October 28, 2013 Meeting
There are a wide variety of individuals who watch the
National Geographic Channel, well I happen to love it and decided to buy the
whole Africa DVD set. It amazed me that the people who were behind this project
spent four years filming this footage to such a detailed extent and were able
to capture the everyday lives of all sorts of animals that live in different
parts of Africa.
One of the particular specials was focused on the lives of
giraffes. Besides giving interesting tidbits of information like the fact that
giraffes can go longer without water than camels (which is a pretty cool fact),
but it goes on to show in depth details of a giraffe’s life cycle. In one
particular situation, a pregnant giraffe was being recorded over a period of
time to capture the birth of the baby.
When the mother giraffe finally gave birth, the baby made
what looked like a 10-foot drop down to the ground. After enduring that fall,
the small giraffe makes several great attempts to stand on his wobbly legs and
fails several times in a row. Once he is able to stand, the mother giraffe
starts knocking him over onto the ground for him to work harder and harder to
stand. At first this looks to be a cruel joke from anyone watching the mother
knock her child over, but after a few moments of watching this exchange take
place it becomes obvious what the intention is from the mother giraffe. The
first few hours of this little giraffe’s life is spent being knocked down and
learning to get up straighter and quicker, solely because there is a lion
waiting in the distance and watching his prey. The mother was in fact actually
teaching her child the importance of being able to stand and move quickly. It
may have been a hard lesson to learn at such an early age, but the mother
giraffe did what she could to teach her child how to stay alive.
Our business is very much like this scenario. We are the
giraffes and we have to constantly learn new lessons to experience our
successes and our failures. We get our training from the people that started
before us and we will continue to experience things that will help us determine
our timeline in the working world. This is about preparing us so we can go
through things and survive this wild business world. Starting in the industry, and
in everything we do, we have all been the baby giraffe and the mother giraffe.
We fall, we fail, we learn, we grow and we succeed. Be tough today and everyday in order to
experience your failures, so you can truly feel the value of your successes.