A fun ramble today that may take my older
readers back to their childhood chores?
I had many, but one of my routine daily tasks
was Lighting the fire!
This was before the days of central heating
and gas boilers, when we had a coal fire that heated
a back boiler to warm the house & hot water cylinder!
EVERYTHING Relied 0n that fire burning all day.
I’d wake early, and go down to rake the grate clean
of the ash from yesterday, after disposing of the
ashes (usually kept to use once the snows had fallen
and settled – recycling…lol), I’d chop some sticks
from scrap wood my father brought home work.
Then fill the coal bucket from the bunker out back.
Next would be to roll up the newspaper into paper
sticks, and prepare the hearth.
Some coal on the bottom, The paper sticks, followed
by kindling then bigger sticks, and finally more coal
on top of it all.
Then with a singe match and a bit of luck, I’d light
the paper, hoping there was enough to get the kindling
lit, then with a large piece of newspaper held in front
of the fire to block the main hole in the wall and feed
the air from below, (you had to be quick to pull it away
once the fire caught, or that was another fun scramble
for the poker to hold it down so as not to start a chimney
fire!!) – With luck the fire took and we had hot water
and radiators for the day.
Provided of course that we maintained the coal and logs
as the day progressed š
But NOT ONCE did I ever think…
“Give Me Heat First…
then I’ll buy you some wood and coal!”
Have you heard that one before?
(I honestly can’t remember if I made it up or read it
years ago!) lol
But it did used to be a favourite saying of mine when
talking to my sales staff.
And I believe it applies just as much today online,
as it did back in the day.
So many people are in such a rush to ‘Make Money Now’
– they never want to put the effort in first!
We see it daily on social media and in private emails,
even in support tickets for private coaching that is
based over a year of learning and working on their
businesses!
I talk to people, explain how much work they have to
put in, tell them they can start seeing a return on
investment within 4 or 5 months, rising to a full time
income by the end of the year.
Then 2 to 3 weeks later they’re asking…
“What can I do right now to bring in some serious cash?”
The answer is always the same!
NONE of us that make ‘serious cash’ did it from week 1
or 2 or 3!
We put in a lot of work, effort and time, then we saw
some small results.
We then continued to work on our plan and gradually those
small results turned into nice results.
We kept on keeping on and eventually we noticed we were
making a full time income.
Rinse and repeat again and we start getting Big Days…
etc. etc.
Not one of us stared at an empty fireplace and shouted…
“Give Me Heat First
– then I’ll buy you some wood and coal!”
That would just be ridiculous!
And yet on a daily basis people seem to think they can
pop onto facebook and find someone who will tell them how
to make big money by doing nothing in order for them to
fund their dreams of becoming an internet marketing gnuru!
PMSL
I’m not sure whether we should feel sorry for them?
(Some are on hard times and desperate – and sorry…
but you’d still have to work FIRST!)
Others just seem to have an entitlement mentality, where
they believe they have a RIGHT to XYZ as opposed to
understanding that XYZ is a privilege EARNED!
Anyways… lecture over, my point is I sincerely hope
that my emails, posts and products are of use, and that
ALL my readers do understand that we genuinely have to
chop the wood and buy the coals in order to have a good
warm fire to heat us.
And likewise – we need to use the tools we keep promoting
and put the effort in, in order to eventually see the
rewards š
Now some tools can save SO MUCH time that it might FEEL
like we don’t deserve the success we get when we use them.
But that is usually down to someone else putting in a heck
of a lot of work to make those tools seem so easy.
So next time you’re building a fire, Give a thought to
those poor folks staring at an empty grate waiting for
some heat BEFORE they’re prepared to put in any effort!
(And remember NEVER to be one of those!)
P.S. Donāt forget if you want to create an internet
income of your own, product creation may be something
you need to look at, and this free training webinar
will help:
http://randolfsmith.com/likes/PCW1
There is a coaching offer at the end, But don’t join if you
expect to Get the Money BEFORE you put the work in!
6 replies to "“Give Me Heat First… then I’ll buy you some wood and coal!”"
Oh, talk about bringing back the old times. I can remember those days of having to do the chores before I could have a little fun. I didn’t have to light the fire so to speak, but boy did I have a lot of chores.
I can remember once when I made the mistake of telling my dad that I was bored. I had to have a lapse of reason at that time. He made sure that I never felt bored again. I got a laundry list of things to do.
It’s like life, there is nothing for free and I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I’ve had to earn every penny, promotion, and thing I have today.
Somehow or another, people think there’s an easy button you can push. If there is, I have never found it.
Great article. Thanks, Randy.
Memories š
Sorting the fire wasn’t my only chore.. I too had a long list of them, but I guess that’s the difference with our generation… we all knew it was expected of us.
Whereas these days I’m sure some would moan about child labour and how cruel we are to expect kids to help out around the house! (Maybe that’s why they expect everything on a plate??)
Randy
We still have a fire that is being lit every day! My husband does it rather than me but I can do it and am perfectly prepared to if necessary. The phrase āGive Me Heat First ā then Iāll buy you some wood and coal!ā, reminds me of that other phrase, “Live, horse: and tomorrow you will have grass”. Things will not continue forever without maintenance (and feeding). Going back to your fire lighting, my husband starts collecting newspapers from others (we don’t take the papers) at the end of summer, before the fire is ever needed. The same with sticks. I don’t think he has ever bought a bundle of sticks. He finds plenty of wood in various places and built himself a log store to keep it. He just has to chop a few sticks each day. People look at him lighting a fire, with paper and dry wood in a few minutes and think it’s easy. They don’t see the work and planning behind it. Rather like the Internet life?
Hi Meg,
Your reply reminds me of the 7 P’s
Proper Planning & Preparation Prevents P*ss Poor Performance! š
People tend not to notice all the work that goes into a project PRIOR to the action part – so they view the results as easily done… UNTIL they try and wonder what the heck went wrong, due to not planning and preparing themselves! š
Randy
Too, true, Randy! It took me 3 years working part-time before I started to earn “serious” money. Then, after I moved to working full-time on internet marketing (that’s about 10 hours a day!), I started to earn a comfortable living.
Good post! Cheers!!
Only 3 years Ian !!! …. I had 5 years of ‘learning experience’ before I started making a regular full time income. Then a good few years of great income, and now I’m semi-retired I make more than my previous full time income…lol
Randy