THE FISHERMAN

The Fisherman roared with laughter.
“She’s right, lad. It’s a waiting game.
The World waits for us to give, while we wait for the World to give. It’s a  waiting game alright.”


The Fisherman changed subject. “I’ll show you how to be a better fisherman if you promise to focus on catching a fish.”

“Sure,” Richard said, notebook poised.

“Then, here.” The Fisherman stopped the engine and pulled out a fishing rod. He handed it to Richard.
“Start fishing.”

Richard started “I didn’t know you meant really catch a fish. Can’t you just explain it to me? Why do I need to catch a fish?”


The first reason you’ve got that rod is because to know and not to do, is not yet to know.


“As I said, I became a better fisherman. I used to think ABOUT the fish. When I became a better fisherman, I began to think LIKE the fish. It’s different, you know. I was out chasing the fish, which is never ending. I was a sales manager at the time, and I hated my job -simply because it was never ending. Continually chasing customers.

“When I became a better fisherman, I focused on creating a better fly. Surely I could make one that would be more attractive.


 When you create attraction, you never have to chase again.


So I invested my time on creating value. There’s no wealth where there’s no value.


Value is the river in which Wealth flows.”


“I looked outside of my job at other products that people seemed to be attracted to.

 So I invested my own time to learn more about what people were buying. That meant I also met the traders who were being a lot more successful than me.

“After only six months I had enough knowledge and contacts to begin my own retail store where I chose the clothing ranges that I knew would sell. And then every day I added more value to the customer and to my vendors.

Every day I asked myself how much more value I could provide.

I became an inspired work-in-progress. The store was so successful that a chain of stores soon followed.”

“What do you mean by an inspired work-inprogress?”

The Fisherman picked up the fly. “You see this? It may look like it only took five minutes to make, but it really took five years. Every day I would think of a better fly, design it, see how it worked, and then try again.”

“So this fly is an inspired work-in-progress. Because it’s still not perfect. It never will be, because that would spoil the fun. The fun is in the trial and error.
“But when you started your store, weren’t you afraid that you might fail?”

“Hell no, I planned to fail! You have to plan to fail, lad, or you will be constantly disappointed. Have a look out here.” The Fisherman gestured at the river  like he was conducting an orchestra.


 “In this river there are a thousand fish. When I sink my line, I am planning to fail to catch all but one of them, which means I am planning for a failure rate of 99.9%. If
that failure rate becomes 99.8%, I will have caught two fish, which will have doubled my results for the day.”

“When I experiment with new marketing ideas, or new store promotions, or new product lines, I always invest my time and money with the expectation of a high failure rate, and I ensure that with this high rate I can still get a reasonable return on my time and money invested. So day by day I learn profitably.”

“Have you ever had results worse than expected?”

“Sure I have. Before I became a better fisherman it happened all the time. I would always set high expectations and high targets, and I was constantly disappointed.
Worse, I would budget my time and money on the basis of my high expectations. So as
well as being disappointed, time and money that I thought I was investing became wasted.”

“Now that I have become a better fisherman, I plan to fail. So most of the time I am pleasantly surprised by the results. But I still face bigger failures than expected, and these I welcome. Because each failure is a new opportunity to make an even better fly.”

For the Fisherman, learning really was a game.

The Fisherman put up his feet and said
“Now I have a question for you. What was it that you learnt, that made you a better fisherman?”

Richard was about to answer, when he stopped himself.

“I learnt to ask when I didn’t know.”

“When you didn’t know or when you didn’t want to invest the time in finding out?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to invest five years finding out.”

“And in such a situation who should you ask?”

Richard smiled, “I would ask an inspired work-inprogress who had a passion about such a thing as fly fishing.”

“Exactly. You can accelerate your progress tremendously by investing your time in a network that includes many inspired works-in-progress.

That’s what all wealthy people do, you know.
That way, you invest your own time in learning that diectly supports your own passion and vision.”

Richard tried to clarify this. “So you decided to be an inspired work-in-progress in creating value because that is where your passion and vision is.

Then you would find people like the Plumber to create a better plumbing system and the Gardener to create a better garden, because that is where their passion and vision is?”
“Exactly!”