Last week I had our plumber come to the farm to quote on and book some new work connecting five cattle troughs up to tank water. We have recently added three tanks that can collect and hold 120,000 litres of rainwater.
Currently half our paddocks are serviced by dam water and the other half are serviced by fluoridated town water, and as far as I can see, the cattle really do not have a preference for drinking the fluoridated town water.
Anyway, at the same moment that the plumber arrived, his phone rang, and he said, as he was about to take the call:
“Excuse me one moment. This isn’t going to be a pleasant call to take”
I overheard the plumber’s side of the conversation, and it certainly sounded as though the call was about some bad news.
When the plumber got off the phone, he told me the call was about a friend of his, who was gravely ill.
The plumber said this:
“The guy is 74 and he’s never ever been to the doctor in his life. However, he wasn’t feeling well, so he went off to a doctor, and the doctor sent him to the hospital for some tests. Anyhow, it seems he has a blood disorder and he’s not going to be able to leave the hospital. It’s fatal, and he will be dead tomorrow.”
Sadly, this was shocking news for the plumber, his friend, and the friend’s family and friends.
And I discussed with the plumber, that his friend’s choosing not to ever visit a doctor for anything, had probably prevented an early detection of his condition. And because of this, had there been an early intervention, and subsequent attempt to cure, this friend’s life might possibly have been saved ….
Sadly, the friend’s inaction could well have contributed to the fact that he [the friend] was now only going to be leaving the hospital in a body bag.
In dentistry…
Not so severe, but still as important… years ago, a new patient came to me proud of the fact that he had saved a copy of a newspaper advertisement that my practice had run. He’d had it for a while, and he had saved it for the day that he felt when he was going to need a dentist.
In fact, this new patient had clipped the advertisement from the newspaper and stored it inside the cover of the street directory that he kept in the glovebox of his car.
Sadly for this guy, when he finally got around to thinking that it was time for me to look at his dental issue, the issue that was bothering him was a periodontally involved lower incisor that had zero bony attachment and only minimal fibrous attachment to the festering abscess that had engulfed the root of this tooth.
The tooth was beyond saving.
It was swinging in the breeze…
And as I said to the new patient:
“If you’d have come in to see me when you first saved that advertisement, I’d have probably had a good chance of saving this tooth. Sadly now [some ten years later] the damage to the bone is irreversible, and the tooth cannot be saved.”
This guy’s avoidance of the dentist had been “terminal” for his lower incisor.
And as you can guess, there were other serious issues going on inside this guy’s mouth that an earlier visit to the dentist might well have prevented.
As they say in the classics:
“There’s never ‘only one cockroach’.”
Why is it the same in business?
Why do business owner’s stumble on blindly from mistake to mistake without seeking help from advisors who have the ability to help them?
Why do business owner’s try to figure out the problems of business on their own, when reputable advice is available to help them achieve business success sooner, and without making costly mistakes and errors?
It’s exactly the same story as the dental patient, and the plumber’s friend…. these two guys didn’t believe they were doing anything wrong by avoiding getting professional help.
Yet seeking that professional help way sooner would have saved one of their lives, and certainly would have saved the other a front tooth.
Would seeking professional business advice help a business achieve its goals sooner?
And achieve more, as a result of avoiding the time wasted by continually using a trial and error approach, and not getting professional advice?
Of course it will…
Sadly, sometimes, it’s hard to fix stupid.
As Will Rogers said:
“Common sense ain’t common”
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