The Goose that Lays Golden Eggs
Pathways: Dynamic Leadership
Level 1-2: Evaluation and Feedback
You may be curious about this title, but please let me share a story with you first.
There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg. The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough. Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.
In the real life, the goose means our money, while the golden egg is the money made by our money, which means the interest.
The story revealed the most usual scenario in our daily life: We save money and we gain interest.
And this is the topic I would like to share: Saving money.
Why should we save money? (Ask audiences)
About this, my point is: Saving is for making. By saving money, the interest we get could even cover our daily cost, which sounds too good to be true and seems to decades of years, or does it?
The magic key is the compound interest. In one word, compound interest means that the interest can also make interest. There is a principle named “Rule of 72”, let’s do the math about it. Suppose I have 100 yuan, and the annual interest rate is 8%, then we use 72 divide 8 and get 9, it means I will have 200 yuan after 9 years, the money becomes double. Under the effect of compound interest, the assets will grow in a much faster speed than we can imagine.
Now we know why we should save money, but do you know how to save money? In the past, after I got salary, I just left it in the bank account, and used it whenever I would like to buy something. You know I am a computer fans, thus I often upgraded my computer by buying some hardware, such as memory, hard drive and monitor. And in the end of year, I always found I didn’t have much money saved, not even think about the interest. Where did my money go? Actually, My goose was killed by the wrong method of saving money. Is there existing a better way of saving money? Let’s think about the following solution.
I separate my income into three parts:
- The first part is for daily life, such as food and traffic.
- The second part is for my dreams, such as new phone or traveling. Once the account becomes ready, I will use it to achieve one of my dream.
- The last part is for making interest, and that is my goose account. I will never take out the money from my goose account. As the goose grows up, the interest made by it will increase as well.
By following this approach, my daily life is covered well, and my dream will come true one by one. The most important thing is that I have a goose that will lay golden eggs for me all the time, and I will never kill it.
I believe the financial intelligence will also be the crucial ability in 21 century. As there are too much things we want, if the desire is not handled properly, we may get trapped in financial problem.
It’s a good way to start leaning financial knowledge by saving money. Raise a goose of ourselves and watch it growing up, the interest will be the power we move on. And in the journey, the dreams in the list will also come true, with a healthy finance status and a better life.