Achieve Greater Success by Imitating the Palm Tree By Debra Wier At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

I consider myself very fortunate to live in a beautiful, sunny area of Southwest Florida, located in between Fort Myers and Naples. The climate suits me to a tee: sub-tropical and sunny with bright blues skies. Exotic palm trees and foliage abound, enhancing the natural beauty of the area. Due to the sub-tropical climate, there are probably more species of palm trees here than any other part of the United States, with perhaps the exception of Hawaii.

However, there are a few drawbacks to living in Paradise: tourists and their driving habits, over-development, and the occasional hurricane. In August 2004, Hurricane Charley paid a visit to our area and made landfall about 40 miles north of where we live. My husband and I prepared for the storm, relaxed, and rode it out. After the storm had passed, we drove around town to see if any damage had occurred.

Since the hurricane made landfall further up the coast, the damage to our area wasn’t too severe and thankfully, no lives were taken. Some buildings had roof damage, business signs were damaged, docks were torn out, and many trees were either completely uprooted and some just snapped in two. The one thing that really stood out among all of the destruction was the palm trees. Not a single palm tree was damaged! That’s because palm trees have a great deal of flexibility. Rather than resist the heavy winds they simple give and bend with the wind. The trees that lacked this flexibility lay scattered and broken all around.

You may be wondering what the palm tree has to do with having success in life. If we choose to be flexible with our plans and our thinking, then we open ourselves up to greater opportunities. In a hurricane, trees with flexibility have success and trees with rigidity can often experience failure during turbulent times.

Flexibility in the body promotes better health and athleticism. If you’ve ever torn a muscle then you know that an inflexible body is not a good thing.

Flexibility in relationships promotes harmony and balance. Think about the times in your life when you’ve been inflexible to change or inflexible with your beliefs, only to later change your opinion. Flexibility in relationships means being compassionate and having the willingness to consider the viewpoint of another.

Flexibility in business promotes new solutions and opportunities. Sometimes when you’re too focused on one thing you fail to see an opportunity that might be right before your eyes. You might even close yourself off to a great new idea.

In trees, rigidity can cause stress and damage. The same is true of humans. An inflexible mind meets life with resistance, which can cause us to experience additional stress. Flexibility allows us to adapt when needed and expands our minds.

Corona has made their beer commercials quite memorable by using the slogan “Change your Latitude” and depicting images of people lounging on the beach under the swaying palms.

We can’t always change our latitude but we can change our attitude. So instead of being inflexible, be like the palm tree and experience greater success in all you do.

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