Slow and Small: Sweet Success

Life is big right now. My calendar is filling up with consults and site visits, but as I jot each entry in three different calendars to combat my forgetfulness, I am filled with a large feeling of smallness. I spent this past weekend walking the glorious Buffalo Garden Walk, connecting with future clients, and rubbing elbows with industry professionals who praised my bold move to pursue my dream career in horticulture. It was a euphoric few days, but now as I sit alone at my desk checking and double checking my calendar and email for anything I may have forgotten, I feel suddenly so small for this journey. Don't worry, by the end of this post I pledge to have worked myself out of this funk- but for now, I need to explore it.

I had no clients booked for today, something my aching post-Garden Walk feet reveled in, but I felt anxious that I should be doing something- anything- and that to waste today was the beginning of the end of my business. Logically, that's ridiculous, as I have two design/install jobs to write proposals for this week, two weekly maintenance jobs scheduled, and two site visits, along with some odd jobs for existing clients. I needed today as a home base day. There's still domestic chores, my home gardens, and most importantly myself  to which I must tend. Sitting at my counter eating lunch and writing a blog is not detrimental to the business; on the contrary, it's monumental to my business's success to take care of me.

These beginning times of running my business I am starting to recognize my need to set a pace, and remind myself that my biggest asset is a well-balanced, healthy Bonnie to run the business. Yes, I'm proverbially sitting on my own therapeutic couch and telling myself to breathe- and convincing myself that down time does not spell doom. I have this mental picture of self-employed people, always pressed for time, always on the go- and up until now mistook this whirlwind of busy to be in equal proportion to their success. I know from the outset that if that is the key to my success, I may as well leave the door to entrepreneurship tightly bolted shut. This business is more than a job that I must make money from, it is the gateway to a lifestyle that I am designing to sustain me as my best self from here until the end.

Quality of life is now intertwined with my business- because my business is life! To rush myself into activity is to contradict the very reason for leaving the rat race to walk barefoot among the gardens- to enjoy every moment of life- and to make even the act of "working" the fabric of life that defines me. Otherwise, I may as well go back to the grey cubicle and the dictates of a supervisor for a living.

August is almost exclusively a month of me- I am going on a sea kayaking trip with the Outward Bound Veterans program in the Outer Banks for six days, then at the end of the month I am headed to Texas with my son to see our dear friends for his birthday, and then it's off to Las Vegas to celebrate my half way to 70 birthday (doesn't everybody celebrate this milestone?) by visiting the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. OK, and the Strip- secondary to National Parks in my book.

Point being- as a business woman- my methods only have to work and make sense to one person, and satisfy one person's goals- The Bonnie of Bonnie's Barefoot Gardening Service. The rest is all incidental. My goal is not to work for a living but to live for a living. At times, without the tight confines of traditional punch clocks and dollar goals, I may feel small in this vast opportunity that is now my way of life. Of course I am small in comparison! I have the world of gardens at my bare feet, and a lifetime in which to tend them.

Forever Focusing

As a new business owner, it seems there are thousand different aspects of the business on which I should be focusing my time, and still only the same 24 hours that were in the days when I worked set hours and had defined roles and expectations from a boss. Now, I'm the boss. But I'm also the creative designer, the planner, the administrative professional, the laborer, and also still just lil ol' me.

I have long range growth plans for this business that keep crowding in on the simple tasks that should command my immediate attention. For this year, my set concentration is garden maintenance for residential homes. Future plans include a log mushroom farm, seedling CSA, and bakery. I have faith I will incorporate most of those pieces- eventually. When I talk about my plans- all of those endeavors sound way more interesting than pulling weeds (ironically enough- pulling weeds is one of my favorite things to do). However, they are also all more risky and require more knowledge and skill than the gardening aspect of my business. Gardening comes easy to me. There is hardly any overhead. No kitchen inspections and no temperature and humidity concerns to cleaning out beds. Gardening is the backbone of my business plan- and it needs to be my central focus in these coming months. Even design/installs need to take a back seat to the steady maintenance jobs until my feet are solidly wet in all things business operations.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Scones

I'm a passionate, ambitious person, and I have to remind myself that all good things are best in moderation. I had made so many lofty plans for this week- log drilling, designing a website, paperwork organization, along with scheduled maintenance jobs and three baking orders. It's only Monday night and the ambitious plan has my shoulders aching. So the log drilling is getting pushed to next week, and the website is on hold for now. The paperwork was completed today. Berries were prepared for pie baking tomorrow morning. I can breathe a sigh of relief that all my documentation has been filed at both the state and county level for the business. Fungus will grow another day.

I can see that without a routine re-setting of my focus, it could be easy for me to be overwhelmed by this business endeavor. I also need to remind myself that small, steady, strong growth is better than a spontaneous burst of spindly growth that could extend me higher than I have roots for just yet. There will always be a bigger goal to set on the horizon, but for now the dozens of little, simple goals are altogether my monumental, and continual, central focus.

Oh, and readers, if that seemed like the biggest snooze fest entry ever to slog through, I'm just getting back in the swing of writing once a week, and although I dazzle your eyes with pictures on a regular basis on my page, sometimes my life is drab to the point of my biggest highlight being a self-induced "Focus Woman!" pep talk. Reward yourself by staring at the delicious scone for a moment. I'm going to do the same, and then eat one as well.

Service with a Smile

I apologize for the long absence, tomatoes and eggplant are fruiting and I missed three solid months of updates on what's happening with 3BsWithB. If you've been following my story you've read a lot of talk of taking steps, thinking about taking steps, and thinking about thoughts of taking steps into a homestead-based business. 

Two weeks ago I took a giant leap: I left my secure job as a federal Regulatory Biologist and filed for my LLC, as Bonnie's Barefoot Gardening Service. I am now officially living the dream of gardener, baker, and all around farm girl. I had many friends and family supporting this move, knowing that I have desired for years to run my own horticultural-based business. Still others could not believe it.  Why leave a secure, well paying job with a solid retirement package a month before I was due to get a $10,000 raise to venture into the risky land of entrepreneurship? I can't adequately explain it in this one post- but as a co-worker noted a week before I left- the passion for this career move shone from my face- and how could anyone hold that back?

Yesterday I spent eight hours cleaning out shade garden beds, chatting with my client and dear gardener friend about plans and plants, repairing a rock wall, and singing my heart out as I went. Growing up, I was given the advice to find out what I was created to do in this life- to pursue the work for which my hands naturally reached. Discovering this was the biggest step- not just, what makes me happy, or what am I good at, but what work calls to me? Growing plants and baking things have always been my passion- and the handing of those goods and watching anyone smile as a result of my service makes my heart sing.

This is what I have found in my business- the work that makes my heart sing. It's a service that I can provide to others while also feeding myself, literally and spiritually. I often think about where my son will go in this world, what will call to him as a career, and I hope I can adequately show him there's more to choosing your path than finding out what you're good at, or what makes you happy. I was good at my other job. While it did affect my happiness, I did not leave because I was unhappy. I left because I was drawn towards what I was created to do- what came naturally to me, and what makes my heart sing. 

Will there be times of uncertainty? Times of hard work and other times of little work?  Isn't there that anywhere we go? Life is uncertain and ever changing, that's a given. Doubts will arise no matter where we stand. As for me, I will stand through all these times barefoot  in my gardens, providing the services that make both my clients and my heart smile.