Peace arises as my kayak paddle gently cuts the smooth surface of our lake. It’s times like this that I cherish our house inMichigan. As I am reveling in the beauty of nature a screech of frustration from a fisherman ruins my moment of Zen. “Hey, is there no fish in this lake! What is it fished out?” Bellowed a fisherman in his row boat (row boat with an engine). “The fish must be gone from here.” It is not easy to carry on a conversation when you are paddling but I did my best.
“Yes, there are tons of fish here; I just caught 2 bass the other day and about 30 yards from where your boat is I caught a huge northern pike.”
“No, there is no fish in this lake.”
“If you go to that point over there you should catch something.” I said as I pointed to a known and proven fishing hole.
“This lake must be fished out.” the fisherman replied convinced that his lack of fishing skill had something to do with the lake.
“What are you fishing for? I inquired as my kayak continued to gain distance on the frustrated fisherman.
“Fish and this lake is fished out!” I waved goodbye and finished my morning paddle.
Obviously this incident stuck with me as I am writing about it. It packs some great business lessons. If you are a fisherman you quickly become aware that fish are finicky but somewhat predictable. You can never guarantee that you will catch any kind of fish but you can stack the probabilities of catching one. Just like in life there are no guarantees but you can increase the probabilities. Being around Financial Services as long as I have I always hear the stories of advisors landing or wanting to land the giant “whale” that will forever change their practice that 5 to 50 million dollar relationship. The ironic thing about most of these whale hunters is that they are fishing from a row boat on an inland lake! To be very blunt for those of you who missed it and went to public school inJerseylike I did: There are no whales in lakes! So no matter how many harpoons and copies of Moby Dick you bring with you, you will not land a whale fishing in a lake!
So if you are a whale hunter, are you at least fishing where the whales would be? Be honest with yourself. Remember the easiest person for all of us to fool is ourselves.
In fishing, the fish you are trying to catch defines the location, the bait, the depth and even the style of fishing. The gentleman I paddled by on the lake was fishing for “fish” and in Michigan we have over 27 different species of lake fish and each has a somewhat different taste for baits and habitat. Much like the advisor who wants more “clients” unless we know what we are looking for we are just forced to cast and often complain that “the lake is fished out.”
Another great lesson from my morning paddle is notice how the fisherman did not listen to the local who lived on the lake and pointed him to where the fishing holes are! An amazing insight I have garnered over the years of coaching very successful financial advisors is a very simple one but quite profound: The More MONEY an advisor or business person makes the easier they are to coach! The reverse is also true: the less money an advisor makes the harder they are to coach! Coach-ability has a direct relationship to income. The more coachable, the more money they make. How open are you to new ideas and concepts? Be very wary if you “know” all the answers and you “know” exactly what you need to do for your business. Just like our fisherman who was convinced that “the lake must be fished out.” When we cast the net of blame the only thing that we drag back into the boat is an empty net. If the fisherman took a moment to ‘stop knowing’ for a moment, he would have had the space to hear where I was guiding him to go – he might have actually caught a fish or two.
