The Woodpecker Syndrome

I am often asked what's the secret to success? to being an entrepreneur? to getting a goal? to pursuing a dream?

Well, I've come to answer all of these questions with the same answer. Be a woodpecker! Yes, a bird!

Here's how I see it. Woodpeckers are one of the smallest birds and yet they take on Giant trees without really having any doubt that they have the capacity, strength, determination to make those trees fall.

Here's what happens. The tiny bird gets up and goes to its tree--it's goal, dream, business--daily. And it pecks away. Yes, at the end of the day, I can assure you, it's beak hurts. Some days it wonders if it took on too big of a tree--goal. The other birds and animals look at the woodpecker and kind of think it's crazy.

And yet, on certain days--and the woodpecker never knows which ones--the big tree falls. Just because of one more small peck--action.

Does the woodpecker celebrate? I am sure it does. And then it picks another tree and does what it feels it must do all over again.

I often think of myself as a fellow woodpecker. I've picked some big trees. My beak hurts. Other people think I'm crazy. And yet, trees do fall, dreams have come true.

So, pick a tree--a dream--and simply stick to it. Start pecking away. Be immune to what other people say. And remember, your tree can fall at any time.

Comments

[wisewomcat]

So really the moral of the story is "just keep doing what you're doing (hunting for food, trying to survive) and one day a tree might fall as a side effect (you might become incredibly successful)."

[cktirumalai]

The three informed posters above have clarified things. Even so, as I read the blog several Robert Frost poems came to mind, and I wondered if the poetic wizard of New England could create a poem out of it, after having thrown in a fair measure of darkness.

[cgr]

Yoo hoo, woodpeckers don't fell big trees, and their intention isn't to fell trees. They just make little holes in them to get at insects.

[dynwitch]

Ummmm.... Woodpeckers don't actually peck trees down. They drill holes into trees that are already damaged, looking for bugs to eat. I suppose a tree might fall down after a woodpecker's been at it, but that would be largely because that tree was diseased, not because of the woodpecker's pecking. The woodpecker is not actually trying to peck the tree down, despite what it sounds like to humans.

You need to get outside more.

[luziannagirl]

What?????? Woodpeckers don't fell trees. They drill for three reasons:

1) To find food---grubs, insects, sap

2) To communicate with other woodpeckers

3) To make cavity nests.

Woodpeckers are not beavers, termites, lumberjacks, or little engines that could. They don't kill or harm the trees they use---even the live ones. Please help spread correct information about woodpeckers, because lots of people have declared war on them for fear their activities are ruining shade trees and homes .