Self-Discipline on the Path of Self-Expression
Choosing a living that supports a healthy and happy lifestyle is a good start to a fulfilling career...
Recently I spent a day over in Half Moon Bay with a childhood friend I grew up with in Indonesia. She is a breast cancer survivor and someone I would consider a model of healthy living and responsibility. When I was a kid running amuck around the neighborhood before my homework was done, she was sitting pretty in her room with a bowl of fruit (her daily after-school snack), finishing up hers before she came outside to play. I tried that technique a few times but it was by novelty, not self-discipline.
I was never the model of self-discipline. I was never a kid who liked being told what to do either. I hadn't made the distinction between helpful rules and suffocating dictates. I was high-energy, willful, and distracted. I dreamed up novel ideas intended to disprove the beliefs my father attempted to indoctrinate in me, such as that life is about hard work and suffering and if we follow our passions and heart we will be led astray and find only confusion and more pain. He seemed to tell me that life is about pain and suffering any way you cut it. If you are on the right path, you are voluntarily enduring pain and suffering; if you follow your heart and passions, your life results in pain and suffering. Of course, I was misinterpreting my father's intended message because I was responding to his emotions, not his words. He was a worrier and afraid the worst would happen, and I was a free spirit who didn't want to live in fear.
Now I'm all grown up and my parents have changed and grown as well. I'm more able to appreciate and understand my father's ideals. I have also developed a special appreciation for people who take a chance and start their own businesses because this to me is a good way to proactively create one's own destiny. Though I've admired entrepreneurs for years, I only took the step into true entrepreneurship a few years ago, when I started Three Trees Wellness Institute.
There is another aspect of entrepreneurship that is important to consider, it provides a way for highly sensitive people to have self-expression and fulfilling careers. I didn't know it at the time, but I am a highly sensitive person, and because of that, I need a slightly modified environment to be able to thrive and succeed, as compared to people who are not highly sensitive.
Forming Three Trees Institute for me was more about getting in touch with and creating a path for self-expression so that I could find my way to wellness and well-being. I had been off the rails in my own life since my mid-thirties and I desperately needed to get back on track. Three Trees Institute has been an exploration of the entrepreneur's way of life. A life where I could wake up every morning and know that everything I'm going to do today is to support my authentic work - work that comes from my creativity, my destiny, and my own life experience. It also gives me the freedom to work with the people I choose to work with and allows me to promote artisan entrepreneurs I resonate with.
Delectable Gardens is one such wellness artisan business I came across while searching for artisans to promote.
Delectable Gardens was started by a couple who simply wanted to be able to earn a living doing something they believed in. They loved gardening and living a sustainable homesteader lifestyle so they began making indoor and outdoor hanging planters which I love. Their online store has now expanded to include some other products with a focus on sustainability.
Here's a little snippet of their story told by one of the founders:
In 2013 I decided I had had it with office jobs...so I quit (my very good job) and decided to dedicate my time to gardening and living more sustainably. Since then, my husband and I have acquired backyard chickens, and I'm growing year-round vegetables! So now we have wonderful fresh eggs and free, organic vegetables most of the time but I still needed to find a "job" that included the passion that sustains me.
It always inspires me to see success stories like this, where a small business and an entrepreneur's dream succeed!
If you are or know of an artisan entrepreneur you would love to see promoted, drop me a comment or fill out our contact page and I'll get in touch with you!
Hold on to your dreams!
Love,
Alicia
#followyourdreams #verticalplanters #smallbusiness #artisans #indoorplanters #indoorgarden #promotesmallbusiness #growyourfood #wellnessartisans