How do we grow?
“How do we grow?” is one of the hardest questions to answer. Whether we’re talking personally or professionally, it forces a look from a clear shore into a foggy ocean.
A therapist I saw in 2016 would say, “When you’re feeling anxious, make a plan.” It helped then and I still tell myself that every day.
Making a plan usually starts with where you want to go. For most brands this is also really hard to answer. The first answer is usually something like “increase revenue by x%.” That’s a start, but then we need to dig into what makes up that number, and why we chose it in the first place. Is it growth for revenue growth’s sake — a nice number we like? Will more revenue lead to more opportunities and more profit? Or just more complexity? What do we actually want to happen?
Once we answer a lot of these questions, we have the pieces that can form a plan. But because plans are our best bet on the future, implied in every plan is the unknown. How do I know this will work, for me, in this time frame?
We don’t — and that’s what makes it fun — but there are some things we can do to give us the best shot.
I’m changing the name of this blog to give some focus to the study of just that: how to give companies, brands, and the people who make them, the best chance to grow. It could turn into a lot of things, none of which I’m sure of yet.
It’s called Wild Garden.
Why?
First, it’s a constant reminder of constant growth over specific achievement. As James P. Carse wrote, “One never arrives anywhere with a garden. A garden is a place where growth is found.”
Second, I think paradox is powerful to deep understanding. A garden is planned, which almost by definition means it’s not wild. This is the study of the interaction between the two — the intention and the allowing.
Third, it provides a separation from “Ben” that more easily allows for different things to exist here. I’m severely limited by my own experience.
Finally, it’s a nod to my mom. She’s on the board of the Master Gardener Association of San Diego. Her service made her volunteer of the year in San Diego County this year. And growth is what moms do best.
Wild Garden could turn into something that looks more like a business, or a collective, or more serious research. For now it’s just this.
Paul McCartney (who, as it were, grew up across the river from the small Northwest England town of Wallasey, where my mom’s mom grew up) recently wrote in The New Yorker, “It’s one of the wonderful lessons about saying yes when life presents these opportunities to you. You never know where they might lead.”
I’m putting this here as a place to start saying yes to things, and seeing where it might grow.
If you have ideas, reach out via comments here or email me: perreira (dot) ben (at) gmail.com
