Many Ways Up the Mountain

One of my favorite Thich Nhat Hanh quotes has always been, "Breathe! You are alive."

And so - an invitation to pause on this Monday morning, and to begin the new week with a moment of connection.

It's raining here, and as Chalupa frantically searched for a place to pee as close as possible to the porch, I thought about how rain is the new snow. Inside, kibble for her and coffee for us, greeting my writing groups, responding to emails from poets and writers far and wide, giving thanks for a community of folks spanning so many identities, whose poems, stories, and teachings strengthen the best in us and help heal the worst.

I'm reading Pamela Slim's wonderful book, The Widest Net, and in the introduction, she acknowledges the fear every business owner has at some point or another: "What if all of a sudden no one buys my stuff?" I am no stranger to this fear. And yet - something else she says right off the bat speaks directly to my heart: "I don't know about you, but I have no interest in building an empire."

Connection, community, authenticity, integrity, intuition, trust, and the truth. These guide me every day, and while I may be a solopreneur with no staff, it would be a complete misnomer to say I do this work alone. Friends, sisters, my spouse, trusted guides and confidantes, and of course, my bulldog help me ground down and stay on my path everyday.

Yes, I write prompts, I create opportunities for us to practice together, facilitate groups, read works in progress and drafts and manuscripts, offer feedback and reflection, and coach individuals at every stage of the creative journey. These aspects of my work are not "scale-able," as they all require my actual presence.

Still, the pressure to scale is pervasive, and with it, the need for the counterbalance of cultivating a belief in our work that exists and thrives outside traditional capitalist lines.

This doesn't mean wanting to grow is "bad." What is does do is point us back towards what values live at the heart of the work, whatever that work is. I've written often over the years about the tyranny of what I call BBD - bigger, better, different - as it has been a consistent practice for me not simply to resist this, but more importantly, to tune into what exactly it is I'm here to accomplish -- and why.

When I start paying more attention to the person who has a best-seller or the artist whose work is on the shelves of every Target, I lose touch with the heart of my work, which has always been personal, deep, slow, and steady. Honoring this, my business has grown, but I haven't followed the "rules" of more conventional business models.

There are many ways up the mountain (Capricorn sun, here!), whether you're growing a business, a body of work, or a practice. But influencer culture and billionaire status can have you falsely believing you're failing or that it's not enough or that it could all crumble any minute.

When these thoughts arise, I invite you to circle back to the very beginning of this post.

"Breathe! You are alive."

Keep doing the work that is yours alone to do, and remember that you don't have to have a staff to have a team. You don't have to have an empire to be successful. Pause. Then begin again -- the new week, the new day, the new hour, with intention.