The way bamboo grows is one of the most bizarre, fascinating and untypical occurrences for plants and for nature in general, I’ve learned. At first, for 5 years, after you have sown the seed you see nothing, other than a tiny shoot, poking its head up from the ground.
All the actual growth is happening underground, where an incredibly complex root system is established interwoven outward and upward across vast amounts of land.
Then, towards the end of the 5th year, the bamboo shoots up and grows over 30 meters tall. The plant is in fact the fastest growing plant on earth and can grow around 1m within 24 hours during that period.
Are you the same?
The metaphor of seeing startup founders grow in the same way bamboo does, couldn’t fit any better, I believe. There are people, struggling for years and years, going from failure to failure without achieving any meaningful results.
And then, almost overnight, they start building businesses, which sell for billions or raise hundreds of millions in funding.
What is hidden for the eyes of the general public is that these people have been growing like crazy: underground. The learnings and darings you get as a startup founder gives you an unprecedented experience in business, I believe. And that is precisely why they can then create the fastest growing businesses in such short amount of time, ‘all of a sudden’.
So, the next time you are wondering why nothing is working, why everyone is achieving hugely successful things and you aren’t: don’t worry.
Keep going and create a huge volume of work. You are just growing like bamboo.
Photocredit: shékum