Just after I graduated from college and long before I learned the need for a cash reserve, I learned to fly small airplanes. At the time, I had enough money to rent an airplane, but not enough to rent the airplane AND pay for a full tank of gas.  One afternoon my former instructor approached after overhearing me order a half-tank of fuel. “It’s okay to fly on a half tank,” she said, “so long as you run out of the top half of the tank, not the bottom.”  

I often quote my instructor to business coaching clients because gas to an airplane is like cash to a business.

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