Day 42 of 49: The best way out ?

Always through! I believe Mr Robert Frost was on to something.

Yesterday I featured a quote by B Corp certified company Patagonia. I was extremely grateful to be gifted a copy of the book by Patagonia’s founder and owner Yvon Chouinard, by a partner of a company I may be working with in the upcoming months.

The book is entitled Let My People Go Surfing — The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. This already had my attention.

With a read of the back cover, it was love at first paragraph….

‘The original intent in 2005 for writing Let My People Go Surfing was for it to be a philosophical manual for the employees of Patagonia. I never expected at that time that this simple book would be translated into ten languages and be used in high schools and colleges and even be influential in large corporations. Even Harvard University has done a case study on our company. We have always considered Patagonia an experiment in doing business in unconventional ways. None of us were certain it was going to be successful, but we did know that we were not interested in “doing business as usual.” Well, we have survived and even thrived for close to half a century…’

I just know these are my kinds people. My tribe.

Scholarship results.

I entered my video for the Marie Forleo B-School challenge and picked up the email yesterday announcing the winners. I was proud and inspired by those who won while disappointed not to see my name on the list.

I so resonate with Marie and her values. She has been in business for 18 years and 8 years ago when she start B-School the motivator was to ‘help others start and grow a business that fully aligned with their hearts, values and integrity’.

This will be the 9th year that the B-School program is running. There are close to 40,000 B-School graduates across 160 industries from 130 countries.

Through all the years she has not upped the price nor is B-School the first rung of an upsell ladder with each rung offering a more comprehensive layer of training or expertise at a higher price tag. And everyone who enrols to B-School gets a lifetime membership. That means attendees can repeat the upgraded and revised program each year gratis.

I find ALL OF THIS, Refreshingly Inspiring!

What now?

When I didn’t get the scholarship I started thinking…

I thought maybe I could find someone through my network who would sponsor the first few months of tuition fees and as soon as I am more consistently generating income I will take over the monthly payments. I would also allocate 5% of my net earnings to pay the sponsor back. The sponsor could then nominate the next recipient /avenue for the funds once I have reached the amount originally sponsored.

I sent out a few WhatsApp messages and a woman in my network replied saying she would contribute R1000 to making my dream a reality.

Where I had been thinking about finding ONE person, this response felt like G-d speaking to me through this woman, prompting, ‘What about allowing many people to contribute smaller amounts towards the first few months?’

AH-HA.. more possibilities!

Registrations for B School closes Friday and I know if I don’t try this I’ll regret it, I’ll always wonder,

‘What if I was courageous enough to ask, to put myself out there?’

So I’m on it. I want to prepare something to send out via email and post on Facebook around this idea.

Being with what is.

There’s a scene from the animated movie Inside Out that always comes to mind whenever the title is mentioned. It had a tremendous impact on me. It speaks to the power of being deeply heard, of feeling safe to express, raw and uncensored, what is alive inside.

In this particular scene the character, Sadness, compassionately receives and responds to another character’s share without a trace of trying to fix or provide a solution.

This particular character, Bing Bong, was so upset, he had collapsed in a paralysed heap. The shift in him when he was given permission to be with his deep sadness was remarkable. He was able to then get moving again and take the next few steps.

A friend I used to work with reached out to me today. As she opened up to share it seemed she was getting quite caught up and distracted by the story, the people, the drama of it all instead of making space to be with and allow for the challenging emotions that were coming up for her around all the events and circumstances.

I realised that the power of Sadness to help Bing Bong reach a point of being able to carry on again wasn’t by commiserating and embellishing the drama of it all. It was in creating a sacred safe space that allowed for the uncomfortable emotion to be experienced and expressed, without judgement, without forcing a resolution.

I am so grateful for this audio (16 minutes) by Mooji that a friend from A Course in Miracles group shared this weekend. It provides a practical experiential process to help someone through challenging emotional landscapes. I, in turn, passed this on to my friend. May she too find it a valuable tool and resource in handling ‘negative’ emotions. May the process detailed within the audio be for her what Sadness was for Bing Bong.

Thank you, Day 42!