This post covers self mastery. Self mastery/improvement must come first before you can improve performance and outputs. You cant be a businessman or an entrepreneur or be rich unless you improve your self. To attempt to change the world without self improvment is insanity
There was a story of a village who experienced drought. Their only source of water to drink, the village well dried up. And one of the villagers William experienced the drying up while fetching water for his old mother. People were desperate and left the village for places where there could be sufficient water.
Desperate William went up to mountain to reflect. He met George. And he discussed the problem with George. Well George said there is a spring up the mountain. But William said it is so far away and up the mountains. About 20 km away. Up in the mountains But George said you are looking for a solution to the village plight.
And so William discussed the plan with his fellow villagers. No one listened no one cooperated. William was not disheartened. He surveyed the best route for a canal between the spring and his village. He drew the plan and made sure the elevation was right so that water would freely flow from the spring to the village.
All he had as a tool was an old rusty shovel of his deceased father. He started digging No one bothered him nor joined him His hands bled from peeled palm on his first day and his mother nursed his blooded hands He kept on digging. He dug and dug. Days passed. Weeks and months.
Until one day it rained heavily (good for their dried well) and destroyed portion of his digging. Thus the defects of his digging were exposed. He strengthened the walls of the portion that collapsed. Widened some portion, dug some areas deeper.
And then he continued to dig. Weeks, months, months Until one day he reached the portion of the mountain that was near the spring. But an immovable large boulder separated his canal and spring. His shovel seemed puny compared to the boulder. He struck the boulder again and again. But his effort seemed to be worthless. He struck the rock again and again and again until finally a trickle, a flow and then a deluge. And the water cascaded down to his canal....
And then the flow stopped. A portion had collapsed soil and rock blocking the flow. He had to remove the blockage. But his strength and energy seemed to have left him. He nevertheless struggled to remove the block until early morning And then the flow continued until it reached his village.
At last he solved the water problem Only then did people appreciate his effort. But he did it alone. People dont join you until the results are visible.
They are advice from Vishna. He is author of several books
What he learned and his advice
1. Tolerate pain.
E.g. Elon Musk applied at Netflix but was not invited for interview. The best way to do this was
to create his own company. But the journey from there to Spacex was just like eating glass
its painful...
2. Know why. Its the greater motivator (others say have assets and system but this is more permanent than systems or assets and easier to do)
Business is not about making money. The business of business maybe to push forward the
frontier of humanity. As with Navea Jain. His vision is to extend the life of humans, not to
get him sick
Big vision gets big people, Great people come with great ideas. You do not need more money.
3. Stay in the vision zone
Its not about PHP or profit
According to Richard Branson, its all about getting people alignedd with your vision, and once
clear make them do this...
He served burgers to 50 interns in his house. To get them hooked with his vision and work towards that
4. Bring an upside to the downside (from Paul McKenna) Paying more for an apartment? You can host parties that bring in investors and customer, and save on hotel
Ricihard Branson got stranded in Carribean. on the way to UK. He thought of getting a chartered
flight and invited others to join and split the bill. That gave him an idea of setting up Virgin Islands airline. So he leased an old 747 from Boeing which they initially refused. Later on they agreed. Pay the lease 30 days after. In the meantime he earned revenues from the flight...
I saw a number of jobs that are available all senior in nature for me. SVP, COO, Managing Directors. However this post dare not join for being a senior citizen (75 all ready) and I have busineses that I love that I cant leave. This post should be the one recruiting.
This post is glad that we have non stop self improvement actions
