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  • Ignorance Can Be Your Greatest Asset

    Posted on June 3rd, 2009 by Spike and currently 3 commenting.

    My folks are here visiting from the homeland (that’d be Dallas, Texas) and in thinking about how to be a good host, I remembered a special I saw on HGTV a few months about about A Man Named Pearl.

    Pearl Fryar is in somewhere in his 70s and lives in the small town of Bishopville, SC. Why am I talking about this guy? Because he took his double lot and turned it into a thing of beauty. Masterpieces that just happen to be trees, shrubs, metal art and flowers. Really. It’s amazing. It’s not the hugest place in the world, but it’s impressive, especially if you meet Pearl. Which we did. And what an incredible, loving, generous man he is.

    Hundreds of people visit his gardens a day, and while I could go on and on about Pearl, his life and how he’s using his creations to change the world, I won’t. You need to go see it for yourself. But what caught my attention is this: most of the plants in his gardens aren’t supposed to be able to survive in the South. But nobody told Pearl. And now those trees and bushes have been around for years. In his own words:

    Pearl Fryar and Spike

    Pearl Fryar and Spike

    “Gardening books will tell you that some of these things in my garden can’t be done, but I had never read them when I got started. Not knowing ahead of time that something is supposed to be impossible often makes it possible to achieve. I didn’t have any limitations because I really didn’t know anything about horticulture. I just figured I could do whatever I wanted with any plant I had.”

    Sometimes all it takes is a love of what you do, courage and a helluva lot of hard work. Sometimes ignorance is not only bliss, it’s the key to success. We’ve all heard the stories of people being told they can’t do something, but when you don’t even know the barriers are there in the first place, look what you can achieve when you set your mind to it.

    Pearl is an inspiration. And he has proven that unconvential thinking knows no limits. It’s a great lesson to remember as we all try and figure out what’s best for our own marketing situations. Sure, you can till the soil, plant the seeds and nurture that program, but sometimes it’s a matter of what you don’t know that can grow that thing into your next masterpiece.

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  • JaneL

    We visited Mr. Fryar’s topiary garden on the way back from the beach in April. There were only a handful of people there when we were there, so we got to enjoy it at our leisure. Mr. Fryar was home and came out to talk to us about the current garden and future plans for it. He’s an amazing person to have created all this with limited time and resources.

    The special which was shown on HGTV was an edited version of the full documentary of the same name if you’d like to see the whole thing.

  • Matt

    It’s so true. When you read interviews with people who have revolutionized an area its always amazing how little they knew about the field before they got into it. I forget who said the quote or even the exact wording but the gist was “Whenever I start a new project, I read just enough to get a base knowledge. Any more than that and I will box myself in and never accomplish my goal”

    It’s hard to trust yourself sometimes but it certainly pays off in the end!

  • http://blog.catchyourlimit.com jeff

    Great story Spike to illustrate the point on putting limits on what can and can’t be done. I hate when I hear from clients/friends/students/waiters/bartenders “we can’t do that?” What if you could? And like Pearl why not just try, if you don’t know and you just go out and do things you’ll be amazed on the things “you shouldn’t have been able to do.”

    I have a best friend who is amazing at living life this way. He has no money, no job and somehow owns two homes, a sailboat, an Umbrella crested cockatoo named CJ and lives a life of surfing on the beach and partying.

    When he bought his sailboat he didn’t know how to sail, he didn’t go to sailing school. He just did it. And sure almost everytime we went on his boat we ran aground or had one disaster or another but we always just figured it out. Not only does it surprise me what he’s able to do but he has more fun doing it than if he knew that it was supposed to be done a certain way. Because he pretty much knows nothing about anything when he does do anything it’s all the more of an adventure.