Be The Flower, Not The Seed

By Liz, Founder of b∙long

My oldest daughter worked hard to land a great tech sales job. She interned all through college and had the offer waiting the day she graduated. She learned to take rejection, get back up, and get good at it. Really good. She

was making real money at 22, the kind of start most people her age would trade anything for.

But she didn’t love it.

What lit her up was the other side of what she was selling. The design work. The part where the client actually built something real. She called me, worried she’d disappoint me if she walked away from something she was so good at.

I told her I could never be more proud of her than when she bets on herself.

Go explore it. She’d already proven she could sell, and that skill wasn’t going anywhere. This was her shot to find out what else she had in her.

So she quit. Walked away from the money and the security, went back to school, taught herself design and programming, and started her own company.

She put herself in the dirt.

I love the story of two seeds dropped into the same patch of earth. The first seed pushes herself down into the cold, dark, lonely ground. She

waits there in silence with no guarantee of anything. Not success. Not even a picture of what’s ahead.

The second seed decides to stay on top, in the light, where the world looks clearer and feels safer.

Days turn into weeks. From the outside, not much changes. But underneath, things are happening. The first seed is putting down roots.

She’s learning she can hang on one more day. That the dark isn’t so bad.

That the water, when it comes, is a gift. She drinks it in, gets a little stronger, and stands a little taller.

She starts to build momentum. Yesterday’s small win becomes today’s reach a little higher. The effort starts to feel like it means something, and that keeps her going.

She stays patient while the world builds her into who she’s meant to be. She embraces the changes she sees as she grows taller, and the hope of something greater keeps her going.

Then one glorious day, it happens. She breaks through the surface and feels the warm sun on her face. Free from the heavy soil that once held her back, she’s set loose to grow as tall as she can stretch. And her roots stay strong and steady in the earth, because she took the time to build a solid foundation.

She realizes she was never meant to be just a seed at all. She was always a flower, waiting for her chance. And she’s so glad she took it.

The second seed? She lies on the surface while the sun bakes the ground hard beneath her. The window to go deep closes. She still thinks she’s safe, right up until a chicken wanders by and eats her off the dirt. She never found out what she was.

Both of them started as seeds. Only one becomes the flower.

My daughter is still down there. Still in the dark, still pushing. She hasn’t broken the surface yet, but she’s building. Clients are starting to come. I don’t know when she’ll reach the light. I do know she’s not stopping, and something in her is getting stronger every day she stays down there and works.

I have never been more proud of her than I am right now. In the middle, before any of it is proven. Because I already know how this ends. My girl was never just a seed. She’s a flower, down there in the dark, doing the work and waiting for her moment in the sun. I always saw the flower in her. What makes me so proud is that she had the faith, the courage, and the tenacity to go find out for herself. And when she breaks through, I’ll be the first one standing there with my face turned up to watch her grow.

So where are you? On the surface, comfortable, slowly hardening in place?

Or down in the dark, doing the quiet work nobody’s clapping for yet?

I watch that work happen on the reformer every single day. The unglamorous rep nobody sees. It counts more than you think.

Be the flower. Not the seed.