For the last three years, I’ve been travelling around the natural wonders of Australia, in and out of wi-fi so I can build my business whilst maintaining my connection with nature. So much of what I teach is inspired by the success of our natural world, specifically how we can grow in harmony with all of creation, without sacrificing our health, relationships or our planet. It all begins with pace…
You may have heard of the emerging ‘slow business’ movement, which some progressive organisations and even well-known technology companies are adopting by choice. It urges people to reduce the pervasive fast pace of our economy and instead reap the rewards of organic growth. I call it living in ‘Earth time’.
Mind time versus Earth time
Our economy has been created largely from the mind, driven by the ego’s need to feel secure, overriding our innate sense of natural rhythm and timing. When the mind tries to control timing, life moves too quickly for our bodies and our environment to keep up with. It pushes us to create more and more, without looking square on at the side effects of maintaining such a high level of growth.
‘Mind time’ has yielded technologies that we as humans can barely keep up with, it’s left local communities without natural resources, people with permanently high blood pressure, and eroded intimacy in relationships. All because ‘there isn’t enough time’.
Living from the mind alone has resulted in much noise and distraction from what really matters: co-creating with each other and our planet from peace, not fear.
What’s more, we are so conditioned in our society for ‘overnight success’ – we only see the pinnacle of people’s work when it’s in the spotlight of (social) media. When we watch an athlete win a medal at the Olympics, we are not privy to personal, financial and physical sacrifices over many years that made it happen. We take it for granted and worse, become programmed into thinking ‘that’s all it takes, I can do that’. We’re only evaluating what we see. In my view, underlying all true success is slow progress.
