Wednesday 16 March 2011

The caterpillar doesn’t know… it's a Butterfly!!!!


The caterpillar doesn’t know…

The caterpillar doesn’t know that he/she will one day blossom into a beautiful butterfly.

Armed with this ignorance it simply goes about its merry way doing what caterpillars do: eating sleeping, shedding the occasional cocoon.

And then one day, and to its total surprise it emerges as a beautiful butterfly.

If it knew that it would one day be a butterfly would it behave differently?
Wouldn’t the ugly duckling have been less worried had he known that he was really just an early stage, start-up swan?

And the same may well be true of your business.

You think you are just an ugly duckling, blissfully aware of what you are about to become.

In fact you become so used to your image in the mirror that you go to great ends to maintain yourself in your current mode.

Is your business just an ugly duckling, ignorant of what it could become? Or is it a swan or a butterfly in waiting?

10 comments:

Eddie said...

This is like the 'where is an arrow?' idea. You just don't knbow what your potential is. The trouble isi that we often underestimate how good we can be and resign ourselves to never moving on. Time for a change.

Louise said...

Nice sentiment but hugely irrelevant.

Robert Craven said...

The main thrust is in the punchline:
Is your business just an ugly duckling, ignorant of what it could become? Or is it a swan or a butterfly in waiting?

Jo Dodds said...

I disagree with Louise. I think this is a very simple point that many businesses should take note of. And it can be read in different ways. To me it's about wasted potential, slow business development, lack of confidence, realisation, working with people external to your business as they see it differently and more if I had the time to think! Thanks Robert; just about to share this. I guess it speaks differently to different people depending on their own business and personal journey.

Jo Dodds said...

Come to think of it, I don't disagree with Louise after all! As I said, the analogy will mean different things to different people and it may well be hugely irrelevant to her, so apologies Louise!

Robert Craven said...

Jo

That's the beauty of an analogy...

RC

Dean said...

Great image to have in one's mind.

Robert Craven said...

Cheer, Dean
RC

Robert Craven said...

entrepreneurship is not the same as self emplotment

http://ideas.economist.com/blog/entrepreneurship-%E2%89%A0-self-employment

Robert Craven said...

Julia Perry sent me this:

Henry Kimsey-House

…and it’s about transformation. We can no longer stand by and hope that people become more conscious and evolve. We have to evoke transformation. We have to see the butterfly in every caterpillar. The nature of life is to transform and evolve and this is a messy, chaotic and often confusing process.

http://www.thecoaches.com/blog/2011/03/we-have-a-job-to-do/