The short version of the story is as follows: A farmer had a goose that one day began to lay golden eggs. Which he could sell for a lot of money. But he got greedy and thought if the goose laid gold eggs there must be gold inside. So he decided that evening to cut the goose open to check if there was any gold inside. Unfortunately, there was no gold inside and the goose was dead, no more golden eggs. So what is to be learned from this story?

On the surface, the moral not to be greedy, because that desire makes you toxic and you’ll end up with nothing. Instead, be patient and happy with what you already have.

My take on the story

I also have another take on the goose that laid the golden eggs story. I want to go back to when to goose was still alive and laid golden eggs.

What is it you do when you have an animal that lives with you? Right! Your primary task there is to take care of the animal, keep it healthy, happy, and alive.

Now let’s compare those golden eggs with skills. Let’s take presenting as an example because I know a lot of people(me included) are insecure about their ability to speak in front of a group. They will get nervous and anxious, read about how you can control this in this article: The secret to overcoming fear

And they wonder:

“Why am I not a good presenter or public speaker? Probably it’s just not for me.”

But that couldn’t be farther away from the truth.

Being honest with yourself

When you dig deeper and you ask yourself some questions:

“How many times did I do a presentation?”

“How many times do I practice in front of a mirror?”

“What kinds of training did I follow to become a good presenter?”

“Did I follow training on how to build good slide decks?”

“Did I follow training on how to tell a story?”

“Did I follow training on how to keep the attention?”

I could make this list a lot longer, but it’s enough for the point I am trying to make. Which is you probably only looked at the surface, instead of going in-depth.

While you are comparing yourself to people that did the opposite. Who did go through all that training and does presentations all the time and probably started as scared and nervous as you did.

To facilitate this process you can use the technique I describe in the following article: The accountability mirror by David Goggins

The lesson

So what can we learn from this? The presentation skills were the golden egg and by not appreciating the process(Like I mentioned in this article: The secret to success. ) you didn’t take care of the goose. You might not have killed it, but it wasn’t healthy so no golden egg for you.

If you want a skill, you have to work for it and it will take time. Don’t assume that something just isn’t for you. Some skills come more naturally to others, that’s just the way it is.

Don’t compare yourself to them, focus on your process and the skill will come eventually.

My experience

I write about principles that I apply myself as well. My goose that laid the golden egg: The golden egg I wanted, but I thought wasn’t for me was running.

I always thought running wasn’t my thing tried it a few times. It didn’t work out, no success. I looked at other people who had no trouble running without training for it and thought:

“See other people can run easily without training. I’m not able to do that, I’m not built for it.”

I always thought I would enjoy it. So one day I asked myself:

“Did I try? How many consecutive days did I try it before I gave up?”

Well, the answer was never more than a few times per month. To develop skills and keep improving it, you are at least required to practice it three times a week. So a few times a month is not even close if I wanted to make progress.

Going back to the goose that laid the golden egg analogy, I wasn’t taking care of the goose. However, I expected to have a golden egg.

One day I decided to put on my running shoes and just started running every day and guess what? It only took 5 days of consecutive running before I got used to it.

I got the golden egg by taking care of the goose

Conlcusion

Next time when you think of something and say:

“I can’t do that, that’s not me.”

Think again and ask yourself:

“Okay, but what did I really do to develop that something?”

Be brutally honest with yourself! Start to take care of that goose and claim that golden egg!

Recorded podcast about this subject