“Life is composed of life cycles and seasons.”

A thought by Henry Cloud, from his book, Necessary Endings (p. 40).

HarperCollins e-books. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

We need to accept this and expect it.

Henry says, “Nothing lasts forever. Even the ceremonial liturgy of marriage, a lifelong commitment, acknowledges an end on its first day, ‘till death do us part.’ Life cycles and seasons are built into the nature of everything. When we accept that as a fundamental truth, we can align our actions with our feelings, our beliefs with our behaviors, to accept how things are, even when they die.”

“He says, “Each season also has its own set of activities. Spring is about sowing and beginnings. Where there is nothing but a waiting field, the farmer sows seeds in the expectation that they will take root and produce a harvest.

“The tasks of spring include:

•      Cleaning out what is left over from the winter’s dying plants;

•      Gathering seeds;

•      Figuring out which fields you are going to work;

•      Making sure you have the resources to take you through the year;

•      Actual sowing and planting;

•      Protecting seedlings from the elements and intruders; and

•      Nurturing the vision of the harvest to guide the task.

“In summer, things change again. It is time to tend to what has taken root. The tasks of summer include:

•      Directing resources to ensure the crops are growing;

•      Preventing disease and keeping insects and other pests away;

•      Watering, fertilizing, and pruning;

•      Supporting the plants until they can stand on their own; and

•      Monitoring, managing, and protecting the crops for the future.

“Fall is harvest time:

•      Acting with urgency to get crops out of the field before they rot or are damaged by rain or the cold of winter;

•      Gathering the harvest completely, not leaving anything in the field;

•      Harvesting with efficiency and watching the costs; and

•      Harvesting with care so you don’t destroy the field in the process.

“In winter, everything dies, though preparations continue. The tasks of winter include:

•      Getting the financials in order;

•      Squaring accounts with lenders for last years’ crops and lining up next year’s money;

•      Repairing equipment and getting it ready for next year;

•      Preparing fields for the upcoming year; and

•      Reviewing the successes and failures of the past year and tweaking things to do everything better next year.”

He continues, “The problem comes when we do not accept, or we willfully ignore these seasons. One classic example is the entrepreneur who begins a business through ‘sowing seeds’ into a market: making calls, meeting people, investing seed money, starting-starting-starting. Every aspect is generative in nature. That is the first season.

“The business takes root. Summer comes. Now you have a real plant, not a start-up. Now you have a business that needs to be managed, guided, nurtured, developed, protected, trimmed, watered, and so on. That requires leadership and management, skills a lot of entrepreneurs don’t have. Or at least they resist developing because they have not come to grips with the reality of the seasons. They think all of life and business is a start-up. ‘More, more, more,’ is their mantra. That can kill a business that could have had a very good life if someone had seen that sowing had to stop and operating had to begin.

“At other times, the end of summer is not seen, and there is no urgency to harvest what has been grown. There is much low-hanging fruit in the business, but the management phase has become the way that everything is always done, the ‘new normal’ instead of a season. This often makes a company ripe for a takeover. Deep-pocketed investors look at the business and see a lot of harvest that is not being captured because management is too busy ‘tending to business, a summer activity, instead of moving on to a fall harvest.”

He then says, “Then, finally, harvest season ends, and it is time to shut down and exit that line, strategy, sector, or whatever. But the ones who don’t believe in seasons think that it is going to last forever. Real estate developers, for instance, who don’t believe in life cycles, go long on land when the market is up, thinking ‘we can mine this field forever.’ They build big infrastructures with huge overhead in the boom harvest times (remember the dot-com days) and then, when the days get short, they are caught without enough resources to keep the lights on. They just did not believe that a winter would ever come.”

Such good insight isn’t it? 

Yes, yes!