EXECUTIVE MESSAGES
If you want to grow, YOU’VE GOT TO STAY CONNECTED! Here’s a question to wrestle with: What big goals are you chasing right now?
I’d like you to take a moment to think about the direction you’re taking your life and how your goals are helping you get there. We’re all chasing something. But when it comes to living the life we want to live, we all need help from others. Why? Because reaching big goals is never easy. Sometimes Instagram and TikTok can seduce us into believing others have conquered life all on their own. We see someone receiving a prestigious award and think they must be superhuman. And we may be left wondering, Why can’t I do that? Why don’t I have all those talents? Well, here’s the reality: no one gets there by themselves. You may see only one person receiving theapplause, but it’s what you don’t see that made the difference for them. Who is that person connected to? That’s the real story. It’s what you don’t see. It was a beautiful Wednesday morning, and I was hiking through the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica with the
Melaleuca President’s Club earners. We walked carefully in a single file down the winding, muddy trail. It had rained earlier, but that was to be expected. After all, we were in a rain forest that gets 197 inches of rain per year. Our guide’s name was David, and he gave us specific instructions to never put our hands on a tree or a plant because of the risk of hidden insects or snakes. You could tell David loved nature. Asking him a few questions, I learned that he had a business degree from a local university and wanted to get his MBA. I asked him why he was working as a park guide when he had a degree in business. The answer he gave struck me. He told me that with his job he was always learning. He said that the Corcovado National Park is a treasure—and that, as a guide, he gets to help people discover just how special its beautiful ecosystem really is. Up in the canopies there are still species that haven’t been discovered yet! The place is always changing. It’s always evolving. No day is the same as the one before. Every day there is new growth.
A little way into our hike, David taught our group an unforgettable lesson. He had us stop, close our eyes, and just listen for 30 seconds. The real story of what’s going on in the forest, he explained, is never about what you see. It’s what you don’t see. To prove his point, he brought us to the base of a tall tree with branches spreading out over us and massive, red buttress roots expanding from the trunk and radiating over the forest floor. This large tree was surrounded by smaller trees, ferns, and hundreds of other types of plants. It was an amazing sight! And yet the real story was what we couldn’t see. As big as this tree was, it was even bigger below ground! Its roots spread out wide and deep beneath our feet. David explained that its roots were red because they were providing water and other important nutrients to other plants and trees. This one buttress tree was connected with all of the vegetation surrounding it. Those connections were vital to its growth and vital to the growth of each surrounding plant and tree. CONTINUED
OCTOBER 2022 | MELALEUCA.COM 11
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