An Aggressively Boring Inquiry Into Copper Mining
Three monkeys were hanging out in the jungle one day when their conversation, as it often did, turned to the topic of becoming global industry tycoons. These monkeys were obsessed with becoming tycoons. They talked about it constantly.
Today, the monkeys were trying to figure out if any one of them had what it took to become the largest owner/operator of copper mines in the entire world.
It was a very heated argument.
“Really?” The first monkey started, “You don’t believe that my technical knowledge of copper ore extraction makes me infinitely better suited to becoming a tycoon in this field? I know every step of the mining process like the back of my hand!”
“No, I don’t believe that,” the second monkey shot back, “Because what you fail to recognize is that inherent talent in a field does not necessarily correlate to commercial success. Becoming a tycoon requires skills beyond technical knowledge!”
The third monkey, Tyler, sat quietly listening to this heated back and forth. Today, Tyler decided not to jump in immediately because quite frankly the topic of copper mining bored him to tears. He felt like the other two monkeys had their sides well represented and were too dug into their positions to change. So he listened quietly as the two windbags continued arguing with each other:
“You don’t even know the first step of extraction mining! How will you even establish one mine, let alone enough mines to become a worldwide tycoon?”
“Because I'm a wunderkind when it comes to resource allocation and operations management, you dolt!”
“That's not enough to make you a global tycoon, you putz!”
The third monkey’s secret was that he did believe he was best suited to becoming a tycoon in copper mining. He just had to let the other two monkeys argue to the point of exhaustion before he found the perfect time to make his own killer point on the subject.
Unfortunately for the third monkey, the perfect time to strike did not come for several hours. In fact, he had actually taken a nap for a bit, and when he woke up the other two were still arguing with each other.
But finally, several hours after that, the two monkeys seemed to be losing steam and the third monkey decided to strike...
“Well, frankly, I believe both of you would suck at this and I would actually be the best.”
“Oh, really...” the first monkey snickered.
“Yeah, that seems far-fetched! Tell us why?” The second monkey chided.
“Well,” Tyler answered, “Its because I am very attractive...”
The first monkey and the second monkey hated this answer. They hated it because he was right.
“And this whole discussion has been boring as sin...”
The first monkey and the second monkey shook their heads because they knew exactly where this was going.
“All I would have to do, to become the largest owner of copper mines in the world, is to charm an investor by not talking about copper mining for several hours. They'd give me the money, I'd hire you two nerds and then I’d sit back and watch you make me a fortune."
The other two monkeys reluctantly agreed. Tyler had won this discussion. The monkeys then took naps for the afternoon, agreeing to never discuss anything as boring as copper mining for this long ever again.