Time is on our side — Musings about slow-entrepreneurship
After we sold our company and said good bye to 150 employees last April, we had a blank page in front of us. At that point, our life could have taken a myriad different forms.
The fundamental question was : what did we want it to be?
RE.Connect
We did not have an immediate answer. The mind-body practices we adopted in the last years, to stay sane, became very handy.
We knew that taking some time to re-connect with our inner self would help us find clarity.
Surprisingly, we did not need to search very far away. By just taking a well needed pause and step back, we realized that we could easily identify what we were naturally passionate about. Any activities we kept investing our time on while we had almost none in our busy California life, working to keep a work life balance, clearly meant a great deal to us!
We committed to dedicate the next 12 months to those.
RE.Focus
We refocused on what is animating us:
(I) Depth of connections with family and friends
(II) Reconnection to nature
(III) Share the love : the learnings, insights, anything that can help others
(IIII) Create, with a positive impact.
With that clarity, it was easier to start taking action.
First, we took a big step by taking our kids off school and committed to an alternative education for a year. An education we are much more engaged into.
Second, we moved closer to our family for few months, and decided to live in a new country to create a new experience together, closer to nature while opening new horizons.
And third, I used my new additional free time to focus on my mum’s health. I used what I learned for myself, researched, created a program for her, asked my functional MD if this was right, and held her hand through the process. After she lost 36 pounds regained amazing #energy, her #vitality, 6 of my friends asked me to share it with them.
This is how the Healthy Lifers RESET program was born. We are now a community of over 110 people from 3 continents, committed to a healthier lifestyle. We do so by going back to basics, reconnecting to our body and the healing wonders nature has to offer.
RE.Balance
Healthy lifers has become a central part of my day. It took a life of its own and grew in a way we did not expect nor planned for. By listening to the community, new ideas came up. And all the sudden we have a 5 days immersive Costa Rica retreat planned end of January, and in 1 week almost half of the capacity sold out before we even made it public.
This project became so rewarding in many ways. Seeing other’s transformation happen, different than mine or my mum’s made my heart full.
Everything is calling to invest more time on this project. And I could already work on it day and night. And this I know very well how to do!
It was easy to forget about the intent of our year away. We committed to leaving space in our life to do things more deeply, more mindfully. To create and have impact but not at the pace the system is inviting us to take. Specifically not at the cost of the precious time with our loved ones, and the time to live, pay more attention.
I do not have the solution yet, and I give myself a year to figure something out for me. For now what I know is that it is not a all or nothing. Part of the solution is in the a slower pace. Right now 15–20 hours week is what I will limit of what I can give to the project.
This year will be a slow-entrepreneurship year for me. Challenging the rules and expectations from my dear Silicon Valley.
It might just become a new way of living for us. A new way of creating. A new pace of life, outside of the system.
“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.”
— Pico Iyer
#entrepeneurship #slowliving #inflow #mindbodyspirit #realhealthylifers #healthylifestyles #celebrate #healthyliferstransformation #transformation #pace
