Addiction to our own magnificence.

Once there was an Olympic swimmer. He was excellent at swimming and won hundreds of gold medals. He was so good, in fact, that sponsorship alone meant he did not have to work. All he did all day was swim and win medals. Everyone loved him and he had thousands of fans.

One day, there was a problem in his home town. Their swimming pool had begun to leak causing flooding. They asked him to come in and take a look. He came and looked at the swimming pool and said, “Yes, that pool is definitely broken.” “Fix it!” begged the townspeople. He wanted so much to help that he cut down on his swimming and tried to fix the pool. After days and weeks of trying to fix the pool, he thought he would go insane. No sleep and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him as he tried to keep up his gruelling swimming regime as far as he could as well. But, he tried and tried and persevered.

Finally, it looked like the pool was fixed. The townspeople cheered and their swimmers jumped in the pool. Days later, a large crack appeared and the pool flooded the town once more. Pretty soon, the pool went green and everyone was ill. This was terrible news so they called a town meeting. It was decided to get a specialist in to fix the pool. Two days later, the pool was perfect, people were swimming and the medallist was winning medals again.

The moral of the story? I think entrepreneurs are gold medallists in their field; let's say software development. When they start a new business, they are asking themselves to be a specialist in selling/marketing/financing software development as well. While it seems the two are linked, it is exactly the same as asking a swimmer to build a swimming pool. They want to succeed but do not know the trade. I think outsourcing is a strength. I do it all the time. I'm great at marketing but not so strong on finance. Let's hear it for our strengths and weaknesses.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

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