By Graham Moore
Please choose only one of these three things:
A carrot
An egg
A coffee bean
Now give yourself a brief explanation as to why you chose this particular item. It normally comes down quite simply to likes and dislikes. In my experience the least popular is the carrot, followed by the egg, with the most popular choice being the humble coffee bean!
So, what’s my point? A good friend of mine, former documentary producer, Rachel Oakes, once told me a story about an Indonesian man she met whilst making a movie about him. The man lived deep in the rainforest, and she asked him how he coped with change in the world and his natural habitat?
She travelled to the man’s dwelling and with the help of interpreters, he explained his answer to Rachel. He pointed to a large pot of boiling water & he held up a carrot. He confirmed that the carrot was hard and brittle but after twenty minutes in the boiling pot, the water had destroyed the consistency of the carrot, which would then turn to mush. He continued to tell a similar story about the egg, which obviously went from fluid on the inside to very hard because the water had altered the consistency.
The coffee beans were different though, their consistency was unaffected as they remained the same size and shape, instead they had impacted on the water. The water had a different colour, taste & smell.
We all get that choice every moment of every day. Life is tough and it has the potential to grind us down and alter our ‘consistency. Conversely, we each have the potential to not allow this to happen, indeed we all have the potential to be a positive impact in the world. Whether you are a teacher in a school or a colleague in a workplace, you have the ability and more importantly the choice to be at the cause or the effect of workplace culture.
Regardless of our professions and roles, no matter where we are in the workplace hierarchy, we can either let toxicity and negativity affect our consistency or we can choose to impact the culture of our workplaces by being a force of positivity in the lives of our colleagues. So, what’s it to be, carrot, egg or coffee bean? Its your choice!
Happy Friday.
I share this story on every teacher training/support staff CPD days that I run and it always hits the spot!
