When my uncle lost his fishing boat in the winter storms of ’74, he barely escaped with his life.
Watching as the Mary-Mae disappeared, bubbling, spitting and groaning into the dark, icy North Sea, he and his 6-man crew clung onto their rudimentary rubber dinghy just long enough for the Whitby lifeboat to show up and tow them back to harbour.
3 weeks later, flushed with an insurance payout, he refused to invest in a shiny new craft.
Instead, he salvaged the scuttled vessel from its current resting place in the shallows, and decided to have a go at patching it back together.
After all, he was a parsimonious Yorkshireman, and “waste-not-want-not” was his by-line for life.
7 months passed, along with all his cash.
He’d laid off his lads, who quickly got jobs with the rest of the fleet, and by the next winter he’d managed to get the old girl back to some kind of ship-shape. Meanwhile, all the other fishermen enjoyed one of their best seasons ever, nets bulging with valuable catch every morning.
Although the Mary-Mae sailed again, uncle had to hire a second-rate crew, the boat was never quite right, and he never recovered from his bad luck.
“WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS, JONNY?”
Here’s why, young seaman/woman…
> The sinking = bad luck
> Uncle not buying a new boat when he could = bad judgement
He’d failed to understand the concept of a sunk cost (literally).
A sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future.
And in your 21st century coaching or consultancy business, you have to watch out for sunk costs:
> Sticking with that terrible, half-built website because some charlatan took a ton of cash off you upfront
> Continuing with that ineffectual-but-expensive training course because some charlatan took a ton of cash off you upfront
> Letting your tired, no-longer-ambitious business partner weigh you down like an anchor because of your long-term friendship
> Persevering with that unfathomable, complex, useless software tool because some charlatan sold you a lifetime licence upfront
> Sitting back and waiting for referrals from your carefully-nurtured lifetime network (hint – they don’t care about making you a success)
See the pattern here?
> Your original investment was flawed but excusable – everyone makes mistakes.
> But your decision to continue pouring new time and money into an old mistake is now inexcusable.
Again:
A sunk cost is a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to decisions about the future.
Don’t let the misjudgements of your past become the blueprints for your future.
Move on, and get some practice making better decisions.
Love you lots
Jonny
PS: After 8.5 years and 2700 Daily Brain Tattoos, I’ll be changing the rhythm of my emails to you from this month.
Instead of infiltrating your inbox every morning, I’m launching my Monday Motivator, a weekly word workout packed with marketing magic, money mastery, mindset miracles and any other Ms I can think of.
Yep, I’ll be propelling you into every new week from the 8th December with prose so powerful, you’ll probably want to reread it every day anyway.
Don’t miss me too much, and I’ll see you next Monday…