Recently a client entered an unexpected darkness in her business. She made a big mistake. She lost a lot. As those of us who advise and support her gathered around in the past few months, there has been a bittersweet joy in seeing her falter, then gather her strength, then falter, then move forward. Her experience, and to some extent the experience of all of us around her, has gifts for everyone who has stumbled.
She loves to read about the great entrepreneurs, and over the years has talked about the hardships and errors that most of them described as she would go through a cash flow crunch or a key person issue. When this tidal wave hit, one of her first thoughts was “Oh, this is what they meant!”
Imagine my surprise when I heard an arborist illustrate our experience when describing the way nature is reclaiming one of the largest landfills ever.
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The deeper we walked, the uglier the woods got. … [vines] fought it out to win the game of overtopping trees, bringing them down in a heap. The carnage looked like Mathew Brady’s photos of Civil War corpses, piled along hillsides…
I tried to follow what looked like paths, but they led nowhere. When I finally stepped into the briers, they caught my boots, my shoelaces, my pant legs. I turned one way to escape one tendril, and the act caused another, opposite-facing spiral to wind me up into its coils. In one spot, I couldn’t get away. I wound tight in one direction, then spun in the other. I could go neither forward nor back. … When I did escape… I accidentally slid down a slope of gravel…. I slipped to my knees. It was suddenly, momentarily beautiful. From a coyote’s-eye view, you could see what the trees were up to: Growth, failure, decay… Its intent was not to look good. Its intent was to stay alive, year by year, century by century, until at last it had recycled even the nylon stocking.
The forest does not know [how long that recycling will take]. It does not think. It just acts. Because if is so good at sprouting, resprouting, reiterating and repeating the entire process, it can keep up the living and dying for as long as it takes… The trees are not conscious. They are something better. They are present.”
Excerpt from New York Times article by William Bryant Logan
We are here, being present.
We will all come out of this wiser and stronger.
More present.
There are moments that are awful to stay present in, when each step forward seems only to be into greater tangles.
She has a great stillness in her, a knowing that there is always a way forward.
It helped her build a great company.
It will help her recover and build another one.
