It might seem weird to compare a plant and a business but when you look at what it takes to have a flourishing plant it is actually very similar to what it takes to create a flourishing business. 

So although there are many key factors that contribute to both the success of a plant and a business, today I want to talk about three. The willingness to try, research, and patience in my experience are the three most key factors in both so let me explain why!

Willingness to Try

The most important part of growing anything new is the willingness to try in the first place. Imagine how small the world would still be without people’s willingness to try new things, to fail, to learn, and to keep trying. This is as true for growing plants as it is for growing a business, because unless you are willing to try you never will. There is a good chance that the first plant you ever get will not live its full life span, but without the first plant there could never be a second or a third and maybe even one day a full jungle of plants in your home. The same goes for a business, because unless you start, you will never be able to grow it. 

To give you a personal example of why trying is so important, Plant Vitamins is probably about my 10th business, but only my 2nd to have any real traction and growth through its life span. So in total I have killed about 8 businesses, sold one, have one flourishing and still exploring new ideas and trying them regularly! But without this willingness to try none of this would be a reality. Steve Jobs once said, “Life can be so much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call ‘life’ was made up by people who were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” 

If you take just one thing away from this blog I hope it is the willingness to try something new, whether that is to get a new plant you have been thinking about, starting a blog, renovating a room, launching a business, making your first product or whatever new idea you may have. Just know that I believe in you and that life is a lot more fun when you are growing things and growing yourself!

Research 

I don’t think I need to explain the fact that things are easier to do when you know how to do them, but really that’s not the essence of this first point. There are two main types of research. The first type of research you will probably do is 3rd party research, (learning and reading about other people’s research and experiences). However, in business and with plants there will never be an article that fully teaches you how to do what you want to do. It can teach you how you think you should do it but until you do it yourself there is no way for you to really know if it works for you, your business, or your plant. So then why is research so important for plants and for business? Well like I talked about in the last point, getting the confidence to try something new is not always easy and research can most definitely help you build that courage. It also can help you identify different strategies and things to try when growing your plants or business which will lead you into the next phase of your research.

The second part of research which I would argue is much more important is the 1st person research, comes from trying new things and tracking their results. It’s crazy how moving a plant from one side of the room to another or changing your website's homepage and branding can change the trajectory of how it will grow moving forward. The Important part of this is to be diligent when you make these changes, check your leaves daily, track your analytics, because what is the point of change if you are not trying to change for the better, and how do you know if it’s better unless you continue to do your research! This really becomes a never-ending cycle as you can switch back and forth between the two parts, gathering new ideas from other people’s research and then seeing how those ideas work for you. If you adopt this strategy of learning, there is no end to what you can grow because not only are you learning how you can or should do things you are truly experiencing how they work for you! 

Patience

Now that you are willing to try something new, to do the research and learn from your experiences the only thing left in the equation is patience. Good things take time to grow and there is no rushing the natural growth cycle of a plant or a business. Of course, there are ways to encourage growth, you can fertilize your plants (and you should do that with Plant Vitamins), move them to a window with more light, or repot them but at the end of the day you can’t force new leaves to grow, you try things and patiently wait for the results. 

The same can be said of all businesses, some grow faster than others but all you can effect is what you put in, the results of those inputs are why patience is key. Sometimes ideas take weeks to unfold how you want them too and sometimes they take years, all you can do is just keep trying and learning and therefore patience is so important to the process. Imagine on day 1 of your business you want to close a deal with a brand or person who you look up to, but it doesn’t happen for a week, a month, or even a year? Do you give up or continue to learn and try new ways of getting to where you want? Without the ability to wait and be patient you will almost definitely give up, but if you go into the idea with patience as a key point then you can withstand the wait and eventually you will end up exactly where you were planning in the first place. 

Imagine planting a seed and digging it up every day to see if it is rooted, it will never grow, you will kill it in the process and your lack of patience will result in failure. So, remember we can’t always control the results, but we can always control our input and attitude. 

So in closing I want to leave you with one last quote from John Quincy Adams, “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulty disappears and obstacles vanish”

Sincerely

Zach Regehr