To All the Indians Out there — a VERY HAPPY Deepawali!

Have a Blast and Be Safe. =)

While I would personally choose the banker’s suggestion — but that’s just me because I tend to do a LOT of things just for the adrenal rush — but this story makes you think something.

An American investment banker was walking by the pier of a coastal Mexican village when a fisherman docked his small boat nearby and tossed several large yellow fin tuna onto the dock.

The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked, “How long does it take to catch them?”

The Mexican replied: “Not very long — maybe a couple of hours, senor.”

The American then asked why the fisherman didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish.

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs and was happy with that.

The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my friends. I have a full and busy life which I enjoy very much.”

The American rolled his eys and said, “I’m a Harvard MBA and could help you. Here’s what you should do: Spend more time fishing. You get more money, and with that, you buy a bigger boat. Then you can catch more fish, and buy an even bigger boat. If you work hard, then soon you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor. If that works out, then you open your own cannery. At that point you would control the product, the processing and the distribution. And, you could leave this little town and move to Mexico City, or LA and or even New York City. From there you could run the whole thing by phone, Fedex and the Internet.

The Mexican fisherman thinks this over for a minute and then asks, “Interesting. How long will this all take?”

The American thought for a little bit, took out his calculator and punched in some numbers, and then announced “I think you do this in only 15-20 years.”

“But what then?”

The American laughed and said, “Here’s the beauty of the whole thing. When the time is right you announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You could make millions!”

The Mexican thought this over for a little longer, staring out to sea and thinking about what millions would buy. He asked, “Okay. Millions.. then what?”

The American said, “This is the best part — you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.“

Okay so here is the story of this seven year old kid who wants to run his own business. Lookie –

Oh and just in case you didn’t notice, it is an an ad for Umpqua Bank. =)

Remember the conversation from the 1987 Hollywood Classic, Wall Street, when Lou tells Bud — “The main thing about money, Bud, is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do”.

I think I better rephrase it to — “The main thing about blogging is that it makes you do things you don’t want to do”.

While I could go on the reasons why blogging is all that great (and I will do that in another post). But, over the years that I’ve been blogging, I’ve learnt about a few negative effects blogging can have on you –

1. You Change Priorities. You start your blog as a place to jot your thoughts and rant about things. Then you find that people are reading what you write. So, you start writing more. The more your readers, the more you blog. All of sudden you are spending more time on your blog than your main business / job.

2. You Blog for Blogging’s Sake. You read somewhere that the most famous bloggers make 5-6 posts a day and if you want to join the A-List, you also need to spit out posts at that rate.

Here’s a fact for you — Most A-Listers have Blogging as their Full Time Profession and they have nothing else to do but blog. You can match their number too, but you will need to put in the same kind of effort that they do. See Point #1.

3. You Listen TOO Much to Your Commentators. Blogs comments are a wonderful thing - you can get instant feedback from your readers. However, all our internal statistics on our website network show that less than 5% people post comments on a post.

If you listen too much to your commentators and start shaping your blog according to their suggestions then you are focusing on just 5% of your audience — some of who are just compulsive commentators.

It is easy to ignore the 95% who never pester you with negative remarks but you should not forget that they are your major audience. And, they read your blog only because they like what you are doing!

Another post which I am working on is 10 Wonderful Things that a Blog can do for Your Business. But till then, don’t make the three blogging mistakes I pointed out above. You want your blog to complement and grow your business, not the other way round.