What Are We Growing While We’re So Focused on Pulling Weeds?
#RebirthLeadership #1000SoulsInMe
Recently, two conversations stayed with me.
A mother—an educational business owner—told me about her daughter.
Her daughter had always done well: prizes, achievements, confidence.
Then she did not get into the specialised school she wanted.
The mother had often been very strict with her children. They sometimes described her as a lion.
After the rejection, she noticed something changing in her daughter.
Some arrogance softened.
But some confidence seemed to disappear too.
Instead of immediately correcting, pushing, or preparing her daughter for the next achievement, the mother found herself simply looking at her.
With tenderness.
She started talking with her daughter more. And because her daughter now had more time at her new school, they decided to create a project together.
Both of them were learning something.
...
Not long afterwards, another educational leader spoke proudly about his son, who had just started at a new school.
I asked whether his son had studied at the school where he taught—one of the top schools.
He laughed.
“No. He couldn't get in. But I don't think the school matters that much. I can see that he is doing well in his life and making the best of what comes to him.”
His son went somewhere else.
And today, he is doing very well.
There was no energy in the father's voice that needed to defend, explain, or repair what had happened.
It was simply one road his son had taken.
...
Those two conversations made me think about leadership.
We spend enormous energy identifying what is wrong.
The target we missed.
The team member who did not perform.
The process that is not working.
The partner who did not communicate properly.
The capability that is still missing.
The disagreement that needs resolving.
The next risk we need to prevent.
And of course, leaders need to see those things.
There are weeds in every garden.
Some really do need to be pulled.
But when we notice the same things happening again and again—our energy leaking, our attention being drained, while what truly matters to us remains—we can pause.
We can then look at the “hidden library” we are growing every day:
the stories we keep telling,
the language we keep using,
the patterns we keep repeating,
the definitions we hold of achievement, performance, leadership, relationships, and happiness.
And ask ourselves:
What if we become so good at pulling weeds that we forget why we planted the garden?
And an even deeper question:
What are we quietly growing while we are pulling them?
This can happen very quietly.
A meeting becomes about everything that is not working.
A partnership becomes a continuous conversation about roles, responsibilities, misunderstandings, and what needs fixing.
A team spends more time correcting weaknesses than multiplying strengths.
A founder spends every week solving problems and almost no time creating the company they originally wanted to build.
Two capable people can even become exceptionally good at solving difficulties together—
without noticing that most of their shared energy is now going into the difficulties.
I recognise this in myself and many leaders.
The “Survivor” in me knows how to deal with a crisis.
The “Controller” sees what could go wrong.
The “Achiever” notices the distance between where we are and where we think we should be.
These Souls are useful.
They have helped me enormously.
But if they become the only leaders of the garden, every morning begins with:
What needs fixing?
Maybe another question deserves equal space:
What deserves growing?
Not someday.
Not after every operational problem has disappeared.
NOW. HERE. EVERY MOMENT.
If we want trust, where are we deliberately growing trust?
If we want a strong partnership, what are we creating together—not only negotiating between us?
If we want capable young leaders, where are we giving them meaningful ownership rather than mostly correcting their mistakes?
If we want a healthy venture, what customer, product, relationship, or capability are we nurturing repeatedly?
If we want joy in the work, where does joy actually enter the way we work?
Because the fact about weeds is that there will always be more.
Solve one problem and another appears.
Clarify one role and the organisation grows.
Hire someone and a new leadership challenge arrives.
Build one venture and complexity increases.
If our definition of progress is “when there are finally no weeds,” we may spend our whole lives maintaining a garden we never actually enjoy.
This does not mean ignoring problems.
Quite the opposite.
It means seeing them clearly without allowing them to consume the whole field of our attention—and the energy we need to create.
Maybe leadership is not:
Problem → Fix → Next problem → Fix.
It can be:
See what is here.
Remove what genuinely prevents growth.
Then return our attention to what we came here to grow.
That distinction matters in partnerships too.
Sometimes two leaders keep discussing the third person, the junior member, the process, the misunderstanding, the logistics, the unclear boundary...
All legitimate.
But underneath all those conversations, there may be a much more important one:
What do we actually want to create together?
Because clarity is not the destination.
Governance is not the destination.
Conflict resolution is not the destination.
They are the gardening tools.
The venture is the garden.
And some relationships become different when we stop asking only:
What is going wrong between us?
and begin asking:
What are we growing between us?
….
The mother cannot undo every consequence of the way she parented.
But she can grow another relationship with her daughter now.
Her daughter cannot change the school she did not enter.
But she can grow a different relationship with achievement.
The father did not need his son's road to match his own to recognise that his son was flourishing.
And perhaps we leaders can do the same.
See what did not work.
Own what belongs to us.
Change what needs changing.
But then—
turn towards the flowers.
Because life, leadership, and partnership were never meant to become an endless project of eliminating everything imperfect.
And maybe this is our “hidden library”:
Every day, while solving what is in front of us, we are quietly writing something inside ourselves.
A way of seeing.
A way of leading.
A way of relating.
A way of responding to uncertainty.
A way of creating our lives.
What we repeatedly give our attention to, we quietly grow.
The weeds will keep appearing.
But we did not come to the garden only to pull weeds.
We came to grow something worth being here for. 🌱
And perhaps, page by page, day by day, that is the “hidden library” we are writing within us.
What are you growing today?
#1000SoulsInMe #RebirthLeadership #Leadership #SelfLeadership #Becoming #ProfessionalIdentity #JenVuHuong
