Have you ever waited and waited for something to happen, only to have events occur which altered the course and the direction of your expected—and possibly, long-awaited– outcome? The beautiful daylily bloom above is an example. More on that story in a moment.
Most of us have experienced “changes of plan” in our businesses. We understand that, often, things simply don’t or won’t go the way we planned and that we may need to fall back on what we often call “Plan B.” Plan “B” is the direction we take when Plan “A” conclusively isn’t going to occur.
Many of us remember when the “Planning Process” was introduced into our corporate lives, changing forever the way we each approach problem solving and assessment of business opportunity. However, many in business today cannot remember a time prior to utilization of the Planning Process. For many new business actors, the planning process has been ingrained through every business course they’ve taken, every business decision they’ve planned and executed, and each thinking and budgeting process they have ever faced.
On The Steve Hawkins Show, in our business segment this week, I shared a great anecdotal story about “carbon paper.”
Many of us that are of a “certain age” remember carbon paper and its usage, some fondly, some not so much so. Would it surprise you to know that 94 out of 100 graduate students surveyed today believed “carbon paper” was writing paper that had been reduced in wood pulp content, thereby helping to reduce the carbon footprint of those using it? They didn’t see carbon paper as being able to offer an immediate copy, in your own handwriting, of the document written or typed above it. So much has been said about “carbon” and the “carbon footprint” that—in my estimation—they simply guessed about the definition of the term, “carbon paper.”
So now to the beautiful daylily story.
As is often the case in nature, the strongest predator up the food chain prevails.
That beautiful day lily, for which we had waited patiently since last June to bloom again? It became forage for the local deer population. Not only it, but practically all of its day lily family! Never in all the years we have lived in this house, nor my parents before me, have the day lily beds been ravaged by deer— but the word is obviously out in the deer kingdom that we have a day lily buffet available. Moreover, they didn’t eat the whole plant, just the blooms, leaving the stalks and the leaves untouched.
Business is like that.
So often, we plan and plan on an event occurring, but—for any number of reasons—it fails to occur. When you’ve planned and planned for it, anticipated it, pinned your hopes and expectations on it—like we did with the blooming day lilies—it’s disappointing when it doesn’t happen or when something obstructs your anticipated outcome.
Learn to pivot and structure your life in such a way that when others bite off your bloom, there is a substantial enough plant left to continue to grow and prosper, and to fight back another year.
