What You Can Learn About Success from Fruit

Every summer sometime between July and August, it’s blackberry season. Now, I say sometime between because as early as July 10 a handful of blackberries are ready to be picked and eaten (yes, I am snagging them as a snack on my daily walks) while others don’t ripen until after July 30. They would all seem to get the same amount of sun, after all they are on the same branches in the same location, but some just get there sooner, while others get there later. They are all equally delicious in their own time. How does this relate to success?

I’ve noticed that you can have a whole group of individuals either at a conference, or in a group coaching experience, attendees of a single seminar, or even part of a specific industry tribe, yet each one despite having the same training will reach their potential at a different time. You may be frustrated by looking around you and seeing others in your field seemingly jumping ahead of you, getting where you want to go faster, achieving their success sooner, ripening on the branch faster.

Step back and know that your time is coming. Your journey is yours and yours only (not yours alone, simply yours only.) You may be on the same or a similar path with colleagues yet each of you will get where you are headed at a slightly and sometimes very different time. Each of you will experience shifts, changes, challenges, nuances along the way unique to your own path. Just as the blackberries have to manage weather changes, birds and bugs, and even the vagaries of the landscapers who seem to like to trim them (sacreligious to me), you need to manage and overcome the challenges and obstacles on your own path. When you allow something to derail your progress, you hinder your progress, your ripening, to success.

Blackberries also don’t ripen by themselves in a vacuum or one on a branch. They are in clusters. Cluster yourself with likeminded individuals, invest in either a group coaching or group mastermind experience. You will find that the support it provides (when the right group) and the accountability to one another will spur greater achievement. You are competing only with yourself because your path is unique, don’t lose sight of this fact or you may lose support and friends by becoming competitive in an unhealthy manner. Healthy competition is that which stirs you to greater action and takes you from step by step to quantum leap.

Every around us every day, there are examples of successes, big and small. It is up to you to find these examples and be inspired by them from blackberries blooms to ripened fruit, the tiny acorn to the mighty oak tree, a lowly caterpillar to a brilliant butterfly. Nature is filled with priceless lessons of unending conquering of challenge for ultimate success. Be inspired.

What lessons have you learned from nature, please share them here.