Why a “local cup of tea”?
I like poetry. I delight in hidden messages and creating layers of meaning for people to discover.
When I was figuring out a name for my business guidance, I began thinking of what is currently available to (conventional) businesses: hard-hitting, competitive edge, cut-throat, push-push-push to get ahead. The emerging new economy isn’t like that.
The Great Turning says society is making a major shift. And changes to business and economy are part of that. We’re changing to simpler ways — that are wiser with respect to earth’s resources, and more sustainable with respect to the human spirit.
Grow-grow-grow is no longer an option. The testosterone-driven ways of the 1980s and 1990s are long gone. Yet most business advice is ignorant to the realities of the changing world. Most business and success literature still remains cloaked in an old-fashioned approach and tone.
I wanted the tone of my subscription to be more like sitting down for a cup o’ java with a good friend. Chatting about “how’s business going?” “What are your hopes, your dreams, your direction?” “You know in your heart how to make it better. Name it.”
Business in the new future (because of peak oil and global-warming emissions) is necessarily much more local. Ooh, that means that for most of us — outside of a few who live near the equator — coffee is out. Sorry folks, it’s more like local herb tea instead.
Your Local Cup of Tea is a tiny bit frilly, like a tea shop. Or maybe more like a Santa Barbara outdoor cafe. (I write many of these issues while sitting in my backyard garden.) In Santa Barbara, life moves at a profundly different pace, not so frenzied as here in L.A. People even drive differently! Your Local Cup of Tea is meant to reflect the different energy of a more relaxed, less stressed — more realistic, and more human — future.
But at its core, the discussion over that cup of tea is very Real. It’s about the practical aspects of business: those aspects of traditional business practices which remain pertinent into the new future, and how they are tempered — altered — by the new future.
It’s grassroots, friends supporting friends. Over time I may add various sorts of forums, B2B, or ProAction Cafes. That also means a form of “crowd-sourced”: I draw inspiration from many far-ranging sources. From Permaculture. From conventional business. From lifehackers. I’m not afraid to cross lines in my reading and resourcing, nor in passing it along to you.
Ultimately it’s YOURS. It’s about you and your business, about taking action to make your business better. About me inspiring you, handing you ideas that inspired me, sharing examples that I hope will help. Focus, implementation, positive change, usefullness, forward motion.
We’re building a movement, you and I. We’re building the path into the future. The old ways are broken, so we’re leaving those crumbling ivory towers behind. We’re constructing a new, grassroots path to the new ways — sustainable ways, the only choice of ways. And the first step is to shore up your business, your livelihood.
“My object in living is to unite / My avocation and my vocation / As my two eyes make one in sight,” wrote poet Robert Frost.
By joining Change-Making with livelihood we can (afford to) forge the new path —
passionately
wholeheartedly
with every bit of love and caring that you have to give it.
It all starts with a simple cup of tea. Come join me.
