A week after my mentor at the bookkeeping course had done his best to instill the basics of double-entry bookkeeping into my head, I was introduced to three new mentors who would form the basis of my life for the first year of the next six years of my life. The way things were going to work was that after every week working Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 in my employer’s office in Glasgow, or at a client’s office in Glasgow or elsewhere, I would attend the headquarters of the Scottish Institute of Chartered Accountants for two hours of lectures every Friday evening, followed by three hours every Saturday morning.
It also became the norm for me and most of my office colleagues, to go for a few pints of beer after classes, followed by an Indian meal and occasionally a visit to a local casino. Often I would not get to bed before midnight on a Friday, only to have to get up again at 7 a.m. to get back into Glasgow for the Saturday morning classes
The only year that was different was my second year, which was spent full time at Glasgow University. That was much less frantic than having to work in the office and attend night classes. It was made even better by the fact that the Institute had changed the order of the classes and I attended University with three lads who had started with my employer the year before me. They were all great guys and they all became good friends of mine. We also had access to all of the University’s facilities, including an Olympic-size swimming pool. Swimming was one of the things I had never been able to master. Luckily again, the sports coach happened to be a member of Airdrie golf course, where I was also a member, and he gave me special attention, and by the end of the year, I was able to swim a length and dive off a spring board and touch the bottom at the deep end.
The examination procedure was the same for all five years. Every academic year that ran from September to May, there were always 3 subjects that we were examined on. If we failed any of the exams, we were able to re-sit all three subjects again in August, before the New Year began, even if we had passed one or even two of the subjects in May. If any of the subjects were failed at the August sitting, even if we had passed that particular exam the previous May, then all three subjects had to be studied again, the following academic year, thus extending the length of the whole course by a year.
The first three years passed without much difficulty. Yes, it was hard work, especially in the years before and after the year spent at the university when I studied most evenings as well as working a 9 to 5 job. I was not unduly surprised to learn each May, in a notification sent to the office, that I had passed my exams first time
The awkward gait I had endured since birth, meant that I stumbled frequently during everyday life. However, my first stumble in my academic life came in the 4th year of my accountancy course. There were three subjects I had to pass exams in that year. Consolidated Accounting, Advanced Taxation and Advanced Auditing. At my first attempt, I passed the Accounting and the Taxation exams, but my first ever experience of a failure notification was attached to the result of my Auditing exam result. I was devastated.
Over the summer, I continued to study a very thick, complicated, Auditing book called something like, “The Fundamental Principles of Auditing”. It was full of incomprehensible words, many of which I didn’t understand. Despite my best efforts, the same result ensued after the August re-sit of my three exams. I passed the Accounting exam, I passed the taxation exam, even though the tax laws had changed slightly between the May exam and the August exam, but again I failed Auditing. This meant that if I wanted to continue my ambition of becoming a Chartered Accountant, I would have to repeat a whole year. Assuming I was successful the following summer, this would extend my course from five years to six.
After the first auditing class of my second year of trying, the lecturer approached me, saying that he was surprised to see that I was still in his class. He had expected me to pass without any difficulty. He explained that he had seen my examination papers and noticed that I had not completed the final question in the May exam, and in the re-sit, I had not even started the final question. I replied that answering the questions in the Auditing exam required much more writing than was necessary in either the Accounting or the Taxation exams. My physical disability meant that I couldn’t write as quickly as other people, and this meant that I was not able, in the time allowed, to complete the answers to all of the questions.
My mentor then went on to suggest that I apply to the Institute for extra time to complete my examinations. “No”, I instinctively replied. “I do not want to do that. I have never, in any sphere of life, attempted to benefit from my afflictions, and I did not want to start now.” The tutor replied that he found my reluctance to apply for extra time admirable, and that he would not bring up the subject again for now. He finished the conversation by saying, “Let’s discuss the possibility again nearer the end of this academic year.
The academic year passed all too quickly, and after the final auditing lecture, my tutor again approached me and brought up the subject of asking for extra time again. “No”, I said emphatically. “My conscience will not allow me to ask for additional time.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” the lecturer answered. “However, if the result of this first exam does not go your way, please can we talk again?” He handed me his business card. “If you do fail, please give me a call.”
“Okay,” I said. “If I fail for the third time, I will call you to discuss what I should do next. You’re a fine man and a fine mentor, but the thought of hearing you drone on for an hour a week, for a third year, fills me with dread.”
“Just think how my wife feels,” he said with a laugh. “Now off you go and have a few pints with your mates.”
Two weeks later in the middle of May, as I was just about to start answering the final Auditing question in my exam, a hooter sounded, indicating that the allotted time was over. After that happened, the contents of the envelope I received three weeks later was inevitable. Again it was two passes and one failure.
That evening in the pub with a lot of my colleagues who were now friends, I asked them as a group, what their reaction would be if I asked for, and was allowed more time when I took my Auditing exam for the 4th time the following August.
“Of course you bloody well should,” was the unanimous reply. “You must have realized that all of the auditing questions would need screeds of writing to answer. Why didn’t you ask for it last year?”
I thought for a minute before replying. “Doesn’t anybody think that I’d be cheating?” I asked.
“Don’t be so stupid,” came the reply from everybody.”
“Look,” said David, a friend who had joined me during my first attempt at part 4, after he had spent three years at university, who had qualified that day, after passing his part 5. “Here’s a dry beer mat, with a blank back, and the pub menu which has 7 items on it. I’ve got the same. Now, we’re going to have a race to see who can scribble the pub menu onto the back of their beer mat first. Understand?”
“Not the name of the pub, just the food items?” I asked.
“Correct, the food items and the way they’re cooked, word for word as they appear on the menu,” David replied. “Anna, say One. Two, Three, Go.”
“One, Two, Three, Go,”
I scribbled as fast as I could, but I was amazed, when I was half-way through my fourth menu item, David yelled out “finished” before having a large mouthful of his beer. I looked at his beer mat and could clearly read all 7 items.
“Okay, do you now realize the extent of your disadvantage, Phil,” David continued. “I don’t think that I’m a particularly quick writer, let’s say, I’m average. You’ll probably be given an extra 30 minutes, but, for a 3 hour exam, I’ve just proved that you should be given an extra hour and a half. You can get away with the other exams because there’s a lot of numerical work involved, but with auditing theory, it’s all written. You’ve got no chance. For goodness sake, swallow your pride and ask for the extra time. You’ve wasted one year of your life already, don’t waste another one.”
I drank a huge gulp of beer, before saying, “Thanks David, I’ll get onto it on Monday.” Everybody around the table clapped, and, for the first time in the five years we had known each other, Anna kissed me even though her fiance was looking on.
I called my tutor, or as Affiliate Marketers would say, mentor, the following Monday morning. He seemed to heave a huge sigh of relief when I asked him who I should telephone to ask for more time for the August exam. He had been told of all his students’ results, and had been expecting my call. “Three pieces of advice,” he added after I had noted whom to phone. “One, tell them that you’ve never had time to answer the final question, which, by the way, always carries twenty-five percent of the marks; two, answer question 5 first, and work backwards to question 1; and three, don’t bother with your written notes. Over the next 3 months, just concentrate on reading and re-reading “The Fundamental Principles of Auditing” book.”
But, I don’t understand half the words in that book,” I replied.
“Well buy a bloody dictionary then,” he retorted. “Re-write all sentences you don’t immediately grasp after consulting the dictionary, and paper-clip the piece of paper to the appropriate page, so you can refer to that the subsequent times you read the book.”
“Thanks for that,” I replied, smiling at his use of the word ‘bloody’. “I’ll follow all your instructions. Wish me luck.”
“If you do as I say, you won’t need luck,” my mentor said. just before ringing off.
After making the call and completing a form I was sent, I was granted an extra 30 minutes for all three exams I had to sit in August. I used the last question first technique for all 3 exams, but, especially as there had been no tax law changes that year, I was confident I could leave with the others after completing the Accounting and Tax papers in the standard 3 hours.
When the hooter sounded to signify the normal end of the Auditing exam, I was in the middle of my last paragraph of my question 4, the paper’s question 2. As the others left, I continued writing and I completed that paragraph and all of the relatively easy question 1, my question 5, before I was tapped on the shoulder and asked to stop, half an hour later.
Going into the office knowing that the results would be waiting there, three weeks later, I was reminded how confident I used to feel in similar circumstances during my first 3 years. Yes, I had finally passed the dreaded Auditing exam, and I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about taking a little extra time to do it.
I can’t remember exactly what subjects I was examined on, after my sixth year of studying accountancy. It would have been something like, Accounting Requirements For A Stock-Market listed company, Investment theory and Stock-Market rules, and something else. But there was definitely nothing about Auditing.
About a month before the exams were due to be sat the following spring, I received, without asking, a form to apply for extra time again. I replied in the positive without a second’s hesitation. I used the additional 30 minutes in all three exams to check all my answers, even though I had completed all of the answers in the allotted three hours. On each occasion, when I was tapped on the shoulder at the end of my extra thirty minutes, I was fairly certain that I had done enough to satisfy the examiners.
And so it proved, as three weeks later I found myself grinning at three pieces of paper, each with the word “PASS” stamped on it in green ink. The green color fleetingly took me back to that first day at the bridge building site, when I was wondering why I was wasting my time ticking all those amounts with a green pen. The bridge had been finished and had been in use for a year. “If I had asked for extra time last year, and if I had passed part 5 this year, the bridge and I would have started our real work at the same time. How cool would that have been? I thought to myself.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you were currently thinking, that was interesting, if a bit long-winded, but when is Phil going to tell me how all this relates to my Affiliate Marketing journey. My answer comes in two distinct parts.
Firstly, and probably most importantly, it highlights the importance of having mentors. To become a successful Affiliate Marketer, you will NEED to form a bond with an ethical mentor, who has your best interests at heart. He or she may have subordinate mentors who each have their own unique skills in different areas, that they can pass on to you, but the top mentor must have overall control of the whole mentoring process. In addition, unless you have progressed beyond “The Connector Phase” (refer Chapter 7 of “The Iceberg Effect” book) your mentor MUST be able to provide you with many products and courses for you to promote, offering you reasonable percentage commissions, (at least 50%) throughout the funnels from the front-end offer to the high-ticket items. I had many mentors during my Accounting journey, starting with the retired guy who taught at my introductory bookkeeping class, and ending with the three tutors who taught the three subjects I mastered during my final year. In addition, during workdays, rather than the weekend classes, there was also help available from colleagues who were further along the journey than me. Later, as I progressed along the road, occasionally, I became a mentor to more junior students. This connection I had with more junior students is, I hope, similar to the relationship I have with you, the readers of my blogs.
Secondly, there’s a point I wish to highlight that is more difficult to explain, but let’s try. Despite the difficulties I encountered finishing my 4th year Auditing exam, resulting in three failures and a repeated year, up to then, I had refused the offer of an additional 30 minutes to compensate for my slow writing speed. Finally I was convinced, both by my mentor at the time, and by my peers, that nobody would think badly of me if I accepted the offer. The result of my final decision changed my life forever.
I’ve been trying to think of a similar situation with respect to Affiliate Marketing, and have alighted on my initial response to the gradual introduction of Artificial Intelligence, (A.I.). To begin with, I refused to consider using A.I. in my Affiliate Marketing endeavors. However, as A.I. became more talked about within the Affiliate Marketing community, and my mentor, Dean Holland, getting involved in a brand new A.I.-based funnel building system, I started to dabble in it myself. I certainly have a long way to go, but the picture of the youngsters in the pub shown earlier in this blog post was generated by A.I. (count Anna’s fingers!) However, I can assure you that the image of my Accountancy Certificate is genuine, LOL. Regarding Dean’s A.I.-based funnel building system, I will be one of the few people in the world who, in a few months, will be able to offer it to you at a reasonable price. So please keep your eyes open for that. It will be a fantastic offer.
In the meantime, if you don’t yet have a mentor or you are unhappy with your current mentor, please click the link below and consider the offer made to you at the end.
Cheers
Phil