Rabbit or a Turtle?

We know that classic story of the rabbit (sungura mjanja) and the turtle (mzee Kobe). The two met and agreed to have a race. When they raced for the first round, the turtle was slow as usual but steady, the rabbit was fast, but got distracted, took some rest in between, and explored around the sceneries, and even took a nap in between. Upon his perseverance, the turtle won the race (round one).

The Rabbit

So many businesses jump in the race too quickly where they hurriedly do things and don’t always think things through before they launch a product, service etc. They don’t stick to what their business is all about or they rush through things to beat the others without making sure all the ducks are in a row. To these companies the most important thing is to be front and center.

The Turtle

Then you have the happy, go-lucky turtle company that starts their business off with what they believe is a great model and start to set sail. They think through what they want others to think about their brand, they listen, they adapt while keeping a steady course to the finish line and end goal. They make sure they cover everything and are thorough with their plan. To them they want to finish strong, never take their eye off the goal but keep a steady pace.

How many businesses have you seen that start up and take off in the beginning but quickly deflate because of some issues they have or they didn’t quite think through? And how many businesses have you seen that don’t necessarily stand out at first but as time goes by the word of mouth travels and they are all over the place with a great format and concept? So this leads me to ask: “is your business the rabbit or the turtle?”

Lesson 1:

•For “Turtles”: It is ok to be slow, as long you persevere, don’t give up

•For “Rabbits”: Distraction and arrogance is often times the biggest obstacle of your success.

The rabbit with its ujanja thought to himself, now I know what I have done wrong, if I change my attitude, I should have a chance to win. So, he asked the turtle for the 2nd round; this time, he did exactly what he planned to do: very focused and changed attitude, he won the 2nd round.

Lesson 2:

It is possible to win if we are willing to humble ourselves and learn from the past mistakes. Then Turtle got thinking, “There must be a way I can do this!”. After careful inspecting different routes, he found one route would benefit him greatly. He asked rabbit for the 3rd round race. On this particular route--> there was a river in between. As you can imagine, for the Turtle, it was such an easy race, he swam so fast, outperformed Rabbit quite a bit. Turtle had a triumph!!!

Lesson 3:

When we know our gifts and talents well, and know how to use it wisely; we are unstoppable! By now, Rabbit and Turtle actually started to realize both of them have different strength and weakness. They thought what if they could work together as a team, they might achieve to finish the race faster together. So they decided to give it a try. They chose the exactly the same route of their last race. In some part of the race, since it was all dry land, Rabbit carried Turtle and ran fast, when it came to the river, Turtle let Rabbit sat upon his shell, and he swam fairly quickly. The result, they finished the race together in a much shorter time. They were thrilled!!!

Lesson 4:

When we are able to leverage each other’s strength and unite as a team, the result can be astounding!!! Now as buddies, Turtle and Rabbit put their head together again. They dreamed about helping other animal friends in the woods. Many of their friends had hard time to go from A to B fast enough for food, or had trouble to cross the river when they needed to; what if we could build something to transport them....thus, they built an innovative vehicle and achieved their dream of helping their friends to cross the land and the river safely and quickly. Also, this vehicle could be used by everyone after Rabbit and Turtle showed them how. The whole animal world was full of joy, because their pain/problem is solved!!!

Lesson 5:

An innovative “vehicle” or a “system” which is able to solve the pain/problem oftentimes is from dreamers; those who dare to dream and dream big.

Now think hard and long and deduce whether you are a turtle or a rabbit…by the way both are OK as long as they know their strengths and weaknesses and complement each other.