Lesson 4 – The Man Who Tried To Fish
Lesson 4 reminded me about a parable I once heard.
There once was a man who made his living catching fish. Every morning he would walk two miles from his house in the woods down to the river. He would bring with him his fishing staff, his trusty dog and his lunch.
Every day he would sit on the bank of the river and cast his fishing line out into the river. He would hold the staff with two hands, pull it back and lunge it forward, throwing the line and bait out far into the water. Every time he would do that, his dog thought it was a game and would chase the bait into the water, splashing and barking as he went.
The man got such a kick out of the enjoyment his dog got from chasing the fishing line that he would roll around on the ground out of laughter. At the end of every day though, the man was surprised that he never caught anything.
The moral of this parable is the same one that Lesson 4 has taught us, namely, we all need to focus out energy on the task at hand or our goals will never be met. The man never caught any fish because he was too concerned with his dog’s enjoyment, which was preventing him from actually catching any fish. His energy wasn’t being focused on catching the fish, but on playing with his dog.
I’m sure we can all apply this lesson to our own lives, I know that I often catch myself expending too much of my energy on things that divert my attention from my goal. I’ll give you a good example. Here is it, Wednesday morning and I can’t get over the midweek hump. I knew that I wanted to watch the fourth video and write a blog post about it. But first I need to get a cup of coffee, then I spent too long checking my email, then I went around and chatted with some co-workers about the NFL playoffs. Before I knew it, it was 11:30 and I hadn’t done a stitch of work. Typical, huh?
I’m sure you’d be surprised by how many examples you could find in your own life of spending too much energy for counterproductive results in your normal, day to day life.
Let me know what they are, I’d be curious to hear.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
This is the best lesson so far.
When I think of all the time I spend on looking at other people’s sales pages – which promise the earth – but do not help too much in developing a business, because they show how to deal with only a small part of getting up and running on the net – I could kick myself for my stupidity.
I find that I can talk a tremendous game, but put me in charge of a team then it would finish a season without a win.