I had a great time with my friends Tim and Lisa fishing in Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River this past week.
Some of you know that fishing is one of my favorite things to do. There are many simple lessons from fishing that relate to building a business. Here are a few of the many lessons from this trip…
1. For two of the three days I was there the weather was not good. It rained a lot those two days and the wind was whipping. Not ideal weather to go out on a big river in a small boat. We went anyway. Conditions are rarely perfect in fishing or business.
2. On Tuesday morning, my first day there, I hooked a a large Northern Pike on my fifth cast of the day (my first day of the trip) I got him to the boat, but my partner did not react fast enough and wasn’t there with the net in time, so I got to watch him spit the hook straight up at me and swim away. Things don’t always work out the way we’d like in business. I just went right back to fishing.
3. When I fish, I can cast and retrieve about 30 times an hour (we fish in open water where you cast as far as you can to maximize the potential to find a hungry guy). I lost that fish at about 8am and fished until 8pm with a short break for lunch. So I casted roughly 350 times and retrieved it that day in nasty conditions. Without catching a fish. I caught my first big Pike the next morning around 11am…or about 500 casts after the lost fish. 500 times I casted and the lake told me “no.” But I kept casting. In business you press forward until…you will eventually get to yes.
4. I had never fished this water before so I used my past experience of what kind of depth and what kind of lure and what speed of retrieve to catch this kind of fish I had used in other places. Then I just casted and casted. Always trust your process in business…sometimes the market conditions are different, but the nature of the people is still the same. I ended up catching quite a few big fish because I just did what I knew to work….over and over and over.
5. I am not the best fisherman in the world, slightly above average at the best of times, but I always catch fish wherever I fish because I will fish and fish and fish. In business success usually does not go to the most skilled, but the one who takes the consistent action over the long haul.
There’s more but, I think five is enough. I hope you enjoyed the fishing lessons:-)
