A farmer was making his plough. He was trying to fit a stick of wood as the handle into the plough. When he was nearly done, a guy came by and gave him a comment on his new tool. “The stick is too long for your plough,” said the man. The farmer looked at it and agreed with the man. So he shortened the stick a little bit.
Another farmer stopped at him and said that it was a long plough, but the latter replied that he had made it shorter a bit already. His fellow worker added that it was still long.
When he was done and felt so satisfied with the newer length of the stick, a woman reached him and said that he couldn’t work with that long stick. This time this really annoyed him because he had had the repeated same comments on his work. He said “Yeah, I know how to do it myself.” The lady said that he could scratch his back when it itched, but couldn’t produce any crop with that plough.
He just hated those words coming out from her mouth, so he sat still for a while when she left and tried to think whether she was right or not, as he knew that the plough was short enough. He was still wondering why she said so. Finally, he decided to try to fix it one last time.
When he made it somewhat shorter, it just didn’t look right to him at all. He had never had a plough which was that short, and never seen any farmers in the neighborhood possessing one.
It was just a story and you don’t just deal with the only right length of the plough. But the right decisions face you. Have you ever found yourself in such a situation when you have solutions for your business problems and still get the criticism, commenting or even advice on how your things should be done? Then what should you do?
Well, you don’t try to dictate what products or services you sell or how they should be, how you sell them to your customers and what kind of price you charge, what your marketing plan is and how it’s carried out, and so on; but you should have your own judgement on how those things should be taken care of, making sure that the crowd know what they’re talking about and keep moving forwards with your mind opened to the public opinions. The only reason for that is because, in some way, you can benefit from the outsiders along the way you go with your life and business.
Nick's Language 