Instinct: The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive (17 page)

At the time, however, I was puzzled. How could someone with no real background in this particular area come into my organization and see things that I, as its founder, couldn’t even see? I finally realized that my past defining of Mr. Wilson had blinded me to future potentials. It was amazing to me that what I was searching for was right under my nose and I was not seeing it. Clearly, I almost overlooked the fact that some of my greatest resources were already with me. Yet I had misfiled them because I had seen them as they were and not as they had become.

My friend, take a good look at your life. Take a close inspection of those you have around you. You may be crying out for something or someone that is closer to you than you would’ve ever imagined. My challenge to you is to lower your neck, increase your scope, and never assume that what you saw before is all that there is to see! Reexamine what you have and who is near you. Don’t be afraid to let others see how you have instinctively changed!

S
ome time ago I was asked to be a guest journalist and contribute a series of op-eds for a prestigious media outlet. Despite my fears that my writing style and mental prowess could not compare with the impressive list of other contributors participating in the forum, I seized the opportunity and began to chronicle ideas. For my topic I chose a fairly interesting but not controversial subject and addressed it with all the research and writing skill I could muster.

This was indeed a new forum for me, and like most of us, whenever I step into a new arena, I want to do my very best work. So before submitting my entry, I passed it around to a few of my brightest colleagues who all pronounced it a stellar presentation worthy of the brand of that notable forum. Then with a sense of confidence I hit the Send button, and a few
milliseconds later, it was in the hands of the editor. She oohed and awed about it in her response, and we started a process I really enjoyed… until I read the printed copy!

Immediately upon publication, the online comments poured in and everyone had something to say. Some were contributing ideas and thoughts, others were complimentary and encouraging. But then I came to the rants and insults, and my heart sank into my shoes. I read post after post filled with such astonishingly acrimonious remarks.

Some of my negative responders attacked me as an individual, even though they actually don’t know me and what I’m all about. Other critics attacked the topic of my article. A few didn’t even seem related to what I had written—they just wanted to vent.

Needless to say, I was just floored. Shocked and appalled, yet still determined to penetrate the standards and earn their readers’ respect, I wrote another article for the forum. The results were the same.

By the time I reached deadline for my fourth contribution, I made some excuse for not contributing to the next edition and prepared to retire from the forum, assuming I was out of my league and over my head. However, a few weeks later I ran into the editor at a conference. She immediately asked, “Why have you stopped contributing to our forum?”

Shamefully, I said, “I got the impression I really didn’t measure up to the standards of your readers.”

“You’re kidding!” she exclaimed in shock. “Why, your entries were some of our highest-rated ones!”

Now I was the one shocked. So I began to explain to her about the consistently negative comments I had encountered after each article. She actually laughed right in my face and said, “Those people aren’t our audience! Our demographic is largely intellectuals who read for content and seldom comment other than to express another philosophical idea they deem significant enough to add to the dialog. I seldom even read the comments after the article! Those shrill, angry voices don’t want to be understood. They just want to make noise. They have nothing of substance to say!”

I laughed and walked away, disappointed with myself for allowing a few minor-league curveballs to knock me out of a major league opportunity. Why did I allow “little” to remove me from “much”?

For quite some time, I couldn’t explain why my sensitivity had assaulted my opportunity. It wasn’t like me to be so easily intimidated.

But then I saw the giraffes.

My defensive reaction remained a mystery until it came to mind during my safari. Watching a herd of giraffes illustrate a fundamentally instinctive principle, I found my answer from this surprising group
of nature’s towering tutors. Outside Johannesburg, across the South African plain, a galloping group of giraffes instructed me on what it means to eat at eye level.

From my guide, along with some online research, I learned giraffes are even-toed ungulates, the tallest mammals on earth. The males can reach heights of twenty feet in the air, craning their six-to seven-foot necks above their torsos. A stately species indeed, with their elongated necks, lithe bodies, and strong legs, they move graciously and gingerly with an almost regal bearing. They struck me as the NBA team of the zoological kingdom, only with the movements of a ballerina as well as a basketball player.

I watched the giraffes stroll onto the plains like a float in a Thanksgiving Day parade, and it wasn’t until they stopped to have an outdoor lunch that they taught me their powerful lesson. In spite of their long necks, which would allow them the ability to lower their heads to almost ground level, they didn’t drop their heads but always ate from the tops of the trees. I was mesmerized.

I had never really considered how giraffes eat, assuming they grazed like other animals. But watching them stretch and munch mouthfuls of leafy green entrees, I was struck by their own unique, up-in-the-air style. They clearly did not graze from the ground like many of the other creatures around their ankles. They liked the treetops.

And that’s when I realized what I had done wrong in the situation with my forum. The small herd of magnificent mammals—their group is often called a “tower,” fittingly enough—might as well have used a chalkboard to teach me their truth. Like the giraffe, I had aspired to new heights, but I couldn’t keep my gaze at eye level because of the clamor around my feet. I had walked away from a twenty-foot opportunity because of the chatter I heard from two-foot thinkers!

I failed to realize that once you reach a certain level, you can’t be offended by other species who continue looking up from the ground! Once you get to a certain stature, you can’t find nourishment in low places. Just because turtles dwell at your feet doesn’t mean you should come down from your height and barter with, debate, or eat alongside them. As you rise, you must adjust your source of nourishment and affirmation accordingly. Yes, like the dinosaurs, there are times when you must adapt and bend your neck to eat—but only if there’s no nourishment from the top!

When your influence and intellect evolve, you can’t move forward without someone behind you criticizing your every move. Instead of eating a huge gourmet meal of the mud they’re slinging, I learned to raise my eating habits to my sight line. I learned to always get a table on the top floor of thought and use a barometer commensurate with my own vision and goals to measure my efforts.

How fitting that this giant of an animal eats from the tops of the trees, since that’s what he sees. However, his turtle friends’ sights are too low for a meaningful dialog with those twenty feet above them. Whenever you collide with people whose sight lines are limited by the view they have of the world, it’s a futile exercise to expect them to see what you see.

And if they can’t see it, they certainly can’t partake of the wisdom your height allows you to have. If you’re sitting in a rooftop restaurant, you can’t have a conversation with someone sitting at a sidewalk café! My status had moved, but my appetite for acceptance was still down at the level of the turtles. This incident resulted in my forfeiting a treetop moment.

And I know I’m not the only one. It’s been amazing to notice how many people think like giraffes but eat like turtles. As a young twenty-something preacher, I encountered an older man from my church who asked what I thought he should do about his painful marriage. Truth be told, the complications of his relationship with his wife were far beyond my experience at the time. So after listening to him describe their issues with communication, trust, and jealousy, I hastily replied, “Divorce her.”

Now before you judge me for my mistake, please realize that my young mind wasn’t experienced with
the hardships inherent in keeping a family afloat. My children were small, my wife was young, and my pastoral counseling experience limited. Needless to say, the man who sought my advice found it terribly adolescent. He was polite, but I could see the disappointment in his eyes.

No matter how much I cared about him and wanted to help, sometimes love isn’t enough to span the gap between the hypothetical and the holistic, the evolutionary and the revolutionary. We were living in two different worlds, we were planets in different orbits, and my counsel was limited by the space between us. He turned to me for wisdom, but I could not reach the point from which he was asking. As you can see, in this case I was the turtle and he was the giraffe. My limited perspectives informed my worldview. I hadn’t lived long enough to give a balanced view of what he should do.

Most of our opinions are based upon perspective. While you must respect everyone’s right to offer an opinion, you cannot walk in the wisdom of someone who has never lived on your level. In short, a turtle and a giraffe can occupy the same space, but they will never have the same sights! You can’t wreck your neck to graze the grass, and he can’t touch the treetops. Stay clear of his complaints and counsel. He is only reacting to his perspective.

Anyone who has lived very long shudders today at the ideas they had twenty years ago. Perspectives
mature and ideas change as time and experiences allow you to find that what you thought in the grass seems ridiculous in the trees. That’s why it’s unwise to shout from the rooftop—or the laptop—messages that you may not believe tomorrow.

It’s remarkable that giraffes aren’t born with long necks. If they were, then birth would be like trying to shove a bazooka through a keyhole! God, in his infinite wisdom, develops the giraffe’s neck once it’s outside the womb. Similarly, our necks grow with time and extend our views with experiences and opportunities that forever alter our perspectives. The same plot we saw from the ground looks a lot different from the air!

I also discovered that giraffes generally don’t travel in herds. They gather in groups from time to time, but overall their survival skills don’t depend on their peers. Now, most people enjoy it when public consensus aligns with their decisions. But we must not hinder our progress by requiring others’ approval for the decisions that we alone must make.

This principle exceeds socialization and protrudes into what you read and need for intellectual stimulation. Because we are so impressionable as a species, you soon take on the attributes of the group you gallop with, and it will influence the outcome and the destination. I’m not sure why giraffes don’t have the herding instinct we see in so many other species, but I appreciate the reminder. The busier we become in life, the more
we must make sure the quality—not the quantity—of our relationships counts. The demands we face don’t allow for casual, meaningless socialization.

With my new insight, I made a mental note to study giraffes more closely for other clues that would sustain my stature and steady my process of survival in new arenas. They had much to teach me. I learned that a male giraffe uses his neck as a weapon. I learned that when mating season comes, the male competes for the female by fighting off other contenders with the sheer force and size of his neck. He wields it like a sword, often dismantling his opponent’s aspirations with the sheer force of his muscled mane. This is nature’s way of maintaining only the strongest of future generations of giraffes.

You see, height always means leverage. The height of your connections, the height of your influence, the height of your ideas and creativity, they all converge to elevate you to an airspace where others can’t compete. So as you escalate in status, understand that your ability to ascend is a weapon unto itself. Your height remains an advantage until you come out of your class and start battling with a turtle.

Now, I know it may be tempting, especially because you may assume you are more powerful or talented
than your opponents—and maybe you are. But when you stoop to ground level to battle your belittlers, you could lose your leverage and land on your back! Leaders who have reached a new height don’t stoop down to prove a point or ward off an assault. They know that even if you win, it doesn’t compare with what you lose when you fight beneath yourself.

The giraffe seldom bends low. Even when he drinks, which is infrequently, he retains the water for long periods of time. As fully loaded as a new Mercedes 500 SEL, a giraffe’s neck contains a highly complex vascular system that keeps him from blacking out when he lowers his head into the radius of the water he drinks. He can bend it and drink; but he is not designed to spend long lengths of time with his head down. Consequently, he seldom drinks, and like his cousin the camel, he retains what he does drink for long periods of time.

Instinctive leaders and the innovative thinkers understand that to “keep their head up” may mean more than just staying encouraged. It could be a dire warning against acquiescing to the tactics of the terrorist who seeks their demise. What others are saying often isn’t as dangerous as it could be until you lower your head to respond! Maintain your current level of vision, and don’t droop to the petty politics percolating below. It would be tragic for you to lose your balance and fall from your height responding to the hecklers who only envy your position.

If those who follow your lead see you drop your head long enough, they may eventually question your strength as a leader. Sure, they may encourage you to enter a fight at first, but eventually they realize that your energies are wasted on ground-level concerns while the larger agenda floats above you. They lose confidence in you.