A Fish Story!

It was Saturday morning so my husband, Bill, wanted to go fishing. We asked my cousin, Gary, to go with us and my 14 year old son, Noah, went along as well.

You may be saying what does this have to do with any kind of marketing on the internet.

Well, as I sat and watched Noah while we were fishing all I could think is “this is what I have been reading about this past week”. I have read several posts and article on the topic of what I call “preparing vs. doing”.

We fish mainly for Crappies (said Croppies) like the one below.  So I just use the same bait all of the time.  I am not picky and the fish do not seem to be either.

I usually catch the most fish of anyone in the boat, much to my husband’s disgust since he taught me how to fish, so what does it matter which bait I use as long as I catch fish.

Bill, Gary and I start out fishing while Noah starts preparing his line with just the right hook, swivel, lure, crappie nibble, you name it.

You see him to the left fixing up his line while Gary is fishing.

By the time I had caught my first fish Noah finally had his line ready to go in the water.   There he is on the right with some really fancy lure, that crappies will probably not bite on, ready to fish.

That lasted a few minutes and I caught a couple more fish.  Bill and Gary were catching fish.  We were not catching a lot and some were small so we had to throw them back but we were catching fish off and on.

Oh, that lure must not of worked.  There is Noah again getting more tackle out and he has already changed his lure in the picture below.

Lets not forget that all of this work getting ready for fishing had made him hungry so he had to take a break and eat a bagel.

Meanwhile he has still not caught a fish but has spent a lot of time preparing.

Now, he is so exhausted from preparing for fishing and eating he has to take a nap.

I think you probably get the picture by now.

In the end we kept about 9 really nice fish and threw back about as many.  It was not a great day out fishing.  We have gone out and caught 30 or 40 before but we did OK and all had fun.

Noah however did not catch a single fish.  He spent more time then anyone else preparing and at one point even created his own bait (we use little plastic things that look like worms) out of something he had in his tackle box.

My same bait that I have used many times over, has resided on my pole for at least a year and the fish have nibbled on so it is not all there, allowed me to catch more fish than anyone else in the boat.

Now back to what does this have to do with any kind of marketing or anything on the internet.

Noah reminds me of myself a lot of times when it comes to marketing or blogging or what ever it is I am doing on the internet or for that matter whatever business endeavor I am involved in at the time.

I like many people tend to spend a lot of time getting ready to do something.  Through all of the preparation I never seem to actually get around to doing what it is that I have set out to do.

Meanwhile other people are just doing it and getting ahead a lot faster than I am.

I have read so many articles and posts lately talking about this type of thing, so when I watched Noah it really struck me.  I thought I would give this example as it is kind of comical but really hit home for me.

I have to remember to do and not prepare.  It does not matter if I have the best looking website, that can be improved on over time.  I don’t need just the right fonts, I can always go back and change them and I could go on and on.  I just need to get the website up.  I need to start writing posts, even if they are kind of funny like this one.  I am just using these as examples as I am already doing them, not to say they don’t need improving on.  There are lots of things I need to start doing instead of planning though as I am sure you have those things also.

So if this is you, you are not alone.  We all do this or at least most of us do.  If you are the person that does not I do not want to offend you.  We just need to be more like you.

I am starting a new business venture along with my internet marketing.  I am determined to be a doer and not a planner in this new venture.  I want to be successful and the way I will get there is by doing, even if it is not perfect.  If you want to know more about my new business venture check out the tab “work with me” under Pages in the sidebar.

The next time you catch yourself planning and planning and planning, stop and think about this funny little post and start doing.

Hope someone got something out of this.  It was kind of fun to write and I told Noah I was going to do it.  Now I am going to have him read it in hopes that maybe he will start doing and not preparing.

I hope you are all enjoying your weekend and for those Americans have a great 4th of July.  Everyone else can enjoy the 4th of July also as you have one too, it is just not a holiday for you.

Tagged as: affiliate marketing, blog, blog marketing, blogging, doing, family, family time, fishing, online marketing, preparing, Procrastination, time, use time