Waikiki to Lahaina, and a lesson for business leaders…

Waikiki offers more than ocean views and Mai Tais.

Wander beyond the hotel lobbies and surfboard racks, and you’ll find nature doing some of its best work—on full display, if you know where to look.

There’s the vibrant hibiscus, blooming like clockwork at the Royal Hawaiian. Delicate, bright, and beloved—but blink and it’s gone. A little wind, too much salt spray, or the wrong kind of shade, and it wilts. Stunning? Yes. Sustainable? Not without constant care.

Then there’s the screw pine—which isn’t actually a pine. Known locally as hala, this odd-looking plant grows its own scaffolding. It sends down prop roots, stabilizing itself as it gets taller, sort of like a company maturing into complexity. The hala doesn’t wait for the perfect soil—it builds its own foundation. You don’t often see it highlighted in glossy travel brochures, but it’s everywhere once you notice it. Quietly enduring. Self-sufficient. Built for the wind.

And then there’s the banyan.

Not just the 130-year-old beauty near the Moana Surfrider in Waikiki, but the now-famous one in Lahaina—scarred by fire, once thought lost, but quietly coming back. Green shoots now peek out where ash once smoldered. Why? Because its roots ran deep, and someone knew to tend them.

That’s the difference, isn’t it?

Some businesses are like flowers—beautiful and exciting, but entirely dependent on conditions they can’t control. Others evolve like the screw pine, growing more stable with each risk they take. And a rare few? They become like the banyan—foundational, layered, and capable of regeneration, especially when someone is shaping the canopy as much as protecting the roots.

Even the strongest trees need an arborist.

Not just to water or weed—but to guide the structure, shape the canopy, and make room for new growth. That’s what I do in my strategy work with clients.

It often falls into three buckets:

• Confirm what’s thriving and worth expanding.
• Stop spending on limbs that don’t bear fruit.
• Surface what’s been overlooked, just below the bark.

And here’s where we make one final distinction.

A Florida live oak can grow massive, too—but often ends up carrying parasitic moss, air plants, even creeping vines. They don’t kill the tree outright, but they sap its energy and distort its form. That’s the risk of unexamined growth. Strong, yes. But burdened.

The banyan, on the other hand, grows with purpose. It’s managed. It’s watched. It’s shaped.

And so I ask:

Are you a flower, a tree, or an arborist?
Are you hoping the landscape changes?
Or are you tending your roots and your canopy—with strategy, clarity, and care?

Let’s take a step back and look at the full tree.