adminBen Chiganze
THE hardest thing about bass fishing is the lack of permanent biting habits among the bass. At times a fisherman has to go through 30 or so different rubbers or rapplers before one eventually discovers the bait that is doing well on that particular day. Even after discovering the correct bait, it can still change if the weather pattern changes in the afternoon. This might entail searching again for the new bait.
Interestingly, most average fishermen resist going through this rigorous and mind-stretching exercise.
They are just content to experiment with only four or five baits throughout the whole fishing season.
Resultantly, their harvests are quite low and sometimes frustrating.
The fascinating observation is that any particular bait only does well probably for two weeks throughout the whole fishing season.
This reduces the probability of having good fishing days to only three to four working weeks per whole season which translates to three or four good fishing weekends for the weekend only fishermen.
Many fishermen find it difficult or unnecessary to try many rapplers and rubbers though this increases their chances of catching.
As long as the fishermen have average or popular rubbers such as watermelon, pumpkin seed, junebug, senco and the fluke, they feel they are okay.
Even if they have different varieties of rubbers, they tend to restrict their choices to the most popular rubbers or rapplers at the expense of the wide collection available.
Resultantly, the quality of catch is reduced significantly due to the inability of many fishermen to try as many rubbers as possible.
Similarly, when one looks at the numerous options available on Microsoft Word, most users are only making use of very few of them.
There are seven ribbons (i.e. home, insert, page layout references, mailings, review and view) which give several interfaces including using excel on word.
I have observed that most people are just com- fortable typing, checking spellings and attaching documents for mailing purposes.
They do not bother finding out what all those icons on the seven ribbons do, though if one clicks on the picture it tells what the picture, letter or icon stands for.
Probably one out of 100 use functions such as thesaurus, fine art, excel on Microsoft Word are known by most people.
We view most of the functions provided by the ribbons as decorations more than enablers. Though we see these functions everyday, it has never occurred to most of us to explore the full use of these tools.
Our minds easily switch off when we see these tools and just continue with our usual routine typing work.
Should we meet any significant challenge which require a diagram, then we consult our secretaries or personal assistants.
Once the diagram is done, we switch off completely. We don’t behave like children who experiment too much and find solutions better than us.
It is, therefore, safe to say more computer users just scratch on the surface as far as computer functions are concerned.
In most work-related situations, members of staff just fulfil what is barely adequate to make the experience of a customer a forgettable one.
Most people are not bothered about creating long- lasting impressions of their companies though they have the capacity to do so should they commit themselves to do.
In any work environment, most members of staff just identify what they consider to be key few areas and just fulfil those few obligations only.
They just barely fulfil the minimum requirements though no one has become a star in any field of endeavour by barely putting minimum effort.
I agree changing rubbers in line with changing tastes of bass is labour intensive but it has to be done. Most good bass fishermen will be exhausted both physically and mentally by the time they go home. Most of them will be fast asleep barely an hour after arriving home.
Nobody can hope to get fantastic and satisfying results from work without stretching themselves.
Average results can be obtained by doing the normal routine tasks, however, abnormally good results are not accidental, they are obtained by trying as many rubbers and rapplers as is possible.
How we lose opportunities?
We witness most life-changing opportunities everyday but we do not utilise them because we only do what we are comfortable with.
We only do what our minds tell us we can handle. We are always busy thinking that we will destroy our computers or lose our data if we experiment with the computer instead of thinking how better organised we will be should we master how to take advantage of what is provided by the computer dashboard.
This is exactly what happens to us when we encounter opportunities. We only try the few that we know our neighbours have tried and discard the rest.
In a similar fashion, the majority of all retrenched employees since 2010 (those who got retrenchment packages) are either operating a kombi, taxi, small van/lorry, grinding mill, bottle store, general dealer, salon or engaged in cross-border trade.
I have no doubt the future retrenches will only limit themselves to only few areas of business as well.
Be inspired today
When one lacks inspiration, one’s efforts will be dwarfed to just using the “tried and tested” rubbers. The basket of rubbers represents limitless opportunities available to us today.
I am challenging you to try to increase your pick from eight to 25 rubbers from the basket of 100 huge opportunities available to you today. I have no doubt that your quality of catch will improve significantly.
The writer is a managing consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected].
Online Reporter