#28 - Blossoming

Traction, the rose seed, and a sign of what's to come

How’s this? Said Gary.

Hmm yeah- could work.. I replied.

Jesus. I thought.

It was February 2020. News was coming out of China of some new virus but that was the least of my worries. Thousands of miles away in Hertfordshire it was a drizzly, muddy afternoon. I was round the back of Gary’s barn looking at his suggested site for our cabin. It certainly wasn’t the instagram-perfect site we were after.

Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so straightforward after all.

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Traction

I drove back to London really rather gloomy. With a cabin coming in just a couple of months our search for locations had been fruitless. In that moment it seemed inconceivable we’d find somewhere. I ran through, in my mind, any friends that might have a barn in the countryside we could leave the cabin if the worst came to worst. Maybe Gary could look after it for us?

But time and a bit of effort do remarkable things. It picked up. Good sites began to trickle in and eventually we found one just right. Just in time. I tell this story because I so often fall into the trap of judging what we have now as the finished product. But it’s not. It’s growing, and as time goes by we solve the problems and put the systems in place. It’s a wonderful thing to watch.

The Rose Seed

There’s a fantastic analogy in The Inner Game of Tennis which compares one’s tennis to planting a rose seed:

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticise it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticise the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and the plant the care it needs at each early stage of its development.

“We stand in wonder at the process". Beautiful.

My tennis game seems to be curiously stuck in a semi-withered state but I did get a real sense of this in action elsewhere, during a recent trip to Birch- a new hotel / wellbeing concept in Hertfordshire. (nothing to do with Gary, mentioned earlier)

My tennis: no signs of life

Signs of What’s to Come

I’ll be honest, I was underwhelmed at first. They’ve done a great job on Marketing and my expectations were high. But I arrived to find it not fully open, and very much a building site in places. It’s also a strange mix of not very remote and yet really awkward to get to.

It certainly looks the part

But as I walked around and chatted to Andre, their Operations Director, I got a sense of just what it could become. Andre hinted at both their big expansion plans and the near-endless potential innovations on the current site. All rather exciting. Time and effort will do wonderful things for them.

Why then, is it so hard to see with Unplugged? Intellectually I know the same to be true, but in the arena I find myself ruing the imperfections. I wonder if we’ll ever solve certain issues. But as time goes by, we do and it’s on to the next one.

I’m getting it now. I’m starting to understand how these things play out. It allows me to quieten the inner critic and trust the process. Nothing is insurmountable, although somethings might seem so in the moment. Progress comings in burst, not the “up and to the right” we might expect. It’s all starting to happen. We may have a long way to go, and many more problems to solve. But unlike my tennis game we might just blossom.

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My Week in Books📚

Think Again by Adam Grant

I got the impression he had a great time writing this. The ideas are brilliant and it’s a fun read. Overcoming one’s convictions is such an important yet difficult skill. This book is certainly a step towards achieving it.

The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life by Boyd Varty

Varty spends half his time as a life coach in the US and the other half tracking lions in South Africa’s Kruger national park. He makes a compelling case for Lion Tracking as a profession, although I imagine it comes with its challenges. The book chronicles a day tracking a pride of lions. It’s a fun read- good food for thought.

Thank you Nicole Costello for the recommendation.

I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know!

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A Final Thought 💡

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

- Leo Tolstoy