I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker With Flowers In My Hair I mean a Sequoia.
In what was somehow a great use of my holidays I had the TV on, and I wound up watching a countdown of the greatest 00’s one hit wonders. Down time is a blessed thing – it must have been meal time during the cricket or something.
I have to admit I was kind of chuffed when I discovered that Sandy Thom’s ‘I wish I was a Punk Rocker’ was the number one, one hit wonder of the 00’s and this was the first time I had EVER heard the song. (Worth noting that in my experience punks hate hippies and hippies try to love punks…)
Kind of an achievement, but considering I usually listen to community radio or business/ self improvement materials then not so hard. Considerably easier when most of the time when I go out, I see live bands or I am at some sort of ‘Indie’ establishment.
The ‘I wish I was’ part of the title sort of side tracked me to the question “if you could be a tree what sort of tree would you be.” ‘My brain isn’t right’ especially when I am on holidays.
Anyway, I would be a sequoia and more importantly Newsletter Marketing Systems would be one too. Sequoias are massive and permanent. They live for hundreds of years and spawn entire ecosystems by themselves.
Its everything you want in a business except for one thing – by being so massive, so permanent and by virtue of being a tree, it has zero mobility. Despite my size I prize agility over resistance. The ability to move to avoid being hit is far more valuable in my eyes than being able to absorb a blow.
Any sort of fight is costly in terms of time and resources. And the recovery time from the fight is long.
Speed is an underutilised asset. And you need skill to be able to use it effectively. Anybody can don body armour and wade into the killing zone hoping their armour is good enough. But it isn’t always enough. Anybody can hole up in a fort and try and wait out a war.
Look at all the companies who win legal battles just by having deeper pockets and draining the other side’s coffers dry.
Speed on the other hand requires guile, planning and thought. Used wisely it can overcome the toughest foe. While it is nice to be the big massive sequoia, there are more opportunities to be had when you are nimble. And you can strike fast and get out while the getting is good.
Just don’t ever get hit. Then you’ll regret it. When you stay agile you tend to sacrifice armour.