“I believe in diversification of income, because you never know what will happen. I’m a slightly paranoid person who thinks things could be ruined at any time.” – Eugene Mirman
Yes, you never know…What will happen, when it will happen, where it will happen, how it will happen, or why it will happen. But mark my word, something will happen. Chances are you might not even see it coming because you are so focused on that one basket. Even worse, you might only focus on one of the eggs in that basket.
I’ve heard the saying in the title many times as well as several variations of it. It simply boils down to what you are willing to risk. It seems pretty obvious that if you only have one basket all your risk is residing in that one basket. I am sure you can figure out what will happen if all the eggs spoil in that single basket. You lose it all.
Now, what about the case of one basket with a single egg? That sounds pretty risky. That is quite a bit of pressure on one egg to perform, even if it is a golden egg. Even precious metal can tarnish. I have learned that the hard way, more than once.
We had the golden egg. One golden egg sitting pretty all by itself in its cozy, comfy nest. It was unsettling and we knew to sustain a business we had to continue to innovate and produce more products to put in the basket as well as other baskets. We needed to create a wider offering to carve out a larger part of our market just in case that golden egg started to tarnish.
So we embarked on a mission to innovate and create and grow our business by adding more products. And we did, but another old adage rung true; timing is everything. We had the vision, we had the mission, but we also had success from our golden egg. Another lesson I have come to realize; success breeds complacency. Let me rephrase that, success can breed complacency. It did in our case. We became comfortable and complacent. We lost the urgency that drove us in the beginning to deliver our first successful product to market.
It didn’t last long but it lasted just long enough for competitors to produce their own versions of our golden egg causing ours to lose some luster. And, unfortunately, some market share. We did survive, however, and learned our lesson. We continued with our vision and mission with urgency once again and brought new products to market to fill different baskets.
As silly and cheesy some sayings might sound at first, they are often true and demand some thought. Many might seem like common sense, but it is often the simple things we overlook that cause the largest falls.
Talk Soon,
Kevin W @LEAP272
Owner-Operator
You have to leap if you want to live
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