In my new home there are high ceilings and wooden beams. One side of the roof is entirely made of skylight windows. It’s beautiful, light and airy.
Over the winter I think a couple of Queen wasps must have crawled in underneath the eaves to hibernate (I looked it up, it’s too early for wasps nests but apparently this is a thing with the Queens), and in the last few days they’ve woken up.
At first when I heard them buzzing about up there I felt a bit freaked out… But when I read about it I learned that at this time of year the Queens are waking up and are simply hungry for carbohydrates like fruit or pollen, after their long sleep, otherwise they will die. They’re actually helpful at this time of year as they’re non aggresive and they eat pests in the garden. They’re simply looking for a way to get back outside.
When I discovered this I began to feel softer towards my female waspy friends, and even sympathetic to their plight.
But there’s a problem: I know for a fact that my landlord has been up under those eaves since the Autumn and plugged up any gaps with newspaper, meaning that the wasps won’t be able to get back out the way they came in.
As the two of them buzzed around up there for days, each on a different section of the window, I began to feel for them. I willed them to stop trying to get out up there, and instead to fly down here where I could open a window or door and let them out. They were surely going to die up there.
I found myself thinking how ill-fated and pointless their efforts were; endlessly buzzing around, putting so much energy into the same thing over and over, bumping up against the glass in the same place, but to no avail.
If only they’d just stop for a minute, I thought, look around and just see what other choices are available to them. They could then see there were more windows down here and try one of those instead. But they never did.
Until this afternoon, right after I’d had that exact thought, suddenly one of the Queens flew down and over to the window overlooking the field. I couldn’t believe it! I jumped up, ran over and opened the window. She flew appreciatively out and off into the great outdoors, on to the next part of her journey, ready to build her hive and colony.
I felt ridiulously pleased for her (I didn’t even used to like wasps)!
It got me thinking though, how often do we do this very thing in our businesses? Try the same thing over and over again… Use the same marketing tactic or approach, even though it clearly isn’t working and doesn’t bring results, simply because we don’t have the bigger picture or know another way.
What if we just STOPPED for a minute and looked around to see what other options are available to us. We might be surprised.
I once learned from a mentor that all the opportunities (and all the clients and all the wealth) we need, are all around us all the time! We just have to expand our awareness to see them! Just like the wasps needed to in order to find a way out.
A key lesson I’ve learned in business over the years is that to try to figure it out by myself is the slow way. I’ve discovered that what separates the successful business owners from the non-successful is the ability to hire mentors and experts who know more and can see what they can’t.
Sure, sometimes we get lucky and figure something out ourselves (like my Queen wasp did), but many of us remain stuck for ages, and some even die trying!
Wouldn’t it be better to reach out for the help we need sooner?
With Love
Julie. x