The Seed of Success

Here is a story I read this summer while I worked in West

Virginia, selling books door-to-door with a company called Southwestern. This job was incredible, and the company could not be a better example of how to stay motivated. The following story was one of the most

memorable messages I learned. Take it how you will, and it's not only for business owners, but for life as well! As for myself, i'll look at through this blog's perspective. I'm going to keep blogging until it's the #1 most fascinating, funny, smart, inspirational, informative, revolutionary and insightful blog out there!

The Seed of Success

Great! You got a bamboo seed!

You are thrilled so you prepare the ground, place the seed carefully, water it, and fertilize it for a whole year, but except for a minuscule sprout...nothing happens!

You know mother nature needs time so you keep watering it every day, and feed it for a second year, and then at your stupefaction, there is still nothing!

So you'll look at it meticulously to check if perhaps the bamboo tree is growing somewhere you missed to check? Despite your extensive search and hopes, you can't see anything bigger than what grew the first year! How can it be possible?

This is the third year now so you are ready to see something coming out of the ground. "Something has to come out!" so you water it, you fertilize it, remove the weeds away, end then...No way! Still nothing! Now you are frustrated! You planted your seed with genuine faith. You bought the best possible soil available. You watered it faithfully and gave it the best fertilizer. Your reward can't be just nothing!?

Despite the disappointment and frustration, you keep taking care of the tiny sprout; you water it, fertilize it and still...nothing!

You look around, noticing all the other plants in the garden grew beautifully! But from your precious bamboo seed? For four years you'll see nothing, except a tiny shoot sprouting from a bulb, no bigger than it was the first year. You complain, get angry and truly feel ready to give up. Maybe you don't have the green touch that is essential to become a great gardener.

During the fifth year, just when you're ready to quit once and for all...

Incredible growth! In the six weeks that follow, the bamboo tree grows up to three feet per day, until it grows to be ninety feet or twenty-seven meters high! During the long years when there are no tangible results, a long reaching root system was being developed to support its future massive growth...

And your business life is often like the Chinese bamboo tree

You are excited, you sign-up for a business and it looks promising. Your first year, you generate a few leads, but apart from that,...nothing happens! You know deep inside any business takes time to grow so you give it a few months, even two full years! But at your amazement, you are still not financially free as expected and you still have a job you hate.

So you'll stare at your bank account, at your mailbox, at your list of leads...where is the money? When is it going to be delivered?

Despite the growing feeling of frustration, you keep working. You study the best marketing strategies, you gain new knowledge every day with the best mentors in the industry but still, not much happens! You can't believe it! You wonder what is wrong with you! It looks like a bad joke, maybe you were right, you are not cut to be a millionaire. You recall a mentor saying it is not for everyone. So that's it, it is not for you, you start thinking. But you resist once again the temptation to quit.

You network and see so many people in other companies that do so good and earn so much money. They grow and prosper. Where is the residual income you have worked so hard for? Years of hard labor for nothing? A few leads and three or four sales? You have felt it all; excitement, hope, frustration, excitement again, hope, more frustration, desperation.

And when you are ready to quit, when you feel you are a fool to have believed in abundance and prosperity, when you scream inside: "Over, I can't take this pain anymore"...

Magic happens! Your business grows beyond your wildest dreams!

During the long years when there are no visible results, you grew your business by developing foundations, by gaining the knowledge necessary to support the explosive growth to come.

It takes time to learn marketing principles that work, and it takes time to practice and master these principles before you see tangible results. For those who let nothing discourage them, for those who are persistent, great rewards will follow!

There is a seed for success inside you!