A divorce in a family owned business is normally extremely costly and devastating to all and this teaching could help avoid this costly mistake.  By Gary Shotton #000177

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No Fishing Allowed

By Gary Shotton

Hello, my name is Gary Shotton and I’m here to talk about Inspiring Better Business and today we’re going to talk about no fishing allowed but I’m going to talk about a subject that’s really dear to me because of all the heartache and failure that it has had for businesses when a marriage goes into difficulty, and if there’s a divorce or a close relationship goes into difficulty and there’s problems at home there’s problems in those relationships. I’m telling you that affects the entire company a divorce can be the most expensive thing that could have happened to any company, they could cause the company to be divided, be sold or change directions. I’m not here to talk and give you a marriage counseling I’m talking about how a problem of that nature that how devastating it is to your business and so if you can avoid that or avert that or if this helps in that regard I’m thinking this is going to inspire better business now, first of all anything I talk about is not going to be gender specific I’m not saying the men are always at fault or the women are always at fault no way this is a universally true gender non gender-specific each genders have to be on guard for this and I’m going to give some tips about it, I’m going to tell some stories I’m going to relate some things that happen in my life I’m going to give a historical so a thing that happened some 4,000 years ago that’s well documented well it’s not culture specific either I’m telling you that some cultures around the world have a different standard maybe than we have or maybe than another culture they’re saying well that’s universally acceptable everybody has a mistress everybody has a side a partner. You know I’m just still a belief maybe I’m square maybe I’m old maybe I don’t understand your perspective but I will tell you that will affect in my opinion the future success and the prosperity of your business maybe not at first maybe after a while it will show up maybe you can cover that up, I have friends that have covered it up for years one in particular covered it up for 25 years and when it came out it was devastating it caused devastation to everyone that he had relationship with and his obviously his spouse, it was a man in this case he was at fault he’s open about his fault but he has turned his life around there’s hope well here’s how it works to you ,I’m using the term no fishing allowed, what happens in the workplace is there usually someone is out fishing what do you mean?

Well, I went with a friend.   I’m not a great fisherman but he had his high powered 250 horsepower boat.   We are fishing and we had goggles to cover our eyes because when you are going 45 to 50 miles an hour with no windshield, the wind is hard on your eyes, and you better have goggles. We would jet it was in a tournament and we jet to one part of the lake and then we throw out our line and we’d wait just a little bit we’re waiting for a nibble we’re waiting for a bite we’re waiting for something to indicate on that bobber there’s some fish in here and they would nibble and then after a while maybe there is nothing it so he’d say hey there’s nothing here let’s go to another, and we get on this boat and we’d put the goggles on again I’m thinking this is crazy if we had something we’re all going to be dead well we didn’t hit anything we came to a new spot we threw the line out again and we watched for little nibbles.

Guess while there’s somebody especially as you become more successful especially this is gender not men or women I’ll give examples that in a minute, that when there’s women that can portray themselves as I’m available there’s a little nibble, there’s a little nudge and there’s a little touch of the hand, in my case I was within a meeting and there’s an individual and never named their name spend more than 25 years ago and is a greeting and was just say hello well I can do a  sister hug? a sister hug to me is when you grab shoulders and you hug from the side not full frontal hug tight, and if that’s kind of forced on me I’ve usually put me by my shoulders in like this my elbows in so I can still hug but I’m holding this away from me, well this person was nibbling there’s no question full-frontal right up rub it around them I’m telling you I didn’t ask for that, that was a nibble. Another case when someone hands me a note it was somebody working for me wanted to meet me, wanted to meet in a private place it wasn’t it, a hotel room it was just I wanted to talk privately that’s a nibble they’re wanting to see hey am I interested to take this another step I’m not blaming the women so let’s not let’s talk about the men there’s men that will just throw out a nibble, throw out a compliment, throw out a suggestion, throw out a touch on the hand a rub on the back, Ooh your back’s hurting let me rub it for you those are nibbles and I’m telling you this is where it all starts you follow that nibble and you bite and take the bait you’re only going to cause yourself heartache at the end well you heard my stories there’s more stories by many people I know it to be true I was it just in case you’re wanting, I’ve been faithful to not accept those nibbles but I will tell you I thought about it so anybody tells me that they’re not thinking about it’s probably lying. now old history story of nation of Israel King David now King David became King because he first fought as young boy David and Goliath he killed and he got part of the reign of the kingdom and he became second-in-command got the  current king’s daughter in marriage and so he’s now king and at that time the Kings were more than just King they were also the judges now as time went on he was getting older and he got older and he sent his men out to battle and he didn’t go out and he was home I probably bored (I’m going to name two things that will be most conducive for someone to slip) but he was probably bored and it was in the middle of the night and he saw out I don’t know in the shadow of moonlight or something he saw a woman and that woman was bathing and he saw her probably in the nude and he said I want that woman, well a long story short he got that woman and that woman happened to be the wife of one of his friends that’s horrible and that wife happened to become pregnant and as that time went on he tried to figure out a way so that he could make it look like he was innocent, when that didn’t work he actually sent instructions because this man that husband of the woman was in battle and he was loyal and faithful and he went out to battle and he was set up so that he got killed intentionally on the battlefield because of King David and King David had a friend named Nathan and Nathan knew he was his best friend and he had to approach the king in a way that wouldn’t make the King mad and possibly hurt him to be honest with you and so he told this story , his story about a man that had a small lamb or small sheep and it was part of their family this is 4000 years ago and apparently this lamb was a part of the family almost like a pet was in the house or was with them and then there was another owner of sheep that had hundreds lots and lots of sheep and as Nathan told this story to King David he said you know in comes a guest from a far and there was a need for someone to kill a lamb to feed this guest and you know what they took the lamb the King took the lamb for the one guy that had just one little lamb and killed it to eat and the King David says hey what is your judgment, what would you say we should do to this person that did such a thing and he said he ought to be killed that’s horrible you would never do that and Nathan said to David that’s you took this man’s wife you had your pick you didn’t have to do that and so he was pointing out the fallacy that David had and from that point on I have a Nathan in my life I have someone that I’ve asked to say listen I want you to be accountable to you and this person says they want me to be accountable to them in the sense that we’re going to hold each other accountable and you’ll know that you’ve done a good thing somebody that you can be truthful to now I wouldn’t be helping you if I didn’t give you a couple strong suggestions the place that you’re most vulnerable on this subject is when you’re overly tired or you’re bored watch those times when you get bored you need to get busy doing something productive and the opposite of that is when you get too busy or you’re just running with such a little small amount of sleep that you become overly tired well I want you to be successful but success isn’t to get all the way almost to the finish line and then in divorce or separation when that happens normally half of the Empire goes to the spouse on either side of this so hope this helps we want to inspire better business as may not be the happiest message but it’s one this could save your life could save your future could save your business thank you.