Look at your shadow!
Go ahead look at your shadow. The shadow knows.
Lurking shadows can slow your business down.
What are you avoiding? What or who is following you around that you don?t want to deal with? Do you have a problem shadow?
Frank Asch in the children?s book, Bear Shadow, reminds us about business problems we need to confront in order to move forward.
Bear went down to the pond to fish one afternoon. Bear saw a big fish. ?I?m going to catch that fish, thought Bear to himself.?
Something scared the big fish away?his shadow. ? ? Go away, Shadow!? cried Bear. But Bear?s shadow would not go away.?
Is there something you keep avoiding doing in your business? What?s nagging you? Do you have a problem client? A legal issue? Have you not dealt with public relations? Or, getting your product submissions out to magazines in time for the holidays?
Bear?s shadow does not leave him alone. Bear tries many ways to eradicate his shadow. ?He ran through a field of flowers, jumped over the brook and hid behind a tree?But when he stepped from behind the tree the first thing he saw was Shadow.? Shadow is in capital letters!
A small problem that is avoided can become a big one.
Bear sees a cliff. ?Bear walked over to the cliff and looked up. I?ll climb so high Shadow won?t be able to follow me, thought Bear. Bear climbed higher and higher until at last he pulled himself up to the top. Huffing and puffing, he smiled with pride. Then he looked down and saw Shadow.?
Problems have a terrible way of taking up so much of our time. We obsess over not dealing with ?a problem.?
Bear tries to hammer the Shadow to the ground, but that doesn?t work. He digs a hole, but his shadow does not fall into the hole.
When he finishes filling the hole??the sun was high in the sky and Shadow was no where to be seen. ? At last! sighed Bear. ?No more shadow.? ?
Bear is tired, so he goes to bed. The next morning when bear opens his door—his shadow greets him again! ?He slammed the door, hoping to lock Shadow inside. But Shadow was too quick.?
So, sit down and make of list of stuff you are avoiding?the stuff you will do after you get to x, y, and z. Reverse your list. Put that ?stuff? at the top. Deal with the issue one phone call at a time, one thought at a time, one letter at a time.
Bear talks to Shadow. ?How about this?if you let me catch a fish, I?ll let you catch one too. Nod your head like this if it?s a deal.? When Bear nodded his head, Shadow nodded too?.By this time the sun was in a different part of the sky, which made it easy for Shadow to keep his part of the deal. And when Bear caught that big fish, Shadow caught one too.?
So, make yourself do the tough stuff in the morning?when your shadow hasn?t had a change to take full, sharp form!
Cheers,
Gwen
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