I should start this article apologising to my close friends and family because I have been clearly told that my super power is not really that super… not when it comes to them that is, they find it a little annoying.
You may recall in a previous article I said that my super power was that I always seem to end up in earshot of interesting conversations.
I always manage to hear people talking about stuff which makes great content for emails and articles, this weekend it happened again.
But before I share with you what I overheard, I was reminded of the fact that for something specific to happen, something else has to stop.
When one thing starts, another ceases, such as when you go forward, you cease to go backwards.
When you go up, you cease to go down.
When you start to warm up, you stop being cold.
When you eat food, you stop feeling hungry.
In other words, when I start to tune into someone else’s conversation, I tune out of those who are talking to me.
And for that… I am sorry.
But in my defence, I have to say… some people talk so loudly you cannot help but tune into what they are saying… plus, more often than not, their conversations are more interesting… I know I shouldn’t say that… please keep that between us.
Okay, so this weekend I overheard a conversation between two women discussing how the father of one of the women was now selling off his vast record collection as her parents are in the process of moving house.
Apparently there are a few rarities in his collection which were worth quite a bit of money.
A decision was made to pull out those to sell later and then sell the rest as a job lot to a record seller.
The woman’s mother spent several hours updating the price sheet to find which records were worth keeping. I believe that she did it because the father had been poorly and wasn’t currently up to it. I remember long covid was mentioned.
Several years ago her father would categories every record he bought, and would religiously update the value sheets whenever a new copy of the Record Collector book came out.
Record Collector is a pricing guide for sellers and collectors of vinyl. Basically it would state how much certain records are worth and what people should sell them for.
Apparently he would spend hours updating the sheets.
After the woman’s mother had updated the sheets, the father was given the job to go through his collection and pull out those valuable records… except he didn’t.
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He decided to pull out the ones he thought he might like to keep, to the dismay of his wife and daughter.
Either old age, ill health or both had caused him to be disinterested in trying to get as much money back from his record collection as possible.
I heard that he had originally expected a record collector to come and take them all and pay the prices that he had on his sheets.
He believed that someone would come and pay him several thousand pounds and take the whole collection away for him on the same day.
But when he was told that it was highly unlikely that it would happen like that, and that he would probably have to either sell them all off cheap – a record seller needs to make a profit so it’s unlikely they will pay top price – or sell them individually to get the better prices, he might have become disheartened and despondent.
Whatever happened, he seemed to have given up expecting money for them and was now happy to get rid of them in bulk for pennies – or simply accepting that he had no other option unless he wanted to do a lot of work.
Okay, so you might be wondering why I am sharing this story with you. Believe it or not, there is an important lesson here.
The father spent a lot of his time categorising his collection and updating the value of the records… for no good reason.
It was a waste of his time… a completely pointless exercise.
Yes, it was his time to waste, and maybe he enjoyed doing it at the time, and maybe he had every intention of selling them later, but I fear that he did it for no other reason than what most collectors do… he collated all of the information and values for bragging rights.
“Oh, yes, I have a first edition 1961 Beatles album. It’s worth £XYZ you know!”
If you are one of those people who do that and you enjoy doing it, fine, but it has achieved diddly squat for this gentleman.
Had he been actively buying and selling records then it makes sense to keep on top of values, but he wasn’t. Maybe he was hoping that it would be some kind of pension for later or perhaps a valuable inheritance for his family.
Collectables are only valuable when there are people who want them and are incredibly rare. Something that was worth £1,000 in 2000 may only be worth £100 today.
People who want to buy records from a certain era are slowly and sadly dying out. Trends are changing and values of certain records are dropping because there is no demand for them.
I was reminded of this a while back as I passed a record shop. Once found on every high street across the land, record shops are now rare and are for dedicated vinyl lovers and collectors.
In the window of this record shop was a sign saying that they were looking to buy records from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s…
BUT…
They didn’t want anything beyond the 1970s, they wouldn’t buy old 78s, and they didn’t want any marching band records because they simply couldn’t sell them.
The record shop owner knew that there was very little interest in those styles of music and records.
Trends change. Values change. Demand changes.
So what’s the lesson here…
If you are going to spend time doing something, it has to be worth it. And yes, I do class enjoyment in that.
But if you are doing something that you are not particularly enjoying but you are doing it for a specific reason, you need to make sure that the reason is actually worth it to you.
Spending days categorising record prices when you have no intention of selling them when they are at their most valuable just to simply have a ‘list’ of their values… is a waste of your time.
People do this in many different aspects of their lives.
Before starting something you have to know and understand the reason why you are doing it. There is a payoff and the payoff has to be worth it.
Some payoffs are far better than others.
Unfortunately time is short, we don’t live forever and so to spend time doing stuff that you do not enjoy for no useful reason is a waste of your precious time… time you cannot get back.
Reading a zombie fiction book for enjoyment is great if you love reading zombie fiction, but reading a book to learn how to play the piano when you have no intention of playing the piano is a complete waste of your time.
Ex England and Liverpool striker, Michael Owen, was once asked why he only played the sports he was good at; his answer was… because he was good at them.
He enjoyed competing and he enjoyed winning; that was his payoff.
He would not spend his time doing sports that he was no good at. He’d rather spend his time on the things he actually enjoyed and could do.
Instead of playing rugby, he would play football, instead of playing tennis, he would play golf.
The lesson is to choose what you do wisely. Think about the payoff.
Now, as far as payoffs go, making more money by doing less is one of the best, especially when you have other things to enjoy in life.
Spending time with family on a weekday is far more enjoyable than being at work.
Being with friends enjoying a beer or a coffee is a far better payoff than being at a place of work with people you wouldn’t normally choose to spend time with.
System 903 has a good payoff as it gives you the opportunity to make around £903 a week TAX FREE money doing a few hours work using an easy to follow system.
Roy, the man who developed System 903, made £47,000 in one year using it… that’s one seriously good payoff.
You can do this from the comfort of your own home and you can do it on your smartphone.
To discover how you too could make £47,000 in one year using Roy’s system, click the link below:
System 903
Kind Regards
John Harrison
PS… Please note; there are only 250 copies of System 903 available and numbers are dwindling. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. No more will be printed after the last one has been sold.
Here’s that link again: