There’s an old Texas saying that goes: “It doesn’t matter how much milk you spill as long as you don’t lose your cow.” In other words, what we see as “failure” may not really have diminished our ability to contribute, produce or earn an income.
Is losing your job the milk or the cow? If your business bombs, have you lost some milk, or is your cow gone? If you have an accident and can no longer hammer nails, is your cow really gone?
General Douglas MacArthur once said, “Security is your ability to produce.”
Security does not come from a job, from a company or from the government. It comes in your ability to be productive – and that is seldom taken away. Especially in this “knowledge worker” economy. Your strongest areas of competence are likely between your two ears. Those can be refined and developed daily. And if you lose your current job or business, those competencies can be applied somewhere new immediately.
I’m an old farm kid. A cow gives milk pretty continuously. If you dump the pail over from this morning’s milking, just wait a couple of hours and go back to that same cow for more. She’s just as capable as she was this morning. Your skills are the same.
Don’t lose your cow!