Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - What Do You Value?

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." - Henry David Thoreau In this episode we look at a short story about a village fisherman and examine whether we are building our lives around the right things.

Welcome to Your World Within Daily. I'm Eddie Panero, and in this episode, we're going to kind of pick up where we left off yesterday on the concept of time. Not just being effective, but the prioritization of what's meaningful. Thoreau has a quote where he says, many men go fishing all their lives without realizing that it's not fish thereafter. So in this episode, we're going to ask ourselves what we are fishing for. So there's a story I came across. And it's been so long, I'm not even sure where I came across it, somewhere on the old interwebs.

But basically the premise, the Cliff Note version, is there's a fisherman in a little fishing village. And he goes out real early in the morning. He catches a bunch of fish, fills this canoe, and he's coming back into town. And there's a businessman on the dock, right? And he sees him coming in. He goes, wow, that's a lot of fish. Because how'd you do that? You do that in one morning?

And the fisherman goes, yeah, I went out. and I caught fish. And he goes, oh my God, all right, well, what are you going to do now? And the fisherman says, well, I'm going to go home. I'm going to take a nap. I'm going to spend some time with my wife, my family. And then I'm going to go into the village, dance, play guitar, have some beers with my friends. The businessman goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So you're done for the day? Because I have an MBA, right? And I can show you how to scale this operation. and the businessman or the fisherman kind of looks to him he goes okay and then what goes well then you'll have a ton of boats right and you'll have a fleet and you'll have more money coming in because you have more boats going out fishing at the same time and the fisherman was ah okay and then what the businessman says well then you'll have a business right and you could potentially even go public, you know, maybe sell the thing. And the businessman or the fisherman goes,

okay, but then what? The businessman says, well, then you can cash in, right? You sell for a ton of money. And, you know, you'll have time to take a nap. You'll have time to spend with your wife and your kids. You'll have time to dance and play guitar, have beers with your friends in the village. And the fisherman says, well, yeah, but that's exactly what I'm doing now. Right. Point being that, you know, he knew literally and metaphorically what he was fishing for, and he arranged his life around that. Whereas the businessman is sort of the trap that we fall into a lot, you know, in our world.

and where essentially you're fishing for things that don't matter, right? You're removing the things that are important so that you can build and build and build and build and ultimately have the luxury someday of then being around those things that are important. And so it's a simple message, and again, I want to read this thorough quote because I just think it's so incredible. Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. So what is it that you should be fishing for? Right? And I say it's a continuation of yesterday because it's the same question, right?

What matters? And are you thinking about that? And most importantly, are you building a life around that? And that's not immediate. That's not a snap of your fingers thing. But, you know, a journey is a step. It's a culmination of steps. And if you're taking a step or progressing,

towards that today, you know, that's the most powerful thing you can do. So question of the day, what are you fishing for? And what are you doing about it? Let's fill that canoe. All right. Have an amazing day, guys. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate, subscribe, review. It helps me get it out to the world. And that means everything to me. So grateful, and I'll catch you tomorrow.