girişimci Kafası In 1818 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine published a scathing review of a young poet's long poem, Endymion. It was signed only "Z."; today we know the critic was John Gibson Lockhart. Lockhart reminded readers that the poet had trained as an apothecary, and offered some advice: it was a better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet. "Back to the shop Mr John, back to 'plasters, pills, and ointment boxes'." The same year John Wilson Croker tore the poem apart in the Quarterly Review. The poet's name was John Keats. Three years later, in February 1821, he died of tuberculosis in Rome, aged twenty-five. After his death a legend was born. His friend Shelley declared loudly that the harsh reviews had brought about Keats's death. Byron, in Don Juan, referred to him as "John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique", and added a barb: "'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, / Should let itself be snuff'd out by an Article." And so the story of a bad review killing a poet took hold. Yet the letter Keats wrote to his publisher after those reviews describes a very different man. ## The crowd at the foot of the tower There is a fable of unknown origin that has been passed from hand to hand. It is fiction, but it captures a truth well. One day the frogs hold a race. The goal is to climb to the top of a very tall tower. A crowd gathers and the race begins. No one in the crowd believes the racers can reach the top; the only thing anyone hears is: "Poor things, they'll never make it!" One by one the frogs give up. Only one keeps climbing, and in the end it reaches the top. The others ask how it managed it, but get no answer. Then they realise: the frog that climbed the tower is deaf. The fable's moral is clear: be deaf to the voices telling you that you can't achieve your dreams. But Keats's story adds an important detail to that advice. Keats wasn't deaf to every voice. While he ignored the noise of the crowd, he listened closely to a far harsher critic inside himself. ### Split the voices in two: noise and feedback A founder is surrounded by voices: investors, family, competitors, strangers leaving comments. They don't all carry the same weight. Before you listen to one, ask three things. Has the person saying this ever climbed that tower? Are they pointing to a concrete problem, or just saying "it won't work"? Is there an interest or a fear behind what they're saying? ### Listen to the customer, not the spectators The crowd at the foot of the tower isn't climbing; it's only watching. The people who will really judge your work are the ones who use your product and pay for it. Their complaints are a gift; the spectators' jeers are just noise. ### Keep your inner critic harsher than the spectators In the same letter Keats said he would carry on writing independently, and he went back to work. The following year, 1819, he wrote Ode to a Nightingale and his other great odes, which are now among the most anthologised poems in English literature. His own standard was higher than anyone else's. Not hearing negative voices doesn't mean never questioning yourself; it means taking the source of that questioning away from the crowd and moving it to your own standard. ### Build yourself a zone of deafness You don't have to read every comment the moment it arrives. Set specific times for gathering feedback, and spend the rest of your time focused on the work. For practical ways to protect your goals, take a look at [16 actions to reach your goals](https://girisimcikafasi.com/en/blog/16-actions-to-reach-your-goals/). ## The Golem effect: the power of low expectations Psychology has a finding known as the Pygmalion effect: in 1968 Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson suggested that when teachers have high expectations of pupils, the pupils' performance can rise too. In 1982 Babad, Inbar and Rosenthal gave a name to the other side of the coin: the Golem effect. Low expectations directed at a person can lead them to perform worse. In later years the effect was studied in workplaces too. The name comes from a legend in Jewish folklore: the Golem, a creature made of clay to protect the Jewish community of Prague, which eventually turned into a destructive force. A fitting image for the dark side of self-fulfilling prophecies. The race up the tower is a textbook Golem scene. The spectators' expectation that "they'll never make it" really does make the frogs fail. The deaf frog escapes the prophecy because it never hears it. ## Final word In October 1818 Keats wrote to his publisher, James Hessey: > "Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own Works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or the Quarterly could possibly inflict. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest." Which voice are you listening to today: the crowd at the foot of the tower, or your own inner voice, the one that judges your work more harshly than anyone?