Serving Alongside Your Partners

When operating our companies, it's important to have a strong network you can lean on to get your work done. We don't have to be solo operators anymore. Support is now ubiquitous across the world.

Karen Reyburn displays this type of partnership consistently. Technically, Karen and her company We are PF are vendors of ours. But in our work, our 'vendors' quickly become our partners and friends. Karen and her team have been supporting our events and initiatives and our member community in Thriveal for so many years, the lines get blurred between vendor, partner, and friend. So be it! Let's call our vendors our partners!

Build strong relationships with your partners. Just like your clients and team, you need to build, invest in, and support the relationships with your partners too. They are foundational to your success. And when you get intertwined with your vendor partner and they need you too, then you have a beautiful symbiotic relationship where you just keep helping each other over and over (and both of your businesses prosper and grow due to the relationship).

We have so many sponsor partners that make our work possible, and fully support our mission. It's a little humbling when you realize that your success is so tightly bound to so many others. You walk through life with a little more grace and humility when you are so dependent on others. So be it! They hold our success, our reputation, and the joy in our work directly in their hands.

Savor at your own pace. Karen is from Scotland and she always brings gifts from across the pond when we see her every year. I love bourbon and whisky so she brings me the real Scotch from Scotland every year. I look forward to it (and it's always gone the weekend after our conference, Deeper Weekend , that she comes to). The whisky she brought me this year has this message in the packaging: "Savour at your own pace." Of course, the Scots misspelled a word, but that's okay! Nevertheless, the statement is true for us busy entrepreneurs: pacing is part of our success. Karen has always said you can have your whisky the way you want to drink it. I always add a little water, or a couple of ice chips in my whisky. As our partner, she supports the pacing that Julie Shipp and I decide for our businesses. And she is a big believer in educating her client base (which is our same member base) and teaching them how to savour their work, their learning, and the knowledge of their business that they take to their market.

This leaves me with questions you can ask yourself about your business:

1. Are you busy? Or are you hurried? You will always be busy as an entrepreneur, so stop fighting that reality. But you can be strategic and plan your work in a way that takes away the anxiety that results from being hurried.
2. What are you not savouring? Choosing to savor your work is a choice you can make. It is a mindset. Stop comparing your business to other businesses, and begin enjoying the ups and downs you walk through in the building of your company. It's part of the game.
3. Are you pacing the intricacies of your business? Pacing has everything to do with planning. Too many entrepreneurs just roll into a week unplanned. Or roll into an event unplanned. Or roll into relationships unplanned. We think we don't have time to plan. But we must plan so that we can slow down, have power over our pacing, and enjoy our work more.
4. Are you leaning on a community? It is foolish to stand alone and run your business alone. A community, like Thriveal , is meant to allow you a place for communication with your peers, confidentiality, transparency, support, encouragement, and care. Instagram, X, and TikTok are not meant for community. They offer the communication piece but it's hard to really get to know one another. When we know the people in our community, then we can be transparent and get the support and help we all need. Find a real community.

Our partners display these concepts to us, and help us stay true to our calling to coach, support, encourage, and care for entrepreneurs that need support. Karen Reyburn displays these concepts to us. Thanks for the Scotch Whisky Karen Reyburn ! I did enjoy savouring it this weekend as I rested after our immensely successful conference.

Thank you for being our partner. ??