Best of 2011: Plant an orchard
If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? I would tell myself this: start a business and don’t give up. If your success isn’t instant then keep going because growth takes time.
Can we get metaphorical for a minute? Starting a business is like planting an orchard; it takes resources – time, energy, money – to cultivate the ground, and then you have to wait for the trees to mature before you can eat the fruit. Right now I feel like I’m planting an orchard. I know my business has the potential to bear fruit, but I also know I’m going to have to wait for it.
What if I had followed my convictions and planted my orchard 5 or even 10 years ago? Maybe I would be enjoying fruit right now instead of digging holes and planting trees. If you consider that anything you start today - your career, your business, a new hobby or whatever - will take years to bear really good fruit, then what are you planting today that you want to harvest in the future? Anything?
As Rick Warren says, “We overestimate what we can do in 1 year and underestimate what we can do in 10.” In other words, plant an orchard, and don’t stop nurturing it until you are eating its fruit. And that may take longer than you think.
I really hope this helps somebody, because I wish someone had told me this years ago. If you want fruit today then too bad, you should have planted an orchard 5 years ago. But if you want to eat fruit in 5 years time then you had better start planting an orchard today.
