Hi ,
Today is Labor Day, and I hope that in whatever way is possible for you, you're finding a way to honor your capacity for work, your need for rest, and the folks who have come before you who have fought to make work less mechanical and more human.
As entrepreneurs committed to doing business differently, I see us as a continuation of that lineage.
Being self-employed, there's no clear "upper management" with whom we can air our grievances, so admittedly it does look pretty different.
For me, it looks like becoming conscious of the ways we boss ourselves around, deny our body's needs or make ourselves feel less than. And then intentionally shifting those patterns, over and over again.
It looks like giving ourselves the weekends and holidays our ancestors fought for.
It looks like paying yourself a living wage.
It looks like making space for ALL of ourselves at the table -- our rational side, our intuition, our fears, and our most daring dreams.
If we work as part of a team, it looks like designing equitable work environments and sharing profits.
It takes effort to deprogram ourselves from a lifetime of working at not-so-great workplaces so that we can design something better. So that we don't simultaneously step into the roles of shitty boss and exploited worker.
But when we do, there's a ripple effect.
Our clients and customers witness it. Our friends and family witness it. Our colleagues witness it. And even if in this scenario we can't collectively bargain, we can start to collectively question our relationship to the very idea of WORK.
This is business as medicine. This is how we can leverage our businesses as tools of unlearning and rewiring.
And just like with the labor movement at large, it's easier said than done. It can take time to be able to pay ourselves living wages, and to take the time off that we truly need, It can take years of working with a coach or therapist to shift our beliefs around work and self-worth, and to shift patterns of self exploitation.
But just like any movement, hard doesn't mean impossible. And it starts with single step.
I'd love to know, -- starting this Labor Day, if there was ONE small thing you could shift towards these ends, what would it be? What's one concrete, tangible way you could change how you work to be more equitable, more fair, and more human?
Write back and let me know, will you?
With the plants, Stephanie
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