Thanks Mr. Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters, and honored guests. Today, I’m going to tell you a story. As I tell you the story, think about it. Why I tell you the story.
Richard and Mary are neighbors. Every morning, a newspaper boy delivers newspapers to Mary’s house. Every morning, Mary has to read newspapers. Mary is DYING to read newspapers. She cannot skip reading newspapers.
One day, Mary went out to pick up the newspaper. But the newspaper was not on the ground, the lovely blue bag was NOT on the ground!!! Where is it? Where is it? Mary looked around… huh…. Richard… Richard was sitting on a couch in his yard reading a newspaper. It was exactly the same newspaper Mary was subscribed to. But he NEVER sits on that couch, and he NEVER reads newspapers…. Mary was furious. It must be Richard who took my newspaper. He is a thief!!!! But will Mary go to Richard and ask for the newspaper. No, Richard must deny it. He must say it’s all the newspaper boy’s fault.
But will Mary just stop here. NO. Richard needed to pay the price for being a thief. Because Mary was a real good web designer. She immediately went back to her house, spent 10 bucks to register a domain called www.newspaperthief.com. Spent 10 minutes to set up a website. It has Richard’s name, home address, weight, height…. all kinds of information about him. and he is a NEWSPAPER THIEF!!!! Mary wants everyone in the world to know, Richard is a thief.
But did Richard know that his name was on the internet? Did Richard know he’s a newspaperthief? No, he didn’t do a thing. He just sat in the coach reading newspapers.
Richard’s other neighbor, Scott, was in bad shape, he desperately needed to sell his house. He was a motivated seller. Fortunately, he found a buyer, Alice. They were already in contract stage. Alice had checked the house, it was good. Now just waiting for Alice to sign the contract. On that day, Alice decided to do a check on the neighbors, so she typed in the address on google. Because Mary just put up the website out there, it was one the the top few items returned by google. Alice looked at the address, it was the exactly next door. She clicked the website, and found everything about Richard. And he was a newspaper THIEF! OMG, Alice was going to have a thief neighbor! No way, Alice immediately tore down the contract, and cancelled the purchase. So what happened? Alice lost a great deal, Scott was even more desperate to sell his house, Richard lost a nice neighbor. And he didn’t even know ANY of those!
In the afternoon, Mary went out to the front yard again, and this time she noticed something, She saw a tip of a blue bag in the garden. oops, that’s a newspaper. Richard was not a thief. Mary was wrong. But Mary thought, I just spent 10 bucks on the website, let’s just put it up for a while. It doesn’t hurt… So the website still lives on.
After a couple of days, Richard was doing a multi-million dollar business deal with his first time partner, Bob. Because a lot of money was involved, Bob decided to do a background check. So he put Richard’s name in google. What did he get? It’s newspaperthief.com. Bob was stunned. He never expected Richard to be a thief. But Bob will never do a deal with anyone without integrity. Bob backed out from the deal, and Richard lost millions.
All those things happened behind the scene. Did Richard know any of these? No, he didn’t know. he didn’t do anything. He just sat in his coach reading newspapers.
Do you get anything from this story? Do you get why I tell you this story? Think about it. There are always different kinds people spreading different kinds of information in the internet. You can’t believe them all. Use your due diligence. Remember, whatever you are looking for, you will find it. It is very true both on internet, and in the real world.
Time: 06’07”