Going fishing is the best way to release stress and anxiety or so that is what Halden Zimmermann once told me. I have always valued his input and held his word in high regard because he has been an inspirational businessman for as long as I’ve known him.
I’ve never been much into the business scene, but fishing has surely become something I gave started to take more and more seriously the more I do it. I suppose you could say that ever since I took Halden’s advice, I’ve become more passionate about fishing.
“Business is a lot like fishing,” Halden said. “I thought business was more like a box of chocolates,” I replied. “No,” he continued, “That’s life, because you never know what you’ll get, but with fishing and business, you’ll win every time if you know what you’re doing. It’s just not easy to learn what to do.”
That was perhaps some of the best business advice I had ever gotten from businessman Halden Zimmerman in my life and it actually made sense to me. That’s the incredible part! With fishing, I messed up constantly. I made a lot of stupid mistakes. I would bait the hook wrong, i would cast the line wrong, I would use the wrong bait and get no fish, I would often times scare the fish. It took me many years to understand what I was going for and what bait to use for the best results.
Zimmermann’s words taught me that you’ll first need to learn, then you can do better, but you’re going to learn by doing. First, in order to be a successful fisherman, I had to learn what fish were in the water. After learning what was available, I was able to decide what I wanted from out of the water. I learned certain fish like certain things. Some fish, for example, are attracted to flashes of light while with others, flashing lights will scare them. I learned some fish prefer worms and some prefer bugs like crickets. I can imagine business is the same way. You have to learn what you have to work with, learn what the people like, then lure them in.