Take a look at this picture.
This is a picture of a flower. But in this picture there are no flowers. Obviously this sounds ridiculous, but I would love for you to take a look one more time and identify where the flower actually is.
Perhaps you thought it was a single purple flower. Perhaps you thought it was a single white one. Maybe you saw one bunch. May be you saw three bunches together like the bottom portion. Maybe you identified the entire thing as a flower.
Where is the flower? In this picture there are many flowers but at the same time there is no flower because there isn’t one concretely identifiable entity that everybody can agree is a flower. What I call flower, someone might disagree and say it’s a group of petals. What they call flower, I might call just plant. Another might just call it decoration. Another may call it just a shrub and not even notice it.
We have a vague idea of what we collectively assume to be a flower, but the more we look into what we individually think is a flower the more elusive it gets. So we end up with a picture of a flower that also contains no flowers.
Today I ran a business coaching session and we talked about success. The participants were adamant on the fact that their business was not successful. I asked them for a proof of their failure and we agreed on the fact that we didn’t make any money last month.
This seems like a classic case of failure. Isn’t the point of a business to make money? And since they didn’t make any money, it’s safe to assume that they failed to make money. How is it NOT a proof of failure?
Now consider the picture above. The same picture simultaneously is full of flowers AND has no flowers. Which is it? It’s both depending on what perspective you look at it from. We can take this approach and apply it to the scenario of 0 dollar revenue. How can the 0 dollar month both be a proof of failure AND a proof of success?
This also applies to so many different things. How is what my parents did a proof of lack of love AND love? How is my customer’s anger a rejection AND acceptance? How is my friend’s passing a tragedy AND a fortune? How is my weight a sign of poor health AND good health?
Nothing about that picture needs to change in order for you to see it from a different perspective. If I didn’t prompt for you to look at flowers maybe you wouldn’t have even noticed it because you’re looking at the trash. Maybe you look at the amount of sunlight. Maybe you look at the composition. Famous paintings always look different depending on your season of life.
Nothing about your life needs to change in order for you to see it from a different perspective. But I do accept that it’s ridiculously difficult to see things from a different perspective. In fact we spent a great amount of time in the morning coaching call trying to wrap our heads around HOW IS 0 DOLLARS A PROOF OF A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS?
I will leave the joy of finding the answer to you. It will be worth it to find the answer, but the answer isn’t what really matters; it’s the realization of the power to change perspectives that matters. In fact I think the biggest shift that allowed for me to start acting like a confident coach was when I saw that with the same me, I could either choose to see how much I’m lacking OR I could see that I had all the reasons to be confident right now.
You don’t have to shift today. But just keep that possibility in your heart. At one moment, as if some kind of magic happened, your life can instantly change with the snap of a perspective.
Billy Seol
July Life Coach
julylifecoach.com
