The Gardener of Change

Once upon a time, many years ago in the here and now, there was a far away land just next door where a small kingdom was ruled over by an immensely wealthy, but vain and foolish, king. Although the foolish king had more money that his chamberlains could count in an entire month of counting, he was always dreaming up new schemes to make his personal fortune even larger. And often this was at the expense of his people.

Now, not surprisingly, this kingdom had many gardens and the gardens had many plants. However, the plant prized above all was the Peony, named from the Greek physician of the gods, much used in medicine and producing large showy blooms. The plant was also much prized in the surrounding kingdoms and there arose between them a contest to see who could produce the largest crop of the largest flowers in the whole world.

Our vain and foolish king certainly wanted to win this competition, but he also saw a way of making himself even richer in the process. Accordingly, he issued an edict that all large peony blooms would be taxed, all small peony blooms would be taxed doubly and any owner of a peony plant that had not flowered within three years would be put to death. In this way he expected to win the contest handsomely each year.

All the gardeners in the kingdom set to work and, for many, this was not a problem, except for one. He had been cultivating peonies for many years, but had never managed to make one flower. Each year he experimented. Sometimes he used extra fertiliser, sometimes less. Sometimes he watered more, sometimes less. He under-planted, cleared the beds, added shade, provided full sun, pruned and fiddled, in short everything he could think of, but to no avail. His plants simply would not flower.

While all this had been immensely frustrating and enormously costly, the failure to flower had not meant certain death. It did now. This year he would have to succeed or suffer the consequences. But what was he to do? He could continue to make minor adjustments – none of which had produced results so far – or he could do something radically different, something not recommended, but something he had never tried before. He could dig up all his plants and move them to a new location.

The gardener faced one unavoidable fact. Peonies do not like to be moved and often will not flower that year as a result.

 

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Many people set out to look for the forest and get lost in the trees. In your dreams coaching gives you the space, time and tools to break out of this self-perpetuating cycle, get a clear picture of what you want and helps you design a suitable route map to your chosen destination.

Your first success has been recognising the need for assistance.

Your second is having the good sense to call for it.

Call Paul Hayward on 01234 831631

"If you truly feared failure, you’d be very successful." ~ Barbara Sher