The story of wealth creation is the back-bone of the structures that exist in our society today. At one point in time, we are all at the starting point (like in a marathon race). But when the START gun is activated, we all take off at different speeds, others go very fast at the beginning while others choose to go slow.
There are also others who are too lazy to start and so they start passing blames. So where exactly do you stand? Are you among those who start off so fast only to tire at the 5 Kilometer milestone? Or are you a winner who runs with a strategy in mind? Read this short story of Pablo and Bruno and decide which side you belong.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, two ambitious cousins Pablo and Bruno were neighbours in a small village in Italy. The young men were best of friends and big dreamers.
They would talk endlessly about how someday, they’d become the richest men in the village. Both were bright and extremely hardworking. All they yearned for was an opportunity.
Then one day and opportunity showed up. The village decided to hire two men to carry water from a nearby well to the town square. The job went to Pablo and Bruno.
Each man grabbed two buckets and rushed to the well. By the end of the day, they had filled the cistern in the town square to its capacity. The village treasurer paid them their salary…2 pennies for each bucket of water.
“This is our dream come true!” shouted Bruno. “I can’t believe how lucky we’ve become.”
But Pablo wasn’t so sure. His backed ached and he was extremely tired from carrying the heavy buckets. He did not like the idea of getting up and going to work the next morning. He decided to look for a better way to get the water to the town square from the well.
The next morning before they could pick their buckets and head to work Pablo said, “Bruno, I have a plan”.
“Instead of carrying buckets back and forth for a few pennies per day, let’s build a pipeline from the well to the town square.”
Bruno stopped dead in his tracks: “A pipeline? Who has ever done such a crazy thing?” Bruno shouted. “We have a great job ahead of us. I can carry 100 buckets a day and I make a dollar. I’m rich and satisfied. By the end of the week, I can buy a new pair of shoes. By the end of the month a cow. By the end of six months I’ll buy a new hut. Can’t you see we have the best job in town? We have weekends off and two weeks paid vacation every year. Our life is perfect. Get out of here with your crazy pipeline idea.”
But Pablo was not easily moved. He patiently explained his ideas and plans to his best friend. Pablo decided to work part of the day carrying buckets and part of the day and weekends building his pipeline.
Of course, he knew it would be hard work digging a ditch in the rocky soil. Because he was paid by the number of buckets delivered, he knew his income would drop. He always knew that it would take a long time before his pipeline dream would pay off. But Pablo gathered courage and believed in his dream.
As time went by, Bruno and the rest of the villagers began mocking Pablo. Bruno was earning twice as much as Pablo, he had bought some shoes and a new hut for himself. He even bought a donkey and outfitted it with a new leather saddle. The villagers called him Mr. Bruno and they cheered when he bought rounds at the local pub.
While Bruno took time off on evenings and weekends, Pablo spent his hours out in the cold digging his pipeline. The first 12 months Pablo did not have much to show for his hard work. The job was getting harder and harder because Pablo was working almost twice as much as Bruno.
Pablo kept reminding himself that tomorrow’s dreams are built on today’s sacrifices. So day by day he kept digging, inch by inch. Inches turned to feet and then 100 feet.
“Keep your eyes on the prize,” he kept thinking as he drifted off to sleep with the sounds of laughter coming from the village pub where Bruno was buying more and more rounds for his friends.
Then after about 15 months, he realized that his pipeline was half-way finished, which meant he only had to walk half as far to fill his buckets. He used the extra time to work on his pipeline. He even had an hour long break every day.
Bruno on the other hand was hunched in pain, his steps gradually slowed down. He was angry, sullen and suddenly he seemed to realized that he was doomed to carry buckets for the rest of his life.
Stressed; he began to spend less time at work and more time in the village pub. His friends would giggle when the town drunk mimicked Bruno’s stooped posture. Bruno seemed to have run out of jokes and he couldn’t afford to buy more rounds for the villagers as usual. He preferred to sit alone in a dark corner surrounded by empty bottles.
Finally Pablo’s great moment arrived, his pipeline was complete! The villagers crowded around as the water gushed from the pipeline into the town square cistern. Now that the town had adequate supply of water, people from around the area settled into the village and the village prospered.
Pablo did not have to carry buckets anymore. The water flowed whether he worked or not. It flowed while he slept. It flowed while he played on weekends. The more the water flowed into the village, the more money Pablo made.
You see, Pablo had bigger plans. So he did not stop there, he even went ahead to build pipelines all over the world.
As you would expect, the pipeline left his old friend Bruno jobless. End of story.
Lesson learnt?
We all live in a bucket-carrying world. But who are you? Are you a bucket carrier or a pipeline builder?
Do you get paid only when you work like Bruno? Or do you invest your time and resources wisely and get paid over and over again like Pablo the pipeline builder?
If you are like most people, you are currently using the bucket-carrying plan. You are busy working for hard for someone else who then pays you a small salary.
The problem with the bucket-carrying strategy is that it gets a bit tiring and monotonous with time. And you can easily find yourself jobless anytime – which means the concept of a “secure job” is actually an illusion.
Intelligent, wealthy people are pipeline builders. Make a point of joining them today.
