Let’s Hear It For The Unsung Hero Of The Christmas Story | Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the camel ... |
Posted by Jacky Sherman on 29/12/2021 @ 8:00AM The second half of the story of the 12 days of Christmas culminated in the Three Kings arriving to pay homage to the new King, giving gifts and then sidelining Herod to return to their own homelands via another route ... The unsung hero of the Christmas story was the camel! copyright: the digital artist / pixabay How did they do this? Usually, they are depicted as travelling on camels. Now, that would make sense as camels are superbly adapted to long-distance travel over deserts. Combine that knowledge with my love of metaphors and quotes and I thought I'd round off the year with a quick scoot around Google to make some light-hearted comparisons of the camel and our business life.
Three quotations you as a business owner can relate to a camel:
"As a camel beareth labour, and heat, and hunger, and thirst, through deserts of sand, and fainteth not; so the fortitude of a man shall sustain him through all perils." - Akhenaton (King of Egypt, 14th century BC)
The camel can keep going in temperatures of 50 degrees and store up reserves in their hump(s) for water and energy for when it's needed. Most successful small business owners know all about hard work. They keep going when the going gets tough. The sensible ones rely on reserves put aside in times of plenty. "A camel is a horse designed by committee." - Sir Alec Issigonis
I always thought this was an Oscar Wilde quote; apparently not. Whilst the camel may not have the beauty of the thoroughbred horse, which would you rather have in the desert? The lesson we can take is maybe your business is better designed with the input of other specialists, but do choose your committee wisely. "Good advice was once worth a camel; now that it is free of charge, no one takes it." - Lebanese Proverb
Ahh, now many a small business owner has wrestled with this one. A facet of human nature is we value what we have paid for.
However, there are three ways you, as a business owner, are not like a camel and the first one is that the average life expectancy of a camel is 40-50 years whilst 60% of small businesses perish within 3 years.
Many successful entrepreneurs talk about their success as coming off the back of failures. Taking risks is part of every business so aim for success, but be prepared to make mistakes too.
Did you know that if a camel doesn't like you it will spit in your eye? If your customers don't like you they'll dish about you forever on social media.
And this is not a quote, but an observation. The obvious lesson is to look after your customers and check that they still love you. A lesson from a customer care trainer I know is to treat every complaint as a gift. These are the people who are brave enough to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
And finally, did you know that a camel can drink 200 litres in 3 minutes without rupturing anything? Go on ... you know you want to ... give it a try and see what happens!
So, I'll finish with two jokes you can recycle for next year's crackers:
Q:Why did the camel cross the road?
A: Because there are no chickens in the desert!
And
Q: What do you call a camel with two humps?
A: A Bactrian camel
Q: What do you call a camel with one hump?
A: A Dromedary
Q: What do you call a camel with no humps?
A: Humphrey
That's it for this year. 2022? Bring it on. Until next time ...
JACKY SHERMAN
Would you like to know more? If anything I've written in this blog post resonates with you and you'd like to discover more, it may be a great idea to give me a call on 07970 638857. Let's have an initial chat over a coffee and see how I can help you. More blog posts for you to enjoy ... | | | | | | | | |
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