You can’t change an industry if you aren’t consistent about communicating a different way of thinking. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Our industry has a deeply established business model. A property has trees, somebody identifies a problem or an opportunity, and a tree company gets paid to perform work. Sometimes that work is necessary. Sometimes it’s beneficial. Sometimes the best thing for the property, the customer, and the trees is to do less. But how do we get more people to recognize the value of the trees they’re already paying to maintain? How do we help property owners understand that a tree isn’t simply an obstacle, a liability, or a future removal job? And how do we help professionals develop business models that reward knowledge, stewardship, preservation, and long-term value? Those are big questions. They also require consistent communication. I recently watched a lecture about removing obstacles that prevent consistency. One of the exercises challenged me to identify the identity behind my own inconsistency. When I fail to publish something, what am I telling myself? “I’m not good enough to be visible to the world.” That belief encourages me to keep preparing, keep researching, and keep trying to acquire more proof of work before I share my ideas. But I’ve spent more than 20 years learning things the hard way. I’ve worked in tree care, experienced the demands of storm recovery, and learned to approach problems through the lenses of safety, training, and operational discipline. I don’t need to wait until I know everything to share something useful. The identity I’m choosing to practice is: “I already have something of value to offer the world...” My new standard is simple: - Publish useful content consistently. - Share lessons from actual experience. - Explain concepts that help people understand the value of trees. - Participate in conversations that challenge conventional thinking. - Turn observations into educational material instead of letting them disappear into another camera roll or notebook. -

Here’s a research paper from Elemental Tree Networks - massive for tree focused arborists. This is a service offering to help seperate arborists from cutters, first we learn to do it, then we learn to sell it. https://www.elementaltreenetwork.org/_files/ugd/7b4cd7_c976e7c183e74f28a613c99b3035a049.pdf?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio

I spoke at the New Zealand arboriculture conference on Thursday, this is what I said.

Hey team, we’re getting ready for the next stage. I am putting together a bunch of information on how we can actually start building a parallel system based on rewarding tree presence. It’s taking a huge amount of my focus, and at the same time there are massive challenges in my company that we are facing together. It is my intention to use this document as a build blueprint so that we can build collaboratively. Stand by, and I hope that the chaos raging around the world isn’t hitting anyone too hard. 🫡