Embracing Growing Trees (Start Here)
On loving the process throughout life
There are two neighbors.
They own homes next to each other, and they both have a nice little acre of land.
It's a good spot to grow things.
They get plenty of sun through the year.
They get lots of rain.
The two men are passionate about growing things.
They both decide they are going to grow trees.
The first neighbor, he's competitive.
He sees his neighbor talking about growing trees, and he sees all the trees already around them, and he says "I'm going to grow THE TALLEST tree!"
The second neighbor you might be surprised to know (based on how this story is going) is also competitive.
But you might not realize it.
He sees his neighbor blustering about growing the tallest tree, shrugs, and thinks to himself "cool. I'm gonna get really good at growing my trees. I'm just gonna be the best at that."
The two men set themselves to their task.
Life goes on. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year.
10 years later.
The two neighbors, friendly with one another, are sitting down for coffee on one bright sunny breezy morning.
They are admiring their trees.
The first neighbor, turns out he has the tallest tree, if by a foot or two.
The second neighbor, he's got the grin on his face (and a copse of beautiful trees).
In all this time, the first neighbor spent his entire 10 years pushing and pushing and pushing towards having the tallest tree.
Every day of his life he woke up. A failure. Because he did not have the tallest tree.
Every day of his life, he measured up himself and his goal with his neighbors around him.
Every day of his life, he was not successful, he was not happy, he was not satisfied.
The second neighbor, he spent his entire 10 years loving every minute of it.
He was competitive with himself.
He relished the task of loving the process of getting better at growing trees.
Society will look at these two men and laude over the first neighbor, because he put himself to task and over 10 years was successful in growing the tallest tree.
But he is miserable.
He spent 10 years of his life feeling like a failure.
And even in his ultimate success, he only has regret.
I have taken this story from Nic Peterson, embellished a little for my style and my feeling ...
This little story, and this perspective of focusing on loving the process of getting better at growing trees vs growing the tallest tree rings in my heart like the perfect bell.
The first time I read it I thought "YES" ... and felt a little like the first neighbor, for I had spent many years of my life trying to build the tallest tree, and failing every day at it.
(I talk about this story in Find The Keys to Your Infinite Game)
I did have the good sense and self awareness to find appreciation in my life during that time, but I know if I had embraced life like the second neighbor, I'd be all the better for it.
But I am not one (anymore) to dwell on what could have been. I deeply appreciate where I am now, and that I have been blessed in my life to find and be given these valuable perspectives.
The "newsletter" I'm creating here, called 'Growing Trees,' is inspired by this idea and my recent work writing and publishing my capstone.
You can read my TGA capstone on The Guardian Academy website, or on this newsletter (I made it the first post, for reference).
After writing the capstone, I saw there is enough depth presented in the article itself to pull threads and dive deeper down rabbit holes for quite some time.
Initially I was thinking I'll do this as Twitter threads - but a conversation with one Jake Anderson helped me see that I ought to keep exploring this avenue of deep long form thought.
When I allow myself to embrace this as a GOOD thing, it opens up the feeling and ease when it comes to writing.
And as I wrote my thoughts for exploring these ideas I realized putting them in a place like Paragraph can be a useful repository for others.
THEN ...
The pieces really started falling into place.
I mapped out what you might call a "web of influence" (working term).
I've played around with these kinds of webs in designing marketing and growth for businesses in the past, but something that was shared on a Guardian Only call made me realize the power of building this out with specific intention.
It's too much to get into here, that idea alone is probably multiple articles exploring.
Here's the skinny.
Growing Trees, presented on Substack here, will be my opportunity to explore my Philosophies and Principles (with roots in The Guardian Academy) as they apply to my personal and professional life.
I'll frequently talk about two core categories - Parenting and Entrepreneurialism - while bringing in others along the way when appropriate, such as Crypto.
Most of my frame of reference for experience is surrounding the things I do and think about every day which largely encompasses being with my family and writing for clients.
SIMULTANEOUSLY (sneak preview of "the web") I'll be publishing related content entirely about copywriting/marketing on my personal site. And I'll be overlapping the two, passing reference back and forth where appropriate.
Why this structure?
I've started this personal work here through the TGA, building off my experience growing to Guardian and publishing a capstone.
This is the perfect soil within which to grow further.
I'm associating THIS work - "Growing Trees" - more directly with The Guardian Academy and crypto because that's where this has sprouted from.
All of my work with marketing and copywriting is heavily influenced, but it is a separate topic.
EDIT: The structure of all this is constantly evolving, as I Engage the Field and learn more about myself and how I can be most useful (while loving life).
The concepts I talk about in Growing Trees are foundational context for how I see, understand, and operate in life. So they are directly relevant to anything I might write for marketing or copywriting.
People who want to go behind the curtain of why I write email sequences the way I do may be interested to understand this very concept I talk about here in learning to love the process of growing (for example).
To learn more about my perspectives on Marketing, Copywriting, and Email - subscribe to Man Bites Dog - TGA’s publication all about marketing and business growth.
Similarly, those of you coming from The Guardian Academy or The Wolf Den may like to see practical business application of TGA principles.
They feed each other well.
As an example, here’s a deep dive I recently published using a case study of a past client to illustrate R3 Principles in action through email:
AND (another sneak peak of "the web") if I do this well, I can leverage authority through extensions of TGA and The Wolf Den.
As an example ... I can point people to Bumpers. Bumpers drives people into Nic Peterson's world, and they often end up in TGA or The Wolf Den.
If they end up in or around those communities, they may be likely to run across my writing "Growing Trees" here, and then ultimately my work in marketing/copywriting.
I'll be able to contribute to the growth of multiple threads at once, hopefully positively impacting TGA, The Wolf Den, and all associated crypto projects, as well as my own work.
I keep trying to tangent on this subject because I'm totally nerding out about the structure and it's implications.
I don't need to promote in order to benefit greatly. If you know me, you know how well that fits into playing my game.
But that's enough of that for now.
Next time, you'll get a quick visit from 10 year old me.
I like the visuals on your publication Joseph. Great work!