Sunflower & Snowflakes
The other thing I love about the Sunflower analogy is that it needs the sun, just as we need the truth.
Imagine a sunflower shielded from the sun all its life. An entire field of sunflowers, germinated, sprouted, and shielded from the sun.
Can you see the ugliness; the lost glory, the weed that stands in pretense of the flower?
Can you visualize generations of sunflowers in that field all germinating, sprouting and withering without the sun? Imagine also then, the sad acceptance of all concerned, that this ugly weed is the Sunflower.
We need the truth.
People like me are paid; we make our careers, from speaking the truth.
That’s what the coaching industry does fundamentally: we sell truth.
Also, the popularly understood Family Business Facilitation Founder, Leon Danco, said, “ I sell Trust”
Truth & Trust. That’s what I sell.
Yet perhaps you ask : who doesn’t do that?
I discovered that I was making a real difference when I stopped trying to sell my truth. Nobody bought that. Nobody wanted it.
It wasn’t their truth.
More easily stated: – I realized I couldn’t call people at 12 in the noon (Indian Standard Time), and tell them on the phone “ Helloooooo! Its afternoon! Wake up!” while they belonged to the Pacific Standard Time.
It was idiotic to even make that attempt. Yet strangely enough (and kudos to all those who called me an idiot) for most of my life I had been doing exactly that: needing people to buy my truth. Trusting those who spoke only my exact words…..which, as you’ve rightly surmised, used to be nobody!
Today I see business families struggling with the same idiocy. I see teams struggling with the same mirage. Most individuals , save you dear reader, are directing their suns rays onto others whilst hiding in the shade themselves.
Isn’t that we do when we run away? We constantly try to apply our truths to others?
As human beings we’re the most incredible of all things created and visible. We can actually change! We transform! There’s magic inside of us!
Also true, and reaffirming the above statement is the fact that we’re also the silliest of things created and visible.
Simply because we shield ourselves, we flee, we hide, we duck our truth. We seek the shade when there is no sun.
The earth has two spheres: the sun and the moon.
I discovered that I could successfully help people by becoming their moon. In the night of their confusion, in the pessimism of their doubts, in the darkness of their clarity I could reflect their light, their sun, and their truth…..and following their inner light they moved from night to dawn to broad daylight.
It doesn’t imply that there is no truth. Nor does it imply the existence of infinite truths. Truth is like the snow and we’re like snowflakes: different by design.
We’re applied art.