You’ve heard about slow fashion, what about slow entrepreneurship? Can a slow business be a successfull one?
Today I shared some thoughts about that in a section of a newsletter to the www.MyVisibleMend.no email list, but I feel like it’s worth sharing here as well.
I hope you’ve had a great summer! After some illness and a lot of stress I managed to get a week of mending, meditation and some soul searching in Jotunheimen. I’m trying to apply what I learn from the mending, and follow the principles of self love, self care, authenticity, whole hearted living and embracing imperfection, like I talk and write about. But it’s easier said than done! Mending is so much more than a practical skill, it can be a different lense to see the world through.
One goal I’ve had ever since I started working with www.fairandsquare.no, during my maternity leave was to find a way to be an entrepreneur without falling into the mindset of having to sacrifice everything and work day and night. (I failed!)
So many of the magazines, motivational stories, podcasts and books about starting and running businesses glorify that type of 200% effort entrepreneurship, and make it the template for how to succeed. I don’t want that to be true. And I think it doesn’t have to be. I think that with communication, community and authenticity we can beat that stereotype. But it’s terrifying to try to! I hope that I can run this business using the same values and priorities that I try to communicate with mending, if not, I’m a hypocrite, and I don’t want that!
The ideal of working like crazy to achieve and “earn” success is, in my opinion, quite a toxic one. It makes people who do succeed resent people who don’t want to make similar sacrifices, or, at least feel superior to them, and not want them to have success. It makes people who can’t succeed, no matter how hard they work, be seen as lazy, dumb or ignorant. It makes people self centred, selfish, and unwilling to share, because it creates a sense of entitlement. We’re setting ourselves up for a mindset and culture where success, wealth and happiness (all of which are really not necessarily dependant on each other at all!) has to be earned through pain and sacrifice. WHY? Why does it have to be like this?
I want to practice what I preach, while building this business. And it is terrifying. But I chose to trust that you understand it, that you will be patient, and actually appreciate it. That if products take a while to be launched, and a parcel a while to arrive, it is not bad customer service, it is not laziness or lack of business skills or knowledge, rather it is a literal protest to the fast paced consumer and guilt driven culture we’re in. It’s me (or us) walking upstream, against the current. It’s us paving a way for a more sustainable way of living, for everyone.
One thing I realised while away was that I struggle to think I’m good enough. I believe there are several reasons for that, that I won’t go into here, but one thing I can share is that I understood that to some extent my “activism”, my social engagement, my need to try to make a difference comes from a place of trading with myself. I don’t help people to want to get something back from them, but I try to help, I try to make a difference in order to feel like I’ve done enough that I can feel good about myself, that I can do something good for me, that I can be happy and love myself. And that is quite problematic. That’s not what I want for myself, for my kids, or for anyone who follows me in social media, my business or reads my newsletters.
I want my drive to make a difference to come from a place of love, happiness and emotional affluence. I want love driven change, rather than duty driven change. I believe it is important to be educated, to know about injustices, to allow ourselves to be angry at systems that work against the good of mankind, but ultimately real change comes from allowing ourselves to live happy and peaceful lives, and build a society that allows for that to happen, for as many people as possible. That has to start with ourselves, and it looks different for everyone. I hope to set a better example, and I’m so grateful for all of you who are supporting this journey and sharing these values.
