When Going Slower is Actually Faster

A businessman is sitting on the beach of a small fishing village when he sees a fisherman approach the shore with his daily haul. Impressed by the quality of the fish, the businessman asks the fisherman how long it took him to bring in his catch.

“Just a short while,” the fisherman replies.

“Why don’t you stay out longer to catch more fish?” the businessman asks.

“Because this is all I need.”

“But then what do you do with your time?”

“I sleep late, catch a few fish, play with my kids, take a nap with my wife, and then join my buddies in town to drink wine and play guitar,” the fisherman responds.

The businessman is shocked. He explains that he has an MBA, and that if the fisherman follows his advice, he could help him grow his business. “You could buy a bigger boat,” the businessman says, “and use the proceeds to open your own cannery.”

“Then what?” the fisherman asks.

“You could move to the city to open a distribution center.”

“And then what?”

“You could expand your business internationally and eventually take your company public,” the businessman says. “When the time is right, you could sell your shares and become very rich.”

“And then what?”

“Well, then you can retire, move to a small fishing village, sleep late, catch a few fish, play with your kids, take naps with your wife, and join your buddies in town to drink wine and play guitar.”

When Covid-19 rages and the world “shuts down,” when you’re no longer allowed outside of your house to fish — you need the ability to withstand the rugged wins of chaos. This story is great, but it is incomplete.

To live on “today’s” production and only today’s production is unwise. This is why our model teaches all the way through Phase 3 (multiplication) and Phase 4 (harvest). In Phase 1 your job is founder. In Phase 2 your job is CEO. In Phase 3 your job is investor. In Phase 4 your job is a board member who should be spending time on LEGACY plays.

I need to come clean on something: it is my belief (based on a significant amount of experience & competitive analysis) that most of the “winners” of the last 2-3 years will become last place over the next 18 months.

They’ve become entitled & have endorsed their own mess. If you’re reading this and you wonder if you fit this mold — it’s likely that you are not who I’m talking about. Why? Because you can read…

The trap you don’t want to get into is this:

• Business is declining
• You have no time to discover ways to fix it
• Because you’re so busy fixing the old model
• You ramp up more and more pressure into the old “machine”
• It fixes it for a second, but not sustainably
• You have no time to learn a new way because you’re ‘forcing’ an old way
• Slowly… painfully… eerily — you realize it’s too late

Notice the start of the problem is one of time. Particularly where are you investing your time… an hour invested into any of the following things will always produce a yield;

• THINKING deeply & rigorously through a set of problems to be solved
• Learning from someone who has solved said problems
• Writing or pondering ways you can multiply your influence & impact (not your revenue)

The problem is not the problem — it never is — the problem is being “too busy” or “too confused” to sit down and think about the problem. There are only two types of problems that will kill you: 

1. The ones you don’t see coming
2. The ones you don’t fix fast enough once you see them

Not enough players are thinking well and because of that, they cannot teach YOU how to think.

I can count about 10 of them right now off the top of my head. In a world filled with “influencers” and “content creators,” that’s a pathetically low figure; but it is truthful.

And the truth, after all, is the only thing that will set you free.