The Web Before the World Wide Web

Spiders make excellent role models for bringing your creative and productive self to the surface. They create beauty daily, and if their webs are destroyed, they start again and build a new one. Here’s how to achieve satisfaction in your life by emulating these humble creatures.

1. Get started!

A spider seems to know instinctively where the insects (its food) are located. The spider gets down to business very quickly, and once the first few strands of its web have been spun, there is no looking back. They never quit until the web is complete.

I have written several books, and it is very hard to get started on a project that is going to take hundreds of hours. Even crafting a whitepaper for publication may take dozens of hours, and then many more hours for the revisions. However, if I just sit down and type just a few words and agree to return every day to type a few more, the book or the paper will soon be completed. It’s initiating the project that is the hard part. For any project or idea, you have to just get started, because there never will be a perfect day to do so. The surest way to defeat writer’s block is to just get started. Even if it’s just a few words on your computer or paper, that will start the process toward completion.

2. Believe in what you are creating.

A spider’s web is incredibly fragile, but at the same time, it is very strong. If you huff and puff and blow on a web, you will seldom destroy the web. It may oscillate back and forth as you blow on it, but it will not be destroyed.

The same applies to our practices or our families. We have to have faith in our ability to help our patients or the importance of investing time in our families as well as in our practice to see that that important element of our life is a product we are proud of. This requires balancing our personal and professional lives and placing just as much importance on our lives outside of medicine. Rabbi Harold Kushner said it so well in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People (Schocken Books, New York 1983): “I never met a man on his death bed who said, ‘I wish I spent one more day at the office (hospital, clinic, or operating room).’” Most doctors who are very sick and on their deathbed will wish to have one more day with family and friends, not one more day caring for patients.

3. If you’re a spinner, then spin!

Not all spiders spin webs; in fact, only half of the spiders create webs. Web spinners use silk to ensnare their prey. Other species of spiders hunt their victims, or lurk and wait for prey to come to them instead of weaving a silk web. Each type of arachnid is uniquely suited for and adapted to its hunting technique. A web weaver will always weave — it will not decide to suddenly chase its prey on its many spider feet. A trapdoor spider will always trap. In this way, spiders differ from each other and remain true to their programmed instincts of catching prey.

Each of us can use our unique blend of skills and experiences to derive meaning and purpose from life.

Humans are amazingly adaptable creatures. We use brains, tools, and talents to interpret the world. This adaptability is both blessing and curse; mistakenly, we believe we can do anything. We also relay this myth to our children: “You can be anything you want!” we tell them. The reality is that not everyone can be a NBA basketball player, an astronaut, or a rocket scientist.

All of us are bound by personal, biological, intellectual, emotional, cultural, and economic limits. Not every child will be president. Each of us, however, can use our unique blend of skills and experiences to derive meaning and purpose from life.

I am reminded of a colleague, a successful surgeon, who decided to go into the cigar business with a famous race car driver. They were competing with tobacco farmers and cigar manufacturers who had been in business for decades and had passed down their business from generation to generation of cigar manufacturers. Needless to say, he got out of his comfort zone and lost perhaps millions of dollars. This same surgeon developed a novel method for treating prostate cancer and became very successful, with hundreds of patients coming to see him for treatment. My take-home message is that you should do what you are trained to do and what you have the expertise for that few others have. So if you are a web spinner, start spinning!

4. Persevere.

Webs don’t occur instantly with the release of a few silk strands from the spinnerets on the spider’s abdomen. Most webs take the spider a few hours to create. If the web is removed with a broom, the spider starts all over and begins to rebuild. Remember the itsy, bitsy spider on the water spout and the rain that came down and washed the spider out? Then the spider went up the spout again. The same applies to doctors and their medical practices.

This is true of most endeavors that we embark on. It is said the great inventor Thomas Edison tried thousands of different filaments in order to create the light bulb. When Edison was asked if he became discouraged after trying nearly ten thousand times to find the right material, he answered, “No, I didn’t become discouraged; I just learned 9,999 materials that wouldn’t work!” The take-home message is that greatness comes from lots of hard work and deferred gratification.

5. Be diligent and hardworking.

I have not ever watched the entire process of a spider starting a web and taking it all the way to completion. However, I know the spider, once having started to weave the web, will work nonstop and diligently until it creates its masterpiece. As doctors, we have to learn to be focused. We have to work diligently on our goals until they become reality.

6. Build every day.

A spider builds a web every day—or every time the previous one gets blown away and destroyed. When that happens, the spider begins rebuilding and starting over again.

In the same way, you, too, can build on your previous day’s efforts every day. For example, it is not likely that the first time you write a blog post patients will immediately pick up their phone or log on to your website to make an appointment. It is necessary to keep writing and adding new content, providing value for your audience of viewers. Usually, months of blogging on a regular basis are needed in order to generate interest in your blog and website. It is easy to become discouraged and give up, but if you continue the process of generating good content and allow interaction between your blog or website and potential patients, you will start to see more patients enter your practice.

7. Create an extraordinary legacy.

Would I have even noticed the spider last night if it had created just a tiny little web in one corner of the garden? Instead, the spider created a masterpiece alongside the stairs to the front door so the whole world could see it. Granted, that was probably also the best place to catch its food, but you get my point. So—why be ordinary, when you can be extraordinary?

8. Go alone if necessary.

As far as I know, spiders always build their own web and on their own. You, too, can build your dream single-handedly. Of course, seek out help and guidance from others, but do not rely on others to get started. Don’t wait till you have put your dream team together to start on your dream. Forge ahead on your own—and people who can help you will show up.

9. Don’t seek approval from others.

A spider doesn’t go around seeking approval of its creation, or crave awards from some design council in the insect world. Just get on with the daily actions that will take you toward your dream. Don’t worry about what others think of you.

10. Start again and again if necessary.

So often in life, you will face knocks and setbacks. But don’t let that hold you back. A spider doesn’t give up and sulk in a corner every time its web is destroyed. It starts again and again. In the same way, you, too, can start again—learn from your experience, remember the lessons from yesterday and next time do it even better.

Bottom Line: Remember that building anything worthwhile takes time, effort, and dedication. Learn from these determined eight-legged role models and create your own wonderful web in your life. Your web can be just as beautiful as that created by any spider.