The Mindset of an Ant
Although ants seem like annoying pests in our garden and also our home, they actually serve many important roles in the ecosystem. From guarding their fellows to cleaning surroundings, they have to do a lot in their lifetime!
At Be Interactive, we believe understanding the mindset of an ant can have benefits in both sales and leadership. How? - we hear you ask. Well, here it goes.
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The purpose of an ant is to harvest as much food as possible, right? They scavenge and collect for the colony - being part of a greater good.
Now, an ant’s favourite season is the summer. Why? There’s left over fruit salad containers, ice cream and lollypop wrappers, crumbs, sweets, and plenty of excess food lying around. This is a good time for the ants, who pick the food up, and take it back to their colony.
Conversely, their least favourite season is winter. It's cold, it's wet - it's generally speaking not a great time to be an ant. Indeed, as soon as cold weather arrives, ants seemingly disappear into thin air!
Ants are masters of overwintering, or waiting out the winter season, so when cold air arrives, the ants' body temperatures drop dramatically and their movements become sluggish. Ants respond by seeking out warm places, such as deep soil, under rocks or under the bark of trees.
What this means is that an ant thinks about summer (their best season) during winter (their worst).
...let’s face they’ve got time to kill. When they ant is coiled up and contemplating life as it's too cold to go outside, they don’t get too upset about the hard times, because they know it's only a matter of time until spring comes, and then back onto summer.
When we are going through hard times in business, we can learn a lot from the mighty mentality of the ant. We must understand that even when things are not going great, the hard times will pass. It's about keeping the faith in what you and I are doing - and staying true to your goals.
We believe it's important to remember that a state of mind is only temporary. Tell yourself "My current situation is NOT my final destination!"
Ants think of winter during summer - these guys are prepared. They go out and collect the lollypop wrappers, crumbs and sweets to build a vault of food, instead of just eating what they have on the spot, or lay there and sleep. They are relentless.
During the summertime they actually UP their workload and effort because they know what's coming around the corner - winter. They’re proactively thinking of the cold times ahead. Like us when we’re pushing towards a goal, maybe we hit the target sooner than expected - we're not going to sit around and rest on our laurels - we're going to realign our goals, and keep pushing onto the next target.
An Ant will never stop - next time you see one, observe them for a minute. According to different estimates, ants can carry 10 - 50 times their body weight! How? Because ants are so small, their muscles have a greater cross-sectional area (they are thicker) relative to their body size than in larger animals. This means they can produce more force pound-for-pound (or in the case of an ant, milligram-for-milligram).
What does the ant do when it sees a big stick? They’ll find a way to carry it - no matter what it takes. They might have to go and get a few of their mates to help them out, whatever it takes to bring it back to the colony if they deem it of value.
Ants are relentless, we should be like them in our pursuit of hitting a goal. Who cares if you get a knock-back, who cares if a customer says no? Using the mindset of ant you can keep going, as they know if they keep going they’ll get towards their goal.
How much do you think is enough to store for winter? They don’t know how much to store. Enough is not an amount. An ant will keep going and going. This should be the same for ourselves. Don’t let anyone tell you what standards or limitations to set. Don’t let anyone tell you enough is enough.
You should be striving for records every day. You should be aiming to achieve your best day, best week, best weekend, best month, best year.