Long ago, a man devoted for the search for meaning and understanding, sought a teacher who could help him discover the great truths of the truly wise. When he heard about a guru who lived in a next country, he set out to find him. He walked for days, weeks and months until finally across a clearing, he saw a tiny hut. As he got closer he could see the door was open. After waiting a very long time he decided to venture in. Inside was a small table with a pot of tea and two cups. Because he was very thirsty and he knew his guru was a generous man, he poured himself a cup of tea. Almost immediately the guru appeared at the door. He was old and stooped with sharp, kind eyes. The guru looked at the monk, looked at the cup of tea, and shook his head and left. Stunned, the monk waited another hour but finally gave up, let the hut and found a place to sleep in the woods. The next morning he arrived early but found only the hut, table, teapot and cups. He waited. Pouring himself a cup of tea he looked up and saw the guru, who again looked at the monk, looked at the cup of tea, shook his head and left. This went on for days until finally the monk begged the guru, “please, I have traveled a long way to learn from you. Don’t walk away again today. Teach me.” The guru stopped, turned around and walked to the table. He picked up a pot of tea and began pouring tea into the monk’s already full cup. The monk jumped back as the tea cascaded over the lip of the cup, onto the tale and the floor. The guru said, “your mind is like this cup of tea. It is already full. You must first empty your mind, before anything new can enter.”
I just want to share with you that this story is not far from who we are most of the time. Looking back, I often reflected what lead me to this amazing life I have right now. One vivid memory I could never forget was way back then when I was looking for other options aside from the traditional businesses we already have like real estate, travel agency, lending, pre-school, buy and selling etc… It was late one night when a friend shared with me an amazing company expanding here in the Philippines. That company was no longer new to me because I have already heard it before from my godmother working as a head nurse in Germany. I went to see it and decided that I will take part on its expansion here in the Philippines.
Now, thinking since I have vast experience already in traditional businesses, I told myself that this business will not be that difficult anymore because I am already experienced. I convinced my guru (the one mentoring me and who happen to be very successful in the business in which I am just new of) that I know what I’m doing and I know that my knowledge in traditional business will work in my newfound innovative franchising business.
For a year, I tried applying everything that I have learned from building our traditional businesses into my newfound business. I must admit a lot of times I got frustrated because I could not believe a person like me earning a lot of money in real estate and our other traditional businesses could not even start earning at least Php 50,000 in sales in this business! I must admit, that there were moments that I already pondered of quitting. I blamed everyone around me and tried finding evidences that this business is not being true to its promise to me that I will be financially free. I started questioning everything that I’m doing whether this is really the business that will bring me to what I want for my country, my community and my family.
I started questioning my guru and told him that he is being out of integrity with me for not teaching me everything I need to learn to succeed in the business. I can remember myself really angry with him that time.
I will never forget what he told me that truly hit me hard, as in, bull’s eye. He said, “ I was teaching you all the time, you were simply not listening. You were hearing but not listening. You keep on bringing with you and applying everything that you have learned from your traditional business to this business I am teaching you. Yes, you have achieved success in your traditional businesses and earned a lot of money there. You know our difference? You earn millions, one, twice or thrice a year but I earn millions in this innovative business every month. You travel to work, I travel for pleasure with the people that matters to me anytime I want and anywhere I want. I have time, and my business runs with or without me, while you on the other hand, you don’t have peace of mind. Yes, we both earn millions but what kind of million is that? and at the end of the day are the millions you’re earning giving you the life you truly wanted for yourself and those you love? Money is money however at the end of the day where and to whom are you spending it with? I am willing to teach you again, only then if you will temporarily give up everything you think you know about this business. Unless you accept that you don’t know anything about this, you will never understand what I have to teach you. I will listen to you in real estate because you have significant results in that business however in this business, you have to allow me to teach you and for me to be effective, you have to be willing to start as a beginner and temporarily give up what you’ve learned in the past and accept that what I am teaching you is something new that you don’t know anything about”
Finally, I listened.
My experience is not far from what a lot of us has probably experienced. We all have beliefs, ideas that we still hold onto. We come into a new business or venture bringing everything we have learned in the past. I learned that when our mind is already crowded, no amount of learning would ever come to place.
That’s why I learned to give up. I have learned to give up what I believe I know, ideas I know and I have learned that if I keep on bringing with me everything I learned in the past to any new business at hand, I will just be bringing with me, guess what? my past, including the results I got there. And as Einstein said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results because you can’t solve a problem at the same level at which it is was created”.
I always tell my mentees, if you are going to drive an airplane, even if you bring with you and apply all the things you learned in the past, to fly an airplane in which you know nothing about; it will never work. We need to acknowledge that what we have learned in the past will not be significant to the task at hand. To be able to fly it, first we need a “guru” or in this case, a pilot and we need to acknowledge that we are a beginner for that pilot to teach us what we need to learn. Try telling a pilot you know how to drive an airplane even if you don’t know, expect you will not be taught anything at all. If we need new ideas to sink in, we need to give a room for those ideas to grow. So I tell them, if you’re not yet earning a passive income of even a 100,000.00 pesos every month in your innovative franchising business, you still have a lot of unlearning to do. To start earning that, before going to millions, declare first that you are a beginner. Give up temporarily what you’ve believed worked for you in the past because if it really did, you wouldn’t be in this community in the first place.”
Looking back, I never regretted “emptying my mind” and giving up everything I thought I knew about the business I’ve gotten myself into. It was the most humbling and life-changing decision I have ever made in my life and it’s worth it. Now, I spend my time doing what I love to do anytime I want and anywhere I want while still committing to what I stand for: Abundance. I would have never experienced power, freedom and peace of mind, the way I experience it now, if I allowed my “full cup” to get in the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment