Egg-scaping the Past

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A couple of weeks ago, I made scrambled eggs.

Nothing unusual about that, you might think. But, in fact, this was very unusual.

It was so unusual that I did that young person thing and took a photo of my food and popped it on Facebook for all to see (yes, ok, I know a proper young person would have used Insta or TikTok, but bear with me).

So why was this unusual?

Well, it's because scrambled eggs is a pretty easy and common thing to make. And yet this was the first time in my nearly 50 years on this planet that I'd ever done it.

You see, I had a traumatic experience with scrambled eggs as a child and it's kind of scarred me for life.

Let me explain….

They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I'm not sure that message had ever got through to the catering team at my boarding school.

So we'd get all of the classic breakfast items – bacon, eggs, sausage, etc – but they’d never be served up together on the same plate on the same day.

Instead, there was always toast, a choice of cereals, plus one single hot item.

So you might get sausages on a Monday. And then eggs on a Tuesday.

Wednesday might bring bacon. But this was the kind of bacon the like of which I'd never seen before and thankfully have never seen since...

This was bacon that had bits of bone in it!

My favourite day of the weekly menu cycle was when we had fish fingers. It's perhaps an unusual choice for breakfast but I recommend you try it if you haven't already.

Anyway, back to the eggs.....

If it was an egg day, they'd either be fried, boiled or scrambled.

And you'd know well in advance that it was an egg day because the stench of them would greet you when you were still a good hundred metres or so from the dining hall.

But on one particular egg day, early on in my school career, I encountered something far worse than even that smell.

The hot food item that morning was scrambled egg. But not made from actual eggs. This stuff was made from powder.

The dining hall had a self service system where you collected the food from those servery counters that have in-built containers for keeping food warm.

As I walked into the serving area one of the women who worked in the kitchen was approaching the counter with a huge metal vat of what would turn out to be scrambled egg.

I say approaching – but given her small stature and the massive size of the pot she was carrying, it was more of a waddle.

And then, like a weight lifter flicking a kettle bell up onto their shoulder, she lifted the vat up into the air, and let the front of it fall forwards so its putrid contents could be dispensed into the servery counter.

And that's how I came to witness what I can only describe as a slurry of congealed yellow lumps slopping down into the counter, followed by a large trickle of yellowish water.

I stuck to just the toast that day.

And it was many many years until I was able to face the thought of eating scrambled eggs again.

But, a couple of weeks ago, I decided it was time to confront my fears and not just eat scrambled eggs but actually make them myself.

So the first thing I did was to make sure I was properly prepared.

I already had the actual eggs, so the next thing I did was start Googling for a recipe.

And you'd be amazed how many different ways and opinions there are as to how to make "perfect" scrambled eggs.

Some purists advocate minimal ingredients. Others say you must use the finest double cream or even crème fraîche.

In the end, I chose to follow the wisdom of Delia and it worked.

Not only did the finished eggs look the part, but they tasted good too.

In fact, I ended up feeling quite annoyed that I'd allowed one bad experience at school to put me off eating scrambled eggs for so many years afterwards.

And it occurred to me that there's a parallel here with what I often see happening in the world of business.

You see, I very often find myself talking to business owners who once tried a particular marketing strategy and had a bad experience.

They might have tried email marketing and got poor open rates or complaints about spam.

Or they might have attempted networking and found it awkward or ineffective.

Maybe they tried running Google Ads or Facebook Ads and burnt through a load of money with little to show in return.

Either way, if that's happened to you and you let one bad experience put you off using that marketing channel for the rest of your life (like I nearly did with the eggs), then you're missing out.

What you need to do instead is be willing to give it another go AND make sure that you follow a decent recipe.

Now, as with scrambled eggs, you'll find all sorts of different recipes and opinions out there.

And so what I recommend you do is find a system that's been proven to work for other solo business owners in your situation.

Because, just as I overcame my long-held aversion to a simple dish, you too can conquer your fears about marketing strategies with the right guidance.

The key is having a proven system to follow – whether that's for email marketing, content creation, social media, PPC, or any other aspect of growing your business.

So let's not let past experiences dictate our future opportunities. Instead, let's crack open new possibilities with confidence! 🐣

All the best,
David.

PS – If you're looking for proven "recipes" for growing your small business, you might find my book helpful. It's called "Building an Automated Lead Machine" and it contains step-by-step systems for attracting and converting customers online.

You can find out more about it by clicking here.

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