Good day friend,
Your ability to pivot around the personal and professional obstacles you’re facing right now may have less to do with having the strength of a mighty oak tree and more to do with being flexible like a humble bamboo that bends in the wind.
A stalk of bamboo sways even in the gentlest breeze, yet it may be the only thing standing after a typhoon due to its roots being firmly anchored.
Bamboo endures temperature extremes of winter and summer, and is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world.
When compared with other woods used in making furniture, bamboo requires little (if any) finishing – it’s ready to use as is.
You and I can take away one key life lesson from the humble bamboo: let’s face challenges not with stubborn resistance, but with roots deeply rooted (in what is good and true) which allow for the flexibility and confidence of knowing that we can adapt to change.
Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval write in their book “Grit to Great”:
“(…) resilience in the face of adversity is the essence of bamboo. Although it may grow slowly at times, and slowest of all in the dead of winter, it’s constantly finding a way to reach to the sky, sometimes saving its greatest growth efforts for times when conditions and circumstances are right. That can happen at any stage of life.”
Three action items you may wish to reflect on (and potentially take action on):
- Embrace Plan B
It may turn out to be even more effective than Plan A.
- Recharge
When you’ve had a tough day, give yourself some time to rest in order to gain a fresh perspective on the challenge you’re facing and to gather the strength to take meaningful action. A book, prayer time, a good friend, or sleep (which itself has important restorative functions such as washing toxins from the brain and improving reasoning, problem-solving and attention to detail) are options available to you when you need to recharge.
- Setbacks can propel you forward
It can take, on average, as many as 11 attempts to quit smoking before someone is able to finally stop. But each time we fail at a task, there’s something we can learn about how to succeed next time. We can take the time to reflect on how each setback can move us forward. We can then get back up, and try again. And again. And again.
I wish you the very best!
Alex Rășcanu
P.S. I look forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming events, such as the Stock Yards historical tour next Saturday.
P.P.S. If someone forwarded you this e-newsletter and you’d like to subscribe, you can do so here.
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