How Would You Draw a Butterfly?

Why every business needs both data and dream.

How Would You Draw a Butterfly?

Why every business needs both data and dream.

Two ways of seeing the same butterfly — colour and feeling on one side, structure and form on the other.

Ask a child to draw a butterfly, and the result depends entirely on where they’re sitting.

In the art room, you’ll see colour and movement — wings full of feeling.
In the science lab, you’ll see symmetry and structure — thorax, antennae, neat precision.

Same butterfly.
Different way of seeing.

I’ve carried that image for years because it says something true about how we work and live.
Most of us look through one lens or the other.
Some of us feel; some of us measure.
Few of us stay long enough at the edge where both make sense.

I still think about that when I’m working with business owners, because they draw their own butterflies every day — some in colour, some in code.

Seeing the Whole Butterfly

A few weeks ago I said to Mandy,

“A business is data enrobed by a dream.”
She looked up and said,
“That doesn’t go together.”

And she’s right — in plain English, it doesn’t.
But in life, and in business, it absolutely does.

Because data without a dream is just a diagram.
And a dream without data is just a doodle.
Neither flies.

The living thing happens between the two —
in that thin, shimmering space like the membrane of a cell
or the surface of a pond.

It’s where the inner and outer worlds touch,
where ideas breathe in and out of form.

That’s where Magnitude lives:
on the edge between what can be measured
and what must be felt.

The Edge of Understanding

Out in my garden, I can name every bird — in English or in Latin —
but the names mean nothing compared to the experience.

Knowing the label isn’t knowing the thing.

It’s the same with your business.
You can learn the terms, the plans, the frameworks —
but if you don’t feel it, if you don’t sense its rhythm,
you’re missing the life of it.

And the other way round:
feeling without form drifts into fog.

So the work — the real work — is to stand at the interface,
not choosing sides, but learning to see the whole butterfly.

How Would You Draw Yours?

When you look at your business, what do you see first?
The colours and movement, or the lines and labels?

If you want a business that truly lives —
not just looks pretty on paper — you need both.

If you’re ready to see the whole butterfly in your business,
let’s start with a Strategy Snapshot.

Businesses that are data enrobed by a dream —
beautiful enough to inspire, robust enough to last.

A signal up the aerial — somewhere between data and dream.

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