Farmers & Hunters


Once upon a time there was a farmer called Bob, he lived at the foot of the mountain. He grows vegetables and potatoes for a living.

He was living in a great geographical area, where the natural fertilizers were able to aid the growth of his plantation.

He had a good tractor, and all the tools needed for farming. And most of all, he had his father John, who was there to teach him the art of farming since young.

There were many farmers in the same village, and many of them sought advise from John when at times they felt that the crops were not harvesting as what they expected. john was a friendly old man, whom was always willing to share.

However Bob on the other hand, despite having all the tools and advise he had from John, was not harvesting as much vegetables as compared to the other farmers. There were many farmers who were younger and less experienced than Bob, however they were able to yield better results as compared to himself.


Day by day...and slowly years went by..Bob's harvest was still the same in terms of quality or quantity, he looked at other farmers who had much more vegetables at the end of each season. He was unhappy, but he did not do anything to change the situation.

All the farmers had the same advisor, but yet not all of them had the same amount of harvest. Some had alot, some had lesser, while Bob had the least.
Considering the number of years Bob has been farming, he should be able to yield better result as compared to his peers.


What went wrong that resulted in Bob having poor harvest season after season, and leading a unhappy life?



The answer was simple:

How much effort Bob puts in is in relation to the results he gets.

Bob had all the things he need for farming, a good location, good advisor(his father), good tools , and a good house to hold his harvest. He would never run out of space for his vegetables if there were too much.


Despite all these, he never once made real effort to try his hand at farming.

Although he had a huge piece of land outside his house to practise his farming skills, he choose to go to the ranch to feed horses, or run down to the river and go fishing. He did lots of activities in the mountains, but not farming, which he should be doing.

Although farming wasn't his 1st passion, he had to do it because it was the family's business. He was up keeping it all these years just because his father was a farmer previously.

One day, he had to leave the mountains to bring in more business from outside. He knew that he did not have to do farming anymore.

He felt relieved. Then he realised that all these years he was doing something he had no interest in.

He think back on the days he started learning farming..and realised that he stopped learning after he knew e basics of farming(eg. planting seeds, and watering the crops). And since then he had been stagnant on his skills as he did not improve.

Other farmers overtook him because they continued with their learning from John, they practise the farming skills daily and improved over the years to have better results. While for Bob, he choose to not do anything to improve, he choose not to put in effort.

In short, he chose to fail himself, and his father who painstakingly taught him from young.


Bob proceed to the other village to start a new life, and he had to opportunity to pick up a new skill: Hunting. Something that was at the back of his mind but he did not try.

He decided to start afresh by learning from scratch, learning how to hold the rifle, how to position himself, and how to aim.

He started off hunting little animals for a start, like rodents or squirrels.

He put in effort to learn the art of hunting, and was happy with getting a small animal time after time, sometimes it will be bigger, sometimes its smaller, but he never fail to hunt down a small animal after each session.

That itself was a small accomplishment to Bob, he knew that starting out with the correct skills and technique was vital. He wanted to learn the correct technique in the beginning than to struggle later on with the big animals.

Slowly he realised he loves to hunt.

Day after day..he horned his skills out in the jungle, he hunted for little rodents and rabbits still. He believed if he's unable to hunt the small animals, how is he able to hunt down bigger ones like tigers and elephants?

He slowly realised that if he put in more effort in his skills, he slowly was able to aim more accurately, and he'd have more confident when firing shots at his target.


He hopes to eventually be able to hunt down tigers in the future with his continued effort.

He realised that it wasn't that he was stupid in the past, it was because he was doing something he had no passion for.

For something he had no passion, he did not put in effort. And without effort, there will be no results. With no results, Bob was a sad farmer all his life.

In the past, he did not understand why..he thought that he really was a failure, but yet he could no do anything about it when all the other farmers were better than him. He carried on with life, trying to avoid facing his own feelings.
Not once did he stop to think of how to salvage the situation.

The turning point came when he left his mountain to lead a new life ..he realized he was able to achieve results if he really sets his mind in doing something.

He derives his own theory:

Passion + Hard Work = Results + Happy person.


That might not always be true.

You might not get results if you work hard, but if you do not work hard, you will never get results. 

Bob