News and Events
Happy New Year.
If one of your aspirations this
year is to start growing your own food, you might appreciate
the guidance of the
Soil Association. Each month their gardening
diary offers
tips and you can find a seasonal
recipe here to
help you enjoy eating with the seasons. January is a good
time to
start preparing and planning.
Did you know that only 18% of potato
varieties grown in the UK are currently made available
to the public via supermarkets?
On National Potato Day (Sunday 25th January),
Garden Organic, the UK’s leading organic growing
charity, will be offering a selection of more than 80
different potato varieties
to buy, enjoy and grow for yourself. See their
website for more details.
The whole idea of running a business in a conscious
way, by that I mean ethically, holistically and sustainably,
can seem to many people like a complete contradiction
in terms.
Back in the 1980s, I was an employee
in a large multinational organisation and I completed
a Diploma in Marketing with
the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Although we did
cover some business to business marketing, the focus
was on “fast moving consumer goods” (FMCG)
and how to make the general public want them and buy
more. This is still typical of the approach of many of
the companies that supply our food for example. The idea
is to identify a customer need, e.g. to feed themselves,
and meet that need by encouraging the customer to have
particular “wants” in response to that need.
So, if a large supermarket chain is successful with its
promotion activities, then when we feel hungry, our automatic
response will be to think of visiting our nearest branch
of that supermarket. Similarly with fast food outlets,
when they promote themselves successfully, our hunger
response will trigger a desire to go out and buy a takeaway.
This might be deemed successful business practice in
traditional, profit-focussed terms, but it’s not
necessarily ethical, holistic or sustainable for the business
or its clients.
Having run several small businesses
over the last 20 years, my experience has taught me
a lot about myself
and what kind of person I want to be in serving a particular
customer base and also what it’s like to be a client
of FMCG type companies versus smaller, sustainable companies
with a more humane and environmentally responsible outlook.
There are a couple of obvious challenges for someone
running a conscious business:
1. Doing work that you love in a world of climate change,
dwindling oil supplies and economic crisis.
2. Turning crises into business and life opportunities.
Doing what you love in a crisis.
What is it about your business or your work that you
love? For most of us there will be several different
ways in which we can employ our skills, experience and
knowledge in order to make money and support ourselves
financially. How we actually choose to earn a living
can tell us a great deal about what motivates us in life
and what brings us fulfilment. For many of us who have
been brought up in a culture with a strong work ethic,
allowing ourselves to enjoy our work and follow our hearts
in a business environment can be one of the toughest
of challenges at the best of times.
In a time of crisis, be it personal,
environmental or circumstantial, it can be very tempting
to return to
old patterns of “dong anything for the money” regardless
of how we feel about it deep down. What I’ve noticed
with coaching clients facing this situation is that it
can be helpful to stop, ground ourselves and reflect
by ask ourselves questions such as the following:
1. Why did we start our business initially? What client
problems were we intending to solve? What is our business
purpose?
2. What are the three most obvious
signs that what we offer is top quality?
3. How does our business serve our needs, those
of humanity and of the planet?
4. How else can we reduce our costs and consumption,
reuse the resources we have, recycle what we no
longer need?
5. How can we better promote all of the above and
the benefits that clients and others involved in
the business
derive from them?
The answers we come up with can serve as badly needed
reminders of the personal and business benefits of continuing
to follow ethical, sustainable and holistic business
practices.
Turning Crises into Opportunities.
Crises, by their very nature, have a tendency to force
us to change our behaviour. Some of the downshifters
that I work with are what I call forcibly downshifted
i.e. they did not choose to downshift, but find themselves
having to change direction in life or work following
some kind of unforeseen circumstance such as redundancy,
ill health or a relationship breakdown. What they often
find is that, once they summon the courage to face their
situation head on, a new set of possibilities start to
become evident. The key to noticing those opportunities
is to:
1. Give your personal physical
and mental health top priority so that you’re
in peak condition and ready to act.
2. Create head space, physical space and free time, otherwise
you won’t see the opportunities, even when they’re
right under your nose.
3. Simplify in whatever areas of your life that you can
so that you have the reserves of energy you will need
in order to…
4. …be ready to welcome new opportunities into
your life.
Conclusion
To be consciously open to shift happening in a positive
direction we need to:
Be ethical, holistic and sustainable in our approach.
Be willing to learn and develop in ways we might not
even know about yet.
Stay grounded and courageous in facing our difficulties.
Be true to our purpose in work and business.
"The voice of our original self is often muffled,
overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s
expectations."
Julie Cameron
"
For all those years you’ve protected the seed.
It’s time to become the beautiful flower."
Stephen C. Paul
“ Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically
enough, is true security to be found.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
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