Coming back to nature: perhaps this is a slightly offbeat and philosophical post. But I hope you continue reading.
There is something instructive about spending time in nature; not just restorative, though it is that too, but genuinely instructive. The systems that have been refining themselves over millions of years have a great deal to teach anyone trying to build something sustainable over a much shorter timeframe.
The mighty oak #
For a forest to become established, nature has to expend a tremendous amount of energy before it becomes a self-maintaining ecosystem. Nothing about that process is quick, and nothing about it is guaranteed. But the process is extraordinarily well-designed.
Consider the oak tree. A mature oak can produce between 2,000 and 7,000 acorns each year, depending on species and conditions, with each acorn containing around 400 calories of energy. At the lower end of that range alone, that represents 800,000 calories; an astonishing energetic commitment to future growth. Nature, it seems, understands that significant output is required before a forest can sustain itself.
What makes the oak’s strategy even more remarkable is a phenomenon ecologists call masting. Oak populations periodically synchronise to produce an unusually large crop of acorns every two to five years; a coordinated surge of effort that overwhelms the capacity of predators to consume the crop and maximises the chances of successful germination. The oak doesn’t produce at a constant, comfortable rate. It builds, accumulates, and then releases.
And of all those acorns, that extraordinary caloric investment, only around one in 10,000 germinates and grows into a tree. The oak accepts that ratio without complaint. It simply keeps producing, year after year, trusting in the process.
Our projects are not so different #
If we turn to projects within our own businesses, the parallel is closer than it might first appear.
Plant a tree and it needs a great deal of attention and feeding in its early years. The relationship needs cultivating. Give it no attention and it starts to struggle, but it can be revisited and brought back to health, if it is not too late.
A project needs a significant energy input to get underway. The early stages are the most demanding: establishing the foundations, building the processes, making the countless small decisions that accumulate into a working system. We only have a certain amount of time. We only have a certain amount of mental capacity. We have access to a finite amount of labour. All of that has to be directed carefully, especially at the start.
But here is where the oak’s strategy becomes genuinely instructive. The oak does not try to grow every forest at once. It focuses its energy on producing the seeds; consistently, generously, patiently and trusts the environment to do the rest. The germination rate is low. The oak doesn’t change its strategy because of that. It simply keeps producing.
The role of technology and process #
Once a project reaches maturity and processes are in place to maintain its momentum, something important becomes possible: we can begin to reduce the intensive labour input and lean on technology and automation to sustain what has been built.
The project becomes self-maintaining. Technology handles the harvest. The significant human energy that established it can then be redeployed to the nurturing of new projects; bringing them through the same demanding early phase, getting them to the point where they too can sustain themselves.
This is the compounding logic of a well-run portfolio of projects. Each one, at maturity, generates its own acorns, its own recurring revenue flows, which can be used to seed and fund the next phase of growth. The forest expands not through a single heroic effort but through the patient accumulation of sustainable systems, each one building on the last.
Forest management research has found that acorn production is a foundational process of oak-dominated ecosystems and that active, thoughtful management is what sustains it over time. The parallel for business is direct: the right blend of human activity, technology, and process creates a project ecosystem that sustains itself and generates the resources to grow further. ScienceDirect
Process plus trust equals good execution #
There is a Franklin Covey principle that has stayed with me: prioritising execution requires thinking of business strategy as a living, evolving entity; one that is routinely revisited, reanalysed, and updated based on how things are actually going. The ability to course-correct frequently, and with good data, is what separates strategies that survive contact with reality from those that don’t.
The mighty oak trusts in its own process. It doesn’t second-guess the ratio of acorns to trees. It doesn’t abandon its strategy because a particular year’s crop was smaller than expected. It maintains its commitment to production, trusts in the conditions it has cultivated, and lets time do its work.
We would do well to adopt the same disposition. Build the process. Trust the process. Course-correct when the evidence calls for it. Keep producing.
Everything, in the end, comes back to nature.
Thank you for reading. Enjoy your time in nature.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
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