The next day, the owners of the ship got a bill of ten thousand dollars from the old man. “What!”' the owners screamed and responded “You hardly did anything. Can you kindly send us an itemized bill of what you did?” And here is the reply they got: for tapping with a hammer is $2 and for knowing where to tap, which came from over three decades experience is $9,998. The total is $10, 000.

This may sound absurd, but there is a life lesson to learn from the short story.

When it comes to whatever you are doing as an entrepreneur, experience is not important but necessary. Without the right experience, resources, time and energy will be wasted. It is rather unfortunate that most entrepreneurs see experience as a waste of time. They want everything to happen very fast. And when the magic is taking eternity; they become impatient and quickly move to something else. You need to understand this; experience isn’t a waste of your precious time, resources and effort; it is necessary for you to build an organization with a strong system; it is the foundation of your business. Those days, weeks, months, years, when it seemed as if nothing is happening, you are building the necessary experience of how to successful build a formidable business.

Secondly, you need to understand that it is experience that will give birth to productivity. In the story told, the old man had labored several hours, weeks, months and years fixing ships until he became very good at it. And that makes it very easy for him to be productive without re-inventing the wheel. He simply leveraged on his years of experience of fixing different types of ships. And that eventually paid off. When you are starting a business, you are new in that industry. The disappointments, mistakes and failures are adding to becoming the needed experience in the industry and the business terrain. Breakthrough is not an overnight stuff, it will come as a result of your consistency and persistency. The successful entrepreneurs you look up to also go through these terrible moments of understand their businesses, the industries and the business terrain. So, you are not alone in that low moments.

Finally note this: it is your experience that will give birth to efficiency and productivity and then the expected breakthrough. If you want to be productive, get the right experience. If you want to be successful in your business, get the necessary experience. Keep grinding, evaluating your actions and results, and then readjusting your sail. For some entrepreneurs to be successful, they may need to become an apprentice under successful business owners. For some it is to be employees in organizations before starting their own businesses. For some, it is one-on-one mentorship and some will need to learn on the game. There is no basic rule to getting the right experience; your gut will tell you what exactly you need to do and the breakthrough will be inevitable.