What Does Sustainability Mean to You?

Evaluating our energy in the shadow of Eclipse Season

So what exactly does sustainability have to do with business?

For the past few years, this question has gently unfolded within my thoughts, and it recently found its echo in conversations among our team.

Our discussions uncovered a tapestry of meanings behind the word "sustainability," each thread unique to the individual. To some, it manifests in our conscious choices: the products we select, the causes we support, and our presence in this world—embracing recycling, thrift shopping, and supporting organizations that honor our planet.

Personally, I’ve come to view sustainability through the prism of energetics, a perspective that feels especially poignant this week under the shadow of a major solar eclipse. This celestial event, momentarily dimming the energy we rely upon, is a stark reminder of our interconnectedness with the universe's rhythms.

It's not lost on me that I'm writing this to you today, amid a major solar eclipse, literally a day when the energy our planet needs to exist, is being blocked out of the sky in a way that makes it a little bit challenging for all of us to function as if normal.?

But I went into this day with an awareness that it was happening, and did my best to reorient my capacity and my calendar to reflect what was going on in the universe around me.?

Now, before you write me off as entirely “woo”, I think it's important to remember we're not machines.?

We humans come from nature.?

As a result, we're influenced by the cycles and seasons around us, and we need to consider those elements as we create goals for ourselves and orient how we work.?

And yes, this philosophy is new for me. I was once a hyper-achiever who used to brag about my ability to persist and power through regardless of what was going on in the world around me.?

Now, though, I seek a different path, one illuminated by the wisdom of friends and the insights of brilliant business astrologers, Babs Cheung and Mary Williams, whose perspectives enrich my approach to work and life.

Babs Cheung does so in a really fun, and feisty way, and I recommend you follow her on social media and check out one of the resources she has generously shared with my community, linked below. Mary Williams does her work through the lens of operations and helps business leaders organize their business structures as well as key goals and strategies like developing launch plans in alignment with their astrological chart.?

I've seen as more and more diverse people come into the world of business, we've started to come up with possibilities of new paradigms, as to ways of working that might be more sustainable for us, and looking to ancient systems to help make that possible.?

Recently, I sat down with my dear friend Avanti Kumar Singh, to talk about one of the most ancient healing traditions, Ayurveda, and how bringing this lens forward can shape the ways we show up differently in spring than we would in other seasons of our lives.?

While some people might claim these sorts of philosophies are woo-woo and have nothing to do with business, I would argue they are anything but part of the way we structure sustainability into the way we work is taking into consideration the systems and paradigms that have been in place since long before we were in a capitalist construct.?

Many of us also can see so vividly how the ways we are doing business these days are far from sustainable, and perhaps the ways we can start looking at ways of working from old that have existed since long before this system we're currently a part of.?

For me these days, sustainability looks like listening to the rhythms of my body, knowing when to wind up or wind down my work for the day based on the energy I have. It also means looking at the things outside of my work that help replenish me like walks in nature, taking time to go to the gym, yoga and meditation, eating healthy food, spending time with my children, and doing things that decompress from my work in a way that often opens up a creative capacity and caliber inside my brain that wouldn't have been accessible otherwise, had I kept pushing to produce more.

Spring is supposed to bring renewed energy, but the retrograde and eclipse energy has me feeling a bit off-kilter. If you’re feeling the same, don’t be afraid to listen to your body as it shares its natural ebb and flow with you. All systems cannot be “all things go” all the time.?

Knowing that you are both a renewable AND a finite resource, my encouragement for you this week is to look candidly at your capacity, and ask yourself:?

What does sustainability look like and feel like to me??

In answering this question, I hope you can unlock new ways of working that empower you to find alignment in yourself, your work, and your world.?

Curious to know what you uncover there,

?-Madeline

PLOT TWIST: What if Mercury Retrogrades were actually the best time of year to experience a business glow-up? Babs Cheung is here to help you frame the maligned Retrograde into something you’ll actually look forward to! Check out her Mercury Retrograde Survival Guide here!

Have you listened to the latest Finding Fearless episode on matriarchal leadership models? Absolute badass Martha Shaughnessy, of The Key PR, discusses her unconventional path to becoming a founder, her experiences navigating the tech industry as a woman, and managing work-life integration as a mom. It was a total delight interviewing Martha as she shared insights on navigating the complexities of leading businesses in a patriarchal society, the impact of acknowledging one's limitations, and the significance of genuine connections in professional settings.

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