A lone box fan sits unplugged in the corner.
The room is warm and several people mill about talking, and sweating. One lone individual takes the initiative to pick up the fan, plug it in, and aim it (selflessly) at themselves.
Soon after, the other warm individuals try to cluster around the same fan. Obviously the fan is too small to support all the people, and the person who plugged in the fan to begin with leaves the comfort of the cool air flow.
Useless story? Or great advice for your life?
Every great idea begins with one person, or a small group of people. Later others see this good idea and flock to it, attempting to mimic the success of the first person or group.
If the initial idea people are smart, then as soon as they see the crowds coming they move on before it becomes congested. The first people have gained as much as possible, made all their money, or reaped whatever benefit they desired. The crowd who followed are now going to force one another around, and slowly kill the opportunity.
Don’t Be Part of the Crowd
Do not be a member of the group who sees a good idea and then flocks late. Robert Kiyosaki hammers on this point again and again in his book Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrants. Kiyosaki explains that the rich will find a new opportunity and move in ahead of the crowd, taking small risks to reap large rewards. The poor and middle class will move in at the height of the wave when there is nowhere for the idea to go but down, or to continue making incremental gains. Nothing compared to the the gains initial investors made. If a lot of people are talking about an opportunity. If you’re seeing advertisements for something. Then odds are the benefits have already been tapped and drained dry. Do Not Be Part of the Crowd.
If You Were The First, Know when to leave
Hopefully you have learned to be sepparate from the crowd and are looking for those new opportunities. Again, act like the rich do and get out when the wave has reached it’s highest point. This takes some failure learning to figure out, but those losses are just investments into educating yourself. Learn to spot those approaching crowds and get out before they flock onto the barren landscape. Even if there is more incremental gains to be made, take the small loss to count your already great gains!
Failure is Never Failure, When You Learn Something
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