I was surprised when I first spoke intuitively with a business. It just hadn’t occurred to me, even though I knew that everything is alive. Literally. A tricky part is how that reverberates in our lives, or, perhaps, whether we will allow it to.
For people the concept that other beings have something to say to us, the right to say it, and often need to, challenges the basic mindset that we’re the apex of civilization. We have different brains than animals, true, and someone once said to me that a home or a business doesn’t have a brain, so we’re better. I think it’s more like the human brain is designed to help our bodies survive and thrive as humans. Other beings don’t need that particular device, or need it in the same way we do. It makes them different, not inferior. Biology is destiny? Weirdly, sort of.
People often get hung up on the simple fact that we invented our cars, our homes, our businesses, and much of what surrounds us (like peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips or computers). Sometimes I’ll look at my Cavaliers and my cat and realize we invented them, too (and, of course, they invented themselves, especially cats!). People are good at winging it, and then imposing rules on what they end up with.
Because we invent things we think we’ve created them, in something approaching ‘divine’ fashion. This presumes, and assumes, inequality. But, birds build nests, ants build anthills, so why is a car or house any different? They are things we’ve decided we need to survive. So they come and help us do that. It really is that simple.
In the current state of the world we depend on our businesses to acquire the money to buy the things we need to survive, from food to shelter. Whether we work for someone else, or go out on our own as I do, we need our businesses.
And our businesses need us.
How My Business Was Born
It took me a long time to decide to combine my writing, editing, and intuitive work into one business. I wasn’t quite sure how it would come together; all I knew is that I needed to be patient, which is not my strength. (I believe meditation should take about 10 seconds, and I tend to do my intuitive work while doing other things—multi-tasking to the extreme!)
Eventually I created two separate websites under one corporation that needed to represent the earth paradigm, the reality that all life actively cooperates to create a healthy future for our evolving planet. If we invited all life to participate with us equally, we would learn how to honor a hurricane and a weed, our homes and our food, our animals and our communities. Each of us holds the fate of the world in our choice—for humans, it’s our choice to be stuck-up humans or equal citizens on the planet.
Fine, but what was my corporation’s name? How could I describe transforming our culture and re-connecting people and the planet in terms that aren’t tied to the past? How could it be modern yet linked to the traditions it came from—our human past? I didn’t know, but I finally realized that my business would know, so I asked it what its name was. And back it came: Alchemy West. Of course. People are afraid of alchemy, because they think of dark occult weirdnesses, but alchemy is change, transformation, and this kind of alchemy is new, which my business thinks of as ‘west,’ and because we’re in Seattle, which is almost as far west as you can go before you fall off the continent.
My next step was to create websites when I have stubbornly refused to have a relationship with my computer (yes, I’m human and I goof up like everybody else). It took me months to settle on what I needed, sit down and do it, and find the right people to help me. In the process I became much clearer about what I needed out of business: community. I support other people and their businesses, but they don’t always support me. It’s a lesson I will continue to learn, because I’m optimistic and often too trusting for my own good.
What I didn’t realize was that my business had its own ideas about how it wanted to work, and that the many other beings I work with actually expected to be a part of the decision-making process. When I tried to do things strictly my way, for all the usual reasons, like giving business to friends to support their businesses as well, it didn’t always work. In fact, several times the failures were so huge that everything collapsed around me. Including what I thought were friendships.
Part of the reason was that the beings I worked with, especially the business itself, absolutely refused to cooperate with some people, and there was no getting past that. Plus, most of the beings who are part of my community and the Alchemy West Committee are not human: they are animals, volcanoes, beaches, my home, my desk, guides, crystals, salt lamps, the list goes on (and, yes, my computer)! Try to get all those beings to agree on a logo or the words on a page!
We had our goofs, but we finally did it. It took over a year for Alchemy West to gel and for me to get brave enough to combine all my work into one website, and then to launch our online magazine, Bridging the Paradigms.
More on that in upcoming posts.
How Do We Talk with Our Businesses?
I help people talk with their businesses. Conversations include business direction, mutual concerns, shared growth. The focus is on how they grow and learn together.
No, I do not tell people how to make millions of dollars or handle marketing or organizational development. Yes, I have formal business training, including an MBA, but this is about building a new relationship, one that assumes you and your business are equal partners, even though you may very well have different agendas. It’s a new mindset.
And that’s how you start, with thinking about your business as an equal partner. What first comes to mind when you consider that?
(c) 2011 Robyn M Fritz