Advice from my Mentor: Find Five!

Nobody would ever call me a numbers person. My antipathy for math, bookkeeping and the like was established long ago. Nevertheless, the number five is a recurring digit in my life. I’m one of five children, have five major profit centers, and many things in my life run in five year cycles. The number five has been on my mind more than usual since May is the fifth month and in a few days my granddaughter Zoe will turn five. 

So throughout this month, I’m going to be writing about five ways to build your entrepreneurial spirit, expand your business and discover new things. To begin this project, I’m sharing some thoughts on Finding Five written by my mentor Bob Conklin.

I first read this years ago and it became a guideline for every project I’ve tackled. I go back to this original piece over and over. I urge you to think about how you can put it to work in your joyfully jobless life.

I would like to share a method which I have observed to be incredibly effective for becoming wealthy, achieving great purposes or making your life count in service to others.

It works with such absolute certainty that, if understood and practiced with tireless consistency, success in any worthwhile endeavor can be guaranteed. It is so simple (all great ideas are!) that you can put it to work immediately with only the information I am about to give you. Like most profound truths, you already know it, have seen its dramatic impacts and may have already experienced the immense possibilities of the principle.

The formula consists of only two words: “Find Five!”

If you would launch a new business, sell products, expand a noble purpose, achieve financial independence, found a religion or change an institution, then first, “Find Five!” Find five people who are dedicated to the same objectives as you. Then give them all you have of your time, effort, talents and knowledge. You have succeeded the moment you become committed to that principle.

As I look back on my life I realize that any achievements in which I have been involved are little more than demonstrations of “finding five.” When I suggest “finding five” I do not intend that as an act. It is a process. For the five selected must be endowed with the same dream and desire of putting the formula to work in their own lives. They will be “finding five” who will, in turn, “find five.” That devotion to a single purpose will cause the unending chain of human effort that can grow to staggering proportions.

Commit yourself to the daily goal of practicing and teaching “finding five.” You will experience a dimension of success that is best expressed by all those whose lives are demonstrations of the “find five” principle. They invariably look back and proclaim, “I didn’t think big enough.”