Have fun with your personal and professional growth…

I’m on an e-mail mailing list for a newsletter that started like this… “Truth is, growth is inconvenient.”

Ya know what? I totally disagree. It’s just been in the past few years, with a ton of people pushing on other people “To grow! Grow! Grow! Grow! Grow!” that personal/professional growth has taken on this super-intense flavor. I’ve been growing every day since I was a child because I’m naturally curious, and I had parents who nurtured that curiosity. The net result of that incremental, daily personal growth over 60+ years is that I’ve amassed a really impressive, multi-faceted body of knowledge. I’m more knowledgeable and skilled in some areas than I am in others, but that’s normal. I continue to add to my body of knowledge every day because I can, and I’ve had to reinvent myself so many times that I’m beginning to get really comfortable with the process; so much so that I’m beginning to feel really confident that I can help others navigate through that same process. It didn’t, and hasn’t happened overnight.

One of the most valuable and important lessons I’ve learned is to not listen to people who are in a big rush for you to grow overnight. Nothing in nature grows overnight. Nothing.

Even plants that seemingly grow virtually overnight, don’t. For example, water lilies grow and develop below the surface of a pond for several weeks, with a few plants breaching the surface here and there, then, almost overnight the surface of the pond will become covered in lily pads. It looks like it happened overnight, but it actually took 4 to 6 weeks. Another example of what looks like overnight growth is giant bamboo, which is actually the largest member of the grass family. Both lilies and giant bamboo grow from rhizomes, which are “continuously growing horizontal underground stems which put out lateral shoots and adventitious roots at intervals.” Giant bamboo rhizomes colonize and grow underground for 5 years before growing shoots, at which point it will grow to be 60 to 80 feet tall in about 6 weeks so it looks like the bamboo has sprung out of the ground and grown at a prodigious speed. virtually overnight, but in reality it’s been growing and developing for 5 years.

Wanna grow some apples? If you plant a seedling it will be 6 to 10 years before it will produce fruit. However, if properly attended to, that tree could produce fruit for up to 100 years. In other words, for longer than you’re gonna live.

I trust examples of growth that I see in nature. I don’t trust advice from people about growing myself when that advice runs counter to what I see in nature. There are 2 reasons for that: 1. Mom Nature has been around a lot longer than we have. 2. I’VE been around long enough to see the “hurry up” crowd train wreck a lot of lives.

I think we need to grow. I think we need to grow every day. I think we need to push ourselves and challenge ourselves to grow in new areas. I also think that it can be a fun process, filled with curiosity and joy. Why not? Learning is fun. Learning new things is fun. Stretching yourself into a new place is fun. If you want to make your personal and professional growth process all intense, uncomfortable, and miserable, that’s certainly your prerogative, but I prefer to have fun with it. 🙂