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The Early Bird Gets The Worm
Von admin | 4.November 2009
The Early Bird Gets The Worm
“The early bird gets the worm” or “The early bird catches the worm” is a famous proverb that was first found in the book, “A Collection of English Proverbs” compiled by John Ray in the year 1605. As in the case of most proverbs, this is metaphorical too. In this proverb, while the literal meaning is only if you get up early will you succeed in your goals, the hidden message is that every creature should be prepared and stay agile and be aware of what is happening around it. Only then will it succeed in achieving its goals.
This proverb cannot be more relevant in the present days where competition is cut throat and everybody is striving to be ahead of each other. If you want to succeed in life on both professional and personal fronts, you will have to be sure of what you need to do, be focused and lay out your goals, long term plans and short term plans. You should be aware of your competitor’s moves and strategies and be proactive enough to respond to them successfully. Being reactive to sudden changes is not enough. Opportunity has a very small window and if you do not act quickly, you will not only lose it but you may also never get a second chance.
For instance, let us take our professional life. Have not been there instances where a good role that has a considerable raise in salary and rank has been passed on to our peer instead of us? While the boss can be prejudiced and judgmental, to some extent, it is our fault too. Perhaps, the peer who was chosen to fill the role had already pre-empted the vacancy and started preparing for it. Perhaps he or she had dropped several hints to the boss and also pitched in his or her suitability for the role. After all, the early bird gets the worm!
There have also been several cases where people have taken a small idea and transformed it into something brilliant. Typical of these innovations is the company 3M which has capitalized onto several marvelous ideas and earned profits by branding it. Here also 3M was an early bird that thought ahead of its competitors and thus reaped results. Brands like Hotmail have also been “early birds” in their industries. Hotmail pre-empted the need for communication and used the Internet technology to its advantage. Today, email is a thriving cash cow.
The significance of this proverb is not limited to professional life. A lot of times when we think about our past, there are some situations where we think, “if only I had…” – these are typical instances where we have not been the early birds. Remember when you always wanted to go out with a particular boy or girl for the prom and somebody else came in asked him or her before you did – all because you took your own sweet time to muster your guts and overcome your shyness. Surely your father would have then said, “Son, the early bird gets the worm”.
In the freelance business it is not different. Only the best one gets the client (well sometimes it is also the cheapest one, but in this case the client is either not experienced and will get low quality work, or is looking for quantity instead of quality).
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