Right out of the chute, we need to be clear about something.
There is a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm called The Golden Goose, and it has nothing to do with golden eggs.
Say what?
This is an easy misunderstanding, once you get it. In their story The Golden Goose was actually made of gold, and created a parade of idiots that all attempted to pluck a golden feather out of it, and got stuck to it.
The story which I’ll be referring to here is actually called “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs,” and it was written by Aesop, he of the many fables with a story moral at the end.
The idea here is that the goose gave his owner one beautiful glittering egg of gold every day. He took them one by one to market, and over time became prosperous.
But it wasn’t enough. The owner got a fixation in his mind that the damned fowl wasn’t forking over the wealth fast enough.
So, he slayed it and cut it open, and guess what?
No eggs.
He killed the “golden goose,” and in so doing created a rich metaphor for us to hand down over the centuries.
Funny, the little confusions we suffer from.
I think, for the sake of an excellent metaphor, we’ll stick with the golden goose thing for a while here.
The goose was a finite resource. He provided a living for his master, and his master’s family, we may safely assume.
Fellow entrepreneur, this is you. And I. To a point.
One distinction we can make here is, that because the goose was a dumb animal lacking the power of imagination, that it had a speed limit of one egg per day.
People have imagination, though. We can come up with things like assembly lines and automation.
Nevertheless, you are the golden goose.
If you kill yourself in the process of making more and more money by doing more and more of the work in your business yourself, guess what?
No more eggs. Right the first time.
What does burnout mean in business?
Trying to do All The Things because when you were starting out you had the time, and now you don’t trust anyone else to do it the way you want.
Thinking that CEO stands for Complete Everything Officer.
No. Just, no.
You have to use that human-sized brain, with its unique power of imagination and intelligence, and learn what it means to delegate your work.
For one thing, as you grow and scale sooner or later, you’re going to come up on core competencies that you don’t possess instinctively.
Google will teach, but it can’t magically endow you with experience.
I’m going to tell you right now that I have found out accidentally, much to my delight, that there are things my executive assistant is better at than I am.
That’s leveraging human capital, baby.
It’s as liberating as a breath of fresh air coming out of a coal mine.
It’s also stroking and petting and feeding special treats to your golden goose.
You’re no good to your spouse, your family, OR your staff if you’re so stressed and ready to vomit up all your internal ugliness that you’re radioactive to the touch.
I am telling you that if you want your 100% absolute best out of yourself you need to not only survive.
You need to thrive.
In every way.
Health. Relationships. And my specialty and personal favorite: business wealth.
You are your golden goose.
Please, stop killing yourself.
By the way, I got curious and looked up the market value of a golden egg in today’s money.
Admit it. You’re curious too, right?
The conventional wisdom seems to be that an egg-sized and -shaped gold piece would be about 100 grams, the equivalent of just under 4 ounces.
As of Friday, the price of gold translates to $5,585 per 100 grams.
Over $39,000 a week.
Almost $169,900 a month.
$2,038,525 a year.
Our gold-laying geese need to be fed, watered, and nurtured.
That would be you and I, my friends.
Never forget it.
Happy last day of July, everyone!