Friendship as a Business Foundation?

On embracing my working monkness.

Welcome! This publication is about helping you grow in joyful ways, and doing the work you feel called to do.

Hi friend,

I had a dream.

You see, I have been wondering about the next steps for my business. A few years ago, it had reached a place I was somewhat content with.

And then, the fire nation attacked. 🔥

The pandemic changed the world, and parenthood changed me. To the core.

To preserve my energy, I stopped marketing my business. Surprisingly, this worked well enough for about 2 years. 😅 Thanks to my existing clients, I maintained my income while working a lot less. Eventually, most of them finished up — an indication it was time to focus on my business one again.

But along the way, I had realized something profound: I have enough. *

And, because I have enough, I don’t necessarily need my business to make money.

But, the whole point of a business is to make money, right?

Or maybe that’s not true.

🤔 Maybe the point of a business is to create value: for the people you serve AND for yourself. 

I guess you can see why I have been confused—even after mentally reviewing all the business trainings I have taken over the years.

So, I abandoned my left-brain attempts of solving the issue… and reached out to my shaman.

BE Goal: Realizing I want to be a working monk

Talking to my shaman helped me realized that what I really want is to be — a working monk.

With a husband. And a child. And a house. And an EV. And… a business.

Just like my internal “working monk” suddenly showed up, this monk appeared out of nowhere while we were visiting ruins in Angkor Wat on our honeymoon.

It felt so good when I came up with the term “working monk,” to describe what I really wanted. I like how it’s a play on “working mom”. What I like even more is that it brings two things together:

• the world of spiritual fulfillment, which is accompanied by peace and a sense of true wellness, and

• the world itself, with its exciting demands and opportunities, and challenges, and potentials.

I always felt like I had to choose between one or the other. I could be the proverbial monk in a cave, and have my peace and spiritual fulfillment. Or I could be participating in the world, and get satisfaction from creating and building and pursuing—and hopefully help people along the way.

But what if I could have both? What if I could be a working monk?

What if I didn’t have to choose?

When I talked to my friends from my business mastermind group about this realization, one person’s face lit up. 🤩

She said: “I always wanted to be a monk.” The term “working monk” really resonated with her and clarified things for her (you know how sometimes, finding the right words makes all the difference?).

Hah!

Turns out, I’m not alone.

The realization of what I wanted to be was important, but it didn’t answer what I wanted to do. **

🤔 How does a working monk do business? 

DO goal: Realizing that I want friendship as my business foundation

So, I asked for a dream to help me get clear on the next steps. (Yep, I was really done with left-brain attempts to solve my conundrum!)

That night, I had a dream.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the gist of the dream was this: friendship. I was standing in the rain and looking at a map.

In that map, I noticed a pattern of friendship. I showed it to my childhood friend. It took her a moment to see it (I felt pretty silly while trying to point it out), but eventually, she could see it, too.

This got me thinking:

🤔 Could friendship somehow be a business foundation? 

An hour or so after awakening from that dream, I met with my mastermind group, where I shared how I felt stuck in my business.

One person suggested I could start offering regular paid meetings. She told me: “If you do your working monk meetings, let me know. I’m interested!” Another friend agreed.

This was great to hear. I hadn’t even talked about the whole working monk thing publicly, and I already had 1-2 people who were interested? And all because I had spoken to my friends? Yay!

This made me think about how great it would be to see everyone I interact with in my business as a friend. 🤗

The qualities of friendship

After all, good friendships are win-wins. In a friendship, we want our friend to do well, and they want us to do well.

The idea of friendship also has appropriate boundaries built into it. In general, people are willing to put up with more from family members than from friends. Which means that we’re generally on better behavior with friends, and that our friends are on better behavior with us.

Also, friendships indicate a like-mindedness. Unlike family that we don’t get to choose, we typically become friends with people who are like us in some ways—traits, values, interests, etc.

And, it’s okay to ask your friends from help.

So, by making friendship the foundation of my business, I integrate the following ideas into it:

• mutual flourishing/win-wins,

• good boundaries,

• like-mindedness, and

• the ability to ask for help.

I have no idea if it’s possible to have friendship as a business foundation, but I’m willing to try.

So let me start by asking for help! :)

I could use your input:

If you are potentially interested in “working monk” meetings, I’d love to hear from you:

• What would you want from them?

• What problem would you like support with?

• How often would you want to meet?

You can leave a comment, hit reply to this email, or message me.

Warmly,
Louise

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Notes

* On having enough:

When it comes to our sense of enoughness, I believe there are 3 groups of people:

1. those who don’t have enough and know it,

2. those who do have enough but don’t know it, and

3. those who have enough and know it.

Group 1 is, unfortunately, pretty big. People in this group perceive reality accurately, and have goals that make sense: they don’t have enough, so they want more. When you find yourself in this group, wanting more is a very appropriate goal!

Group 2 is a lot bigger than we might think. Because of cultural conditioning, these people don’t realize how much they already have. So, they want more and more and more, which keeps them in a perpetual state of “not-enoughness”.

Group 3 is the smallest group, at least in the West. Unlike group 2, they perceive reality accurately: they know they have enough. These people are often interested in spirituality, frugal living, Minimalism, and/or the FIRE movement.

The bottom line is this: almost everything you see, read, or hear is from someone in group 1 or 2. Their motto is: “More is better.” (Which is only true if you are in group 1. A better motto for group 2 might be: “A sense of enoughness is better.”)

When I realized I had enough, I moved to group 3 — which also means that a lot of the assumption made by people in group 1 and 2 don’t work for me anymore. For me, more isn’t better. It’s only better if it’s exactly the right “more”, and if it doesn’t take away from my “enoughnesss.”

I think that’s why I’m needing to find my own way, as opposed to just following the business trainings I have training.

Business trainings created by someone in group 3 are rare (maybe because if you are in that place, you’d rather do something else with your time than create business trainings?).

** On different types of goals:

We can, broadly speaking, differentiate between the following 3 types of goals:

1. Be goals: who do you want to be?

2. Do goals: what do you want to do?

3. Have goal: what do you want to have?

If alignment is important to you, it’s good to start from Be goals, move to Do goals, and only then consider Have goals. Something we could look into in our working monk school, if you like. :)