BOBC Podcast Transcription #125: Butterflies And Bulls
INTRODUCTION:
Sometimes nature can teach us all we need to know. Let’s talk butterflies and bulls.
BODY:
So to the chagrin of probably my family and everyone that knows me, I love my metaphors. And so today is going to be all about metaphors. And so butterflies and bulls, because I have been noticing lately that a lot of creative businesses are lost in where they are as we confront changing circumstance.
So in the United States, whether we’re headed to recession or not, or whatever you might think about with regard to the economy and things like that, there’s just this consternation that the world is not as happy go lucky as it was after we came out of the worst time ever in terms of COVID, right? So all the, the success that most creative businesses had in 2021 and 2022 has been just a little bit more challenging in 2023
And the idea that, you know, projects are not happening as fast and people aren’t deciding as fast and you know, what’s this, what all the, all the things that can happen when things become a little bit more normal and we stopped to think about, well, who actually are we and what are we supposed to do?
So in reverse order, someone told me this story and I checked it out. It’s actually true. And so what happens in a storm with the cows and bulls? Well, cows, um, they run away from the storm and they run and run and run until they’re so exhausted and ultimately what happens, the storm catches up to them.
But they’re exhausted and there’s nothing really they can do, but then just absorb the brunt of the storm if they survive and most of them do right, they just have to endure what is the pain of the storm and can’t really see what’s on the other side.
Bulls on the other hand, they run into the storm. They run towards the eye of the storm and they make it right. And they sit there and they, and then they absorb the storm, but not all of it. Right. Because they’ve run into the storm and it passes faster for them. And then all the benefits of the storm, the rain and all of the things that happened after a storm does what it’s supposed to do, they get to live in and enjoy that.
And so the question is really, what are you going to do? Right. Are you going to absorb pain given to the short term thinking that is prevalent and like, well, your clients can’t afford this, or we have to cut back or we have to lower our prices. We have to do all those things that you just can’t do.
You’re just not allowed to do that. If you’re in a creative business. And the reason is because nobody needs what you do. So if what you’re doing is just acknowledging the fact that not only do you not need what I do, you don’t need what I do at my level, then you’re really saying, I don’t really have a relevance to what it is that I do. Because if I’m going to fluctuate with the, the changing tides or when the wind blows this way or that way, then what I’m doing is creating a fundamental mismatch to who you actually are.
Most creative businesses are about long term decision making. Even if you’re in the event business where it’s a single day. The memories are supposed to be indelible, right? And most creative businesses are in a long term window of what they’re trying to accomplish. And in that long term window, you want long term decision making because long term decision making means that you rise above the short term circumstance and you allow that process to unfold as the economic reality sits above circumstance.
And what I mean by that is for the most part, people that are engaging in significant. Creative business. They have a level of luxury, a level of indulgence, a level of crazy, if you will. The level of absurd that sits above whether or not they can functionally afford the work, right? Nobody throwing a $200, 000 wedding is worried about, Hey, at the end of the day, worried about whether they can afford a $200, 000 wedding or only $150, 000 wedding.
That’s just not in the process. Does that mean if there’s, there’s headwinds that people don’t think that way? Of course that is, that’s called a rational fear. Right. But they honestly should never have gone down the road. If that was the truth of it all, they should never have gone down the road in the first place, right?
So the, we have to then suspend that way. And the question is, are you going to run from it or run into it? And I would tell you that for the most part, you have to run into it because the idea is, are you going to be true to who you are, strong in the moment that this moment will pass and how fast it will pass will reap the rewards of what’s on the other side.
So, I love the metaphor because it means you get to choose. There’s no shame in running, right? It’s not like cows are awful beings, right? It just means that they’re going to suffer more than they probably need to, right? Because their instinct is to run away from fear, instead of running into it. And then they have to suffer the consequences of what that looks like.
I pray that you don’t. So that’s the whole metaphor. For me, the more important metaphor is the butterfly one, because some fun facts about butterflies. One, butterflies can’t eat what caterpillars do. Butterflies can only eat liquid and clearly caterpillars eat leaves, right? And a butterfly can remember, as I’ve said many times before, can remember every single day as a caterpillar, but in no way can a caterpillar and a butterfly coexist, right?
The way a caterpillar has to exist is fundamentally different from the way a butterfly has to exist. And Oh, by the way, unless a butterfly wants to be behind glass in somebody’s office, right? It’s going to fly, right? It’s going to fly and it’s going to explore and it’s going to see the possibilities of what it means to be a butterfly far different than what it could ever do as a caterpillar.
So that to me is all that you need to know about your creative business. Because the only time a butterfly and a caterpillar are one in the same as when they’re in the chrysalis, and which of course they’re the most vulnerable, right? Because they’re sitting there stuck. So within the moment of metamorphosis, they’re vulnerable.
But beyond that, they’re either one or the other. And so the point that I have to tell you is that most of you are not in metamorphosis. Most of you are one or the other. And the most of the people that I’m talking to have really decidedly become butterflies, but they don’t act like it, right? A caterpillar cannot act like a butterfly and a butterfly cannot act like a caterpillar.
They will both die if they do. That’s just the nature of it. So nature is great, great teacher here in the sense of you have to be who you are and you have to explore the limits of what you are. And you can say there’s a value to being a Caterpillar. Butterfly would never be a butterfly without a Caterpillar.
So you need to understand all of those things and what the beauty of what nature gives us. So in that mindset, if you’re going to presume the fact that you actually are a butterfly, what does that actually mean? What does it mean for you to be grounded now? How are you supposed to act, right?
Because if you’re going to get fed by trying to negotiate, make money on a purchase, try to just be relevant only into the spend. And because of the spend, that’s how you make your money or the effort or the hour or all those things that are going to get you onto the stage, as I’ve talked about so many times before.
Then you don’t recognize that’s not why you’re getting paid anymore. . And therefore you’re just going to be courting those people that have allowed you to be the caterpillar you are with the expectation that one day you’d be a butterfly. Or the fact is, are you going to own the idea that you are a butterfly and live to that truth and go into that space and really appreciate that?
So here’s a very mundane example that I am always shocked by, always shocked by in the world that we live in without appreciating what has happened for all of us. So for all of those of you who are out there, There are who are working with substantial budget. I’m talking wedding planners, interior designers, maybe contractors, those that have real money coming your way.
When I mean real money, I mean hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars coming your way that you must spend on your client’s behalf. It’s their money that you have to spend in order to do what you’re going to do. So ask yourself, If you were in that position, would you give that money to you right to put into your operating account to make sure that you get the whiff of you being able to use that money for other purposes?
Because remember, it’s not your money. It’s your money to buy stuff with. It isn’t your money to actually give to yourself, right? That money is separate and should be separate. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the money that belongs for them to spend down. Well, why wouldn’t you set up another account?
Look, 15 years ago, doing that was actually really cumbersome and really hard and wasn’t something you could do. You literally had to go down to the bank in order to do it. Today, you could set up a separate account in less than five minutes, right? Less than five minutes. And you can definitely specify that that client can see that money anytime they want, and they can watch it flow out of the account.
Right. They can’t do anything with it. They can’t take it back. They can’t do anything, but they can see their money getting spent. And as they see it getting spent, they have the certainty that at one, it is getting spent to that it’s safe within that other bank account, even though really, truly it’s not, if God forbid something happened to your business, they would very much be vulnerable.
But really it’s not, we’re not playing there. What we’re playing with is the idea that, Hey, if I want you to trust me because I’m a butterfly, then I will put that money in a separate account. Because after all. Who would you rather trust your bookkeepers ability to manipulate a report that a client is going to get as how you’re spending your money, whether that’s no matter who you are, or the fact that you’re going to a very big commercial institution whose job it is, is to report how your bank account is doing.
Which one would you rather trust? Huh? But yeah, you say to yourself, well, I might need some money, might need to have that stuff. So I just, it’s in my operating account. And that’s the way I’ve always done it. So, you know, my clients trust me. So I’ll just take their money and put it in my operating account.
Sounds kind of mundane and sounds. Oh, Sean, you’re just being picky. And, but like, why would I trust you? Well, why should I trust you? And if I’m in that idea that you should just trust me and I’m going to be good with your money, but you’re not willing to set up a separate bank account. Um, what does that say about you?
Maybe you’re not the butterfly you say you are right? Maybe, maybe just, maybe you’re using my money to fund other parts of your business, huh? How does that work? Right? So what I mean in these metaphors is for you to say, huh, what does it actually look like? If this is what I want to be, what am I going to do so that I actually act fundamentally different from what I used to act like because of what the stage of my business that I have become and how I have matured.
And I have to be relevant to those who I seek to serve very specific, which means how do you continue to dig a deeper hole? How do you continue to really appreciate and manifest what it means to be a butterfly? Because in that moment, you will find other opportunities that will come your way because you live the truth of it all right.
And in living the truth of it all, you will understand ultimately, what I’m trying to get to with both the bull story, bull metaphor and the butterfly metaphor is the appreciation that as things get challenging and things get put out there, like I said last week, the idea is to tell a better story. The idea is to tell a better story that will yield effective decision making.
And again, people, you know, always come to me and say, Well, that means they’re just going to get them to say yes, or I have to get people to say yes, and that’s what it affects them. Then once they say yes, then we’re good. That actually isn’t an effective decision making at all. What effective decision making is, is like you provide enough information so that the decision that gets made is one that can be relied on with impunity.
And so hopefully it is a yes. There’s no part of me that doesn’t want it to be a yes. But what we really want it to be is one that is a convicted yes, based on enough information that can be relied on. And if it’s a no, it’s a no, right? Meaning that, hey, then it is also really, really well decided, really well understood.
And from there. We can grow and from there we can learn and from there we can move forward, right? Because effective decision making lets you tell the next chapter of the story and then the next chapter of the story and the chapter after that until ultimately you’re finished. That’s what butterflies do because butterflies are living a different way of being than caterpillars and bulls run into fear, right?
They run into fear. They run into the storm and they really appreciate what it means to be looking to get to the other side without belying the idea that there will be pain. There will be pain. That’s not a question. There will be challenges. There will be bumps. There will be things to overcome.
It’s not a question of if there will be pain. The question is, how much are you willing to endure, right? So please stop thinking that you won’t endure pain. You will. That’s the nature of business and that’s the nature of, of, of all things we do. It’s the question, is the pain worth it? Which is another way to say pain, is the risk worth it?
Right. If you want to substitute, if you don’t like the word pain, then substitute the word risk. Is the risk worth it? Is the risk of being convicted in my opinion worth it? Is it worth me basically, you know, falling on this hill? Is it worth it? Am I willing to live there? Because if I do, what do I reap the rewards of and how can I be in that space?
And to remind yourself that if you can think that you can one day go back and just be a caterpillar once again, and that’ll sustain you, you’re wrong. You literally are wrong. A butterfly cannot eat what a caterpillar does. And so the idea is that the door has closed. If you have chosen to become a butterfly and you have, we all do, because evolution is evolution, right?
Then the idea is you must live that way. You must live the truth of what you are today, not what you could go back to yesterday, because that is an illusion that will never work, will never, ever work. And I see it happen every single day, especially when things get hard, especially when it’s challenging, especially when you have to be convicted, which leads me to the last point that circles back to the last time we spoke and this time.
Which is that, your way, the way you do things, how you do things, is a point of story and is a point of conviction. It can never break. Those ribs on the slinky can never break. And the failing of all that are out to just get a yes is that you’re willing to break a rib. And once you’re willing to bend or break a rib, you have nothing.
Nothing, truly nothing, because you are neither a caterpillar or a butterfly because you have nothing to rely on, right? And in that sense, there is very little hope in the ideas, because then if you’re not willing to define yourself, nature pours a vacuum. So if you’re not willing to find yourself, guess who’s going to your vendors, your clients and everything else around you except for you, and then you have no compass.
And without a compass, you can’t literally see where you’re going and you can’t act with purpose and you can’t act with integrity. And then you can’t see your way to the other side and welcome to being a cow. So please don’t do that. Please go the other way. Please find yourself with clarity of story.
The idea that being a butterfly is a beautiful, beautiful thing, not without risk, right? Wind and weather will. Definitely affect you far more than it would a caterpillar. But guess what the benefits of being a butterfly far outweigh what it is to be a caterpillar. And so choose to live differently. And then you will find the value and the, and be able to see things that you never thought you could simply because you know how to fly.
So that’s my riff for today, until next time.
