Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
Focus, Objectives and Strategies.
I don't think there is anything that improves the chance of success in anything more than a good clear specific statement of the objective. I used to teach that a lot when I did consulting for fortune 100 companies and government agencies. It is very obvious that you need to know exactly what you want to accomplish, yet most people don't see the need to develop a good clear specific statement of the objective. I'm not just talking about having a a general idea of what you would like to happen or what you would like to accomplish. There is a great benefit in thinking it out completely and being able to specify the goal in very specific terms along with some kind of quantitative measure of success.
It is perfectly OK to just go out and bop around and see what pops up, if that is what you want to do, but if there is something you really want to accomplish then you need to be clear about exactly what that is. If, for example, you really want to find a Spanish shipwreck coin, then set that as a goal, and make decisions based upon that goal. If you want to find a big glitzy diamond ring or a lot of glitzy rings, that is an entirely a different matter, and you might want to choose a different type of detector and visit a different set of sites.
If you watch what people do over any length of time, you can often tell that they don't have a very well defined goal. They don't have focus. They jump around from one thing to another and seldom make any real progress. That is what I see on the Oak Island TV show.
One of the things that drives me crazy when I watch that show in particular is the apparent lack of focus, goals and strategy. They only go far enough in any one direction to come up with new questions. That might be OK for keeping a TV show going, if that is their primary goal, but it is not the most efficient way to accomplish a serious goal of any type. At different times they express different goals, and that is one reason the search appears to be such an unfocused hodge podge of unanswered questions and dead ends. I'm sure the goals of the TV production company adds to the apparent disorganization. They want to keep the excitement level up. and to do that they encourage wild unwarranted assertions that do little but keep the viewer watching. It doesn't bother them when someone picks up a find and excitedly exclaims that it is a gold coin even when it is a plated button.
Whatever happened to the shipwreck spike and plank found in the swamp? Not important?
Exploring the TV side of things for a minute, they have to keep it interesting while the big longer term projects plod along.. They have to find something to get excited about every once in a while. An endless series of frustrated attempts and questions without answers would be too much for most TV viewers, so the production company has found a savior in metal detecting, which, while not recovering anything near the magnitude of the Holy Grail or treasure chests overflowing with gold, at least it provides something to entertain the viewers, even if it is nothing more than broken toy guns, chunks of iron, spikes without ships, with some old coins and buttons thrown in, all of which is standard detecting fare for any location with history that has not been cleaned out by detector wielding hoards.
What does all the metal detected surface trash and treasure have to do with the money pit or answering the big questions? Very little. Maybe there might be some clue discovered that actually answers an important question, but most of the metal detected finds are little more than momentary diversion to keep viewers entertained while the big finds remain elusive. It has little to do with what I would suspect is the major objective.
How does that relate to you? First, if you want to accomplish something, it helps to be very clear about exactly what that you want to accomplish. Secondly, it helps to have a quantitative measurable way to evaluate your progress.
When I started metal detecting, I wanted to find a lot of coins. I kept records of each hunt. I could tell how I was doing and if I was improving. Then I started keeping track of the value of the coins I found. That is slightly different than finding a lot of coins. Later my goal was to find a lot of gold items. Then high value gold items. As I improved, I changed my goals. But it was important to have a way to measure progress.
In these days when AI and robotics are talked about so much, you probably know that the feedback loop is an important element. You can't make the best adjustments unless you have some way of measuring analyzing performance. You need to keep on track. That is the function of the feedback loop. If you have a very clear objective (or objectives) and some way of measuring progress, you can keep track of how you are doing and continually make improvements.
For example, I look at the number of hits and page views on my blog daily. That helps me get an idea of what people are interested in and what they like. The total number of page views is near two million now, and the daily hits are usually somewhere between 500 and 1000. Of course, I also use other things, such as emails.
It isn't always simple to analyze the data. Some people love certain posts, but the posts that some people really like are not always the ones that get the most views. They touch certain individuals powerfully but don't particularly appeal to the mass audience. There are various reasons for that and I won't get into all of that now.
In summary, I'd encourage you to be real clear about what you want to accomplish, and come up with some measurable way to keep track of your progress. I know I won't get a lot of people to do that, but if you do, I think you'll be happy with the results.
I don't really think this will be one of my most popular posts, but to me it is probably one of the most important and can help you a lot if you take it to heart.
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I thought I might need to add some perspective. If my Ole Timer Talk post about Clint's finds back in 1984 and 1991, you might be tempted to conclude that those were the good old days, and now it is all gone. If that is what you think, what you are missing is the rarity of those times. Thanksgiving 1984 is known as an exceptional time for treasure hunting on the Treasure Coast. It doesn't happen all the time. And did you notice that Clint went from 1984 to 1991. That is a period of seven years. When it is hot it is hot, and when it is not it is not. There are times when the beaches are exceptionally good, and when they are not. You can't take blowers and remove all of the sand from the beach. You have to wait, and hopefully you'll be at the right place at the right time. That is why I put so much attention on the wind, waves and surf. If you keep up on that, you'll have a better chance of being there at the better times. You can spend everyday on the beach for a year and not get as much as you would in a week when the conditions turn good. We've had some better beach conditions a few times this year and finds were made, but it wasn't anything like Thanksgiving of 1984. 2004 was good after Francis and Jeanne. Some of the other hurricanes since then didn't do nearly as much for metal detecting.
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They've been running the Shooter movie a lot lately. It is an interesting movie, but I found it more interesting and less far-fetched than when I saw it about a year ago because of the current political environment and what we've learned about the intelligence agencies the past year.
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We're having some nice big tides but the surf is only running around two or three feet. The winds aren't particularly favorable.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
