Don’t Run Out of Cash (Or Love)

Susan and I’d been married for about two years—long enough for me to know where she kept the coffee filters, but not quite long enough for me to know when I should keep my business worries to myself.

One morning, over breakfast, I overshared my business woes.

“I’m short on cash,” I said, trying to sound calm and CEO-like, which is hard to do when you have no idea how you’re going to make payroll on Friday.

Susan didn’t blink. Though she was a licensed social worker, she didn’t offer helpful advice, a breathing technique, or a reminder to eat more oatmeal. She simply said, “I have $40,000 saved. You can have it.”

Forty thousand dollars.

At that time, in the late 70’s, that was not just money—it was a lifetime. It represented years of discipline, delayed gratification, and probably saying “no” to anything indulgent, like shoes that sparkled or fancy vacations. And she offered all of it to me, as casually as someone might offer you a second cup of coffee.

I was stunned. Deeply, genuinely moved. I thanked her—profusely, embarrassingly, repeatedly. And then, being the practical businessman I was (and still am), I added, “The problem is… I could go through that amount by 10 a.m. and still need more.”

Not my finest romantic moment.

Somewhere, a poet lost his wings.

Years later, I read a Wall Street Journal piece about the Ten Rules of Business. Rule number one: Don’t run out of cash. Rule number ten: Don’t run out of cash. The other eight rules, the article suggested, were more or less filler—like the parsley on a steak plate. Nice, but not the point.

But Susan taught me something the article didn’t mention.

There’s another kind of “cash.” The kind you don’t list on a balance sheet.

Trust and generosity. The quiet, breathtaking willingness of another human being to say, “What’s mine is yours. We’ll figure it out together.”

I did solve the cash problem another way, the business survived, even thrived. I’m still in the game today, long enough to have learned far more rules, many of them the hard way.

But that morning stayed with me.

Because while I was busy calculating how fast I could spend $40,000, Susan was demonstrating something far more valuable: how quickly one person can give everything they have to another without hesitation.

And here’s the part that touches me, even now.

Cash problems come and go. You tighten, you stretch, you survive.

But moments like that?

They’re priceless.

And if you’re not careful—if you’re too focused on the numbers, the deals, the next 10 a.m.—you can run out of those.

Long before you run out of cash.

Alan