“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps—we must step up the stairs.”—Vance Havner You’ve set up a home-based business. You have a product or service you love, and want to provide it for people for pay, in order to bring money into your life. You’ve gotten your business license, your business cards, stationary, inventory—all the tools of your trade. But it is not enough. Now you have to get customers! How do you do it? You have to reach out to connect with people. I call this “Sending Out Ships.”
Let me explain my analogy:
In the nineteenth century, the merchants in London built grand, tall-masted sailing ships. It would take many months, sometimes years, to build them. Then they would hire a crew, outfit the ship and store provisions for the long sea voyage. One fine day, the ship would weigh anchor, hoist her sails, and sail out of London harbor, on her way to visit foreign ports and trade for gold, jewels, silks, and spices. The trip would take many months—often years—and there were no communication lines open then: No ship-to-shore radio, no telegraph, no cellular telephones. Once the ship had sailed, the merchant could do nothing more; only wait for that future day when the ship would return, sailing into London harbor laden with treasure. On that day, the merchant’s fortune was made. And that’s where the expression “I’m waiting for my ship to come in,” comes from.
But some people are going down to the dock, waiting for their ship to come in—but they haven’t sent any out! If you want the fortune, your responsibility each day is to send out some ships. And you had better send out more than one, because stuff happens to ships: One runs aground just outside of the harbor, another sinks in a hurricane. A few get commandeered by pirates, the whirlpool gets one, and on the next one there’s a mutiny and they sail off to Pitcairn Island and aren’t heard from for another twenty years. Then, of course, there’s the one that hits the iceberg! Once you send the ship out, it’s out of your control. You are only in charge of sending it out, not when it comes in.
When you get into the habit of sending ships out on a daily basis, even if you know some ships aren’t going to make it back home, you are still confident and optimistic because you know you have a whole fleet sailing out there. It creates a positive expectation that ships are going to be sailing in, docking at your pier and unloading riches for you any minute. Positive energy shines from you. You feel good about yourself because you’ve been doing what it takes to succeed. This is what Tony Robbins, in his book, Awaken the Giant Within, calls “massive, positive, constructive action on a daily basis.” (Although that sounds a little too much like hard work to me.) I prefer the image of breaking the champagne bottle and waving goodbye to a proud clipper ship on a beautiful spring day as it sets forth on my behalf. And then celebrating the ship’s safe arrival with all my wealth.
Send those ships out every day. Then prepare to unload your treasures!
© Copyright Chellie Campbell. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Send Out Ships - To learn more about this author, visit Chellie Campbell's Website.
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Chellie Campbell
(Visit Chellie's Website)
Chellie Campbell is the creator of the
popular Financial Stress Reduction®
Workshops, and the author of The Wealthy
Spirit and Zero to Zillionaire, both
published by Sourcebooks, Inc. She is one
of Marci Shimoff's “Happy 100” in her
current NYT bestseller Happy for No Reason
and contributed stories to Jack Canfield’s
recent books You’ve Got to Read This Book!
and Life Lessons from Chicken Soup for the
Soul. She is prominently quoted as a
financial expert in The Los Angeles Times,
Pink, Good Housekeeping, Lifetime,
Essence, Woman’s World and more than 35
popular books. For more information, visit
her web site www.Chellie.com or email her at Chellie@
Chellie.com
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