The Iceberg and The Palm Tree
March 20th, 2008
There are two kinds of people in this world. We’ll call them icebergs and palm trees. (Truth be told, there are likely thousands of types, but this is my blog and I’m in the mood to be simplistic. To make a point, of course.)
Anyway, back to my hypothesis, which I do believe in. In fact, which I think about all the time, some more than others, and when I do think about it, well, it opens up entire vistas of thought. Of insight. Of epiphanies.
Icebergs are impressive, but only from a distance. They can be beautiful in shape, pristine in color and composition, imposing in their steadfastness and they can be impervious to the elements that swirl around them. In human terms, they are stoic, silent, predictable. But get up close, scratch the surface, and it’s all just ice. It’s all rather cold. It’s all terribly inhuman. It doesn’t cry or think or change. It may melt, but that’s not the same thing as soaking in the moon and finding a way to chase it.
Palm trees give themselves up to the forces of the moment - the breezes, the gales, the tropical storms that emerge from nowhere and paint the day black - happy to twist and bend and make passionate love to the natural forces that rise up and make life so interesting, so compelling, so intriguing.
In my life, in all of the things I am so fortunate to experience at work and at play (which are really one and the same to me),
I interact with and observe the icebergs and the palm trees. As I look for answers, adventures, innovations, collaborators, leaders, romantics, fighters, business builders, catalysts, friends, kindred spirits, inventors, new ways of growing MSCO, drivers of excellence for our clients and business partners, allies in my lust for life…..in all, it is the palm trees and only the palm trees that meet the test.
I need to be surrounded by palm trees.
It is only they who will not only accept the fates, the risks, the uncertainties, but will use the crazy quilt of life’s forces, of God’s forces, of the unknown, of the unpredictable, to continuously chase the moon, to reshape themselves, to give themselves with abandon to what they cannot see, or measure, or insure because they know, in most cases instinctively and subconsciously, that an iceberg is an inanimate object and a palm tree is a living thing.
The finest thing in life is to walk directly and confidently into the unknown. That is where success, in all of its forms, lies.
Mark Stevens
CEO
Tags: business builders, business partners, ice bergs, kindred spirits, natural forces, palm trees
March 21st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Mark,
This is a beautiful post. It so resonated with me, I actually got a bit teary as I read.
I was halfway through reading, thinking what’s wrong with icebergs, when I read palm trees. As you say there are thousands of “types” and I’m a hybrid, hence the tear of understanding. I’m a New Englander, and in New England everybody appears to be an iceberg, “… imposing in their steadfastness… impervious to the elements that swirl around them. In human terms, they are stoic, silent, predictable.” (Now I’m generalizing.) There, you have to scratch the surface to figure out who somebody really is.
If there’s only the two types, I’m definitely a palm tree, but it takes a while to know that. I love to be surrounded by them, too, but I actually want that veneer of coolness in others, too. A little stronger than palms… may I offer the hearty New England sugar maple?
Sometimes I wish I could flag an article twice and put exclamation points all over it in my inbox. This was just such a post. Thanks.
Regards,
Kelly