Helping Your Ideas To Branch Out And Take Root

Back when we were all still allowed to travel further than the length of our driveway and taking a vacation meant more than sitting in a lawn chair in your backyard, my favorite place to escape to was Hawaii. Anytime we travelled to Oahu, my wife and I always made time to visit the Moana Surfrider hotel for breakfast in the outdoor area they called the Banyan Courtyard. Aside from it being a beautiful way to start the day, we also got to marvel at the huge banyan tree at the center of the outdoor dining area. The featured photo for this blog post is from the Moana Surfrider website and you can see how dramatic and impressive the tree is.

What is unique about banyan trees is that while they grow taller and stretch their branches out like most other trees, the seed pods on their branches actually send shoots down to the ground vertically where they take root and begin growing as their own tree while still connected to the primary trunk. The banyan tree grows vertically like other trees, but it also grows horizontally. A single banyan tree planted in Maui in 1873 has since grown outward to cover more than two-thirds of an acre — but that’s hardly reaching its full potential. A tree in Bangalore, India has spread 2.5 acres! Banyan trees become forests unto themselves.

Think about how you can make your ideas grow and take root like a banyan tree

Consider how a single compelling idea can grow tall and strong through the implementation and improvement of each developing phase, but also how the concept itself can begin to spread and increase in popularity and adoption by people all over the world.

Some ideas get a broad reach, but never develop additional height.
Fax machines were everywhere for the longest time. Every office had one because their popularity had reach, but aside from government agencies and aging institutions like banks and insurance companies who really communicates by fax anymore?

Some ideas evolve to great heights, but never achieve reach and adoption by the masses.
Ask any video nerd and they’ll tell you that back in the day, BetaMax video tapes were a far superior to VHS tapes in terms of quality and definition, but BetaMax never quite caught on with the masses even their their technology reached greater heights.

Turn Your Idea Into A Banyan Tree

Think about what you can do to both improve the quality of your idea, while also finding ways to help it spread and take root as it branches out.