How do you find gold?

I came home tonight after a BOM session. It was a good session. When I came in the door, I asked my mother who was sitting on the sofa with father this question.

Wiling: "How do you find gold?"
Mother: "By sifting through tons of earth and using water to wash it out."
Wiling: "That's how we find Executives."

We laughed.

Then my father told me this story that he heard way back in his universitiy days in NanYang University (1960's)

Father:
"There was this lecturer that decided to give a special talk on how to always remember what you studied. So everyone in the university came to listen, there were so many people at the talk that it was packed. Everyone wanted to know how to remember what they had studied. This was also because there was an exam coming up soon. So the lecturer gave his talk and it was 2 hours long. The subject was about how the brain worked as he was a biologist.

At the end of the talk, all the students were wondering why he hadn't mentioned the main topic "How to remember what you studied." As the lecturer walked down the podium and was about to leave, the now anxious students shouted for him to tell them how to remember what they had studied.

The lecturer turned around and asked the student: How many words do you want to remember? The student replied: 100 words. The lecture explained that a typical person can remember 10% of what they studied. So he said: 'Study 1000 words!'. Then another student angrily shouted: 'I need to remember 1000 words for my exam!' The lecturer calmly said: 'then study 10,000 words.' "

As you can see, this applies perfectly to our business of sifting through the earth to find gold. If we want 12 Execs, we sift 12 tons of earth, that is on average 1 ton yields 1 exec.

So if you find yourself in a situation where you want to enrol 100 people, then talk and share with 1000 people. This is the nature of the business.

Some may say that this is just luck, but always remember that luck favours those who are prepared. To get more luck and to improve your efficiency/odds, come to training, read & listen, duplicate leaders to improve your skills.

As Jim Rohn once said:
Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better,
Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills,
Don't wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.

The funny thing about this story from my father is, he has never told me about this story before and on hindsight it is so applicable to our business.

We need to continuosly remind ourselves to keep planting the FFG seeds, to keep talking and sharing until we achieve our goal.

"It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles."

- Claude M. Bristol, 1891-1951, Author of "The Magic of Believing"

“The secret of success is constancy of purpose.”

- Benjamin Disraeli

"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did."

- Newt Gingrich (Politician, Author, Academic)


To your success,
Wiling Tan

April 6th' 2006