I bought my son a XBox 360 recently. It wasn't an impluse buy. In fact it was a fantastic deal...we got the whole set, along with 12 original games and a three year warranty to boot! The only snag...it was four months old. But, it looked brand new and it played like a charm! The total cost would have cost me easily SGD$1200...but we paid SGD$650. We are all thrilled and save a heck of a lot of money along the way...how did we do it?
Persistence...You must Never Give Up!!
Both my son and I applied the principle and got a fantastic deal out of it. Let me explain.
It took him 1 year to get his Xbox. I had resisted it at first as I felt that it would distract him from his schoolwork. He was disappointed, but he had persistence. He started to NAG me...daddy this, look daddy that, daddy wouldn't it be nice if YOU played this shooting game...
Then he was always on the lookout for demo sets at the malls and often dragged me into the game to play with him. He engaged me with the sales people and he asked about prices...but I said no way! Next he spoke to his grandparents about the game and his mother, then he asked what would he have to do to to "earn" a set, then he planned small chores to do to get some money, next he saved the monetary gifts he got, then he counted his savings with me to see how it grew...I said no. The money will go into his bank account. But the kid - Never Gave Up!
Our neighbour got a Nintendo Wii...he was there playing and got us interested in the interaction as well. Then the neighbours got into the act..."Oh, it's quite a family game...lots of fun...blah, blah" I then said maybe...at that moment, I knew my son had succeeded and quite the same time, he stopped nagging. He somehow knew my "maybe" was already a yes. During the course of the year, I kept rationalising "maybe" he deserved an Xbox. So I started to search and ask around for one. Being a frugal guy meant that I did not intend to get one without a massive discount and to get the BEST deal, so I went to work sourcing out deals, asking friends and all sources just to find the best deal. After exhausting all that I could find, one came up with the deal that I could not say no to...the total package was at 50% off!!! Obviously, we bought it...
Now, what basics did I learn?
Persistence is the vital key which can get you the breakthroughs that you need. it does not mean for you to keep at it every minute of the day, it just mean that you...Never Give Up! It may take a while, like in the case of my son, it took him a year, my case it took me 5 months to search...but we got it eventually.
It's the same with our dreams...it may take longer, but we will reach it as long as we don't give up.
with gratitude,
bruce
PS. I found out playing the Xbox is super addictive...so my advice, keep the controllers or power adapter away and restrict play to once a month or two. It's a great treat to reward my son for doing a good job!
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