Despite popular opinion, right now is the best time for business. Or at least it can be. Amongst all this financial movement, there is enormous opportunity. Huge realm wide changes in the shape of the economic landscape are taking place. Mountains are being moved. Although it’s true that many (debt-leveraged) businesses are shutting their doors, it’s also true that many (antifragile) businesses have had their best year ever. This is especially true for brand new businesses that offer an honorable service. I fall in the third category. When the fearful consented to close their businesses, I did the opposite, opening one up. I started a small business building planter boxes out of the garage. It’s been awesome. Empowering my community with their own means of food production is a great way to make some cash. This year I’m expanding: more than just providing planter boxes for pick up, I’m also offering in-ground gardens, delivery, and soil installation services. Prompted by @Libertysteadbear’s brilliant comment about encouraging church gardens on the @Hanginwithbears livestream, I’ve put together the gardening version of a white glove turn key style garden program marketed at churches. At the push of a button, I do it all: planter boxes (or in ground beds), trellises, irrigation, seed purchases, planting calendar, garden plan, full installation, all of it. I want to provide churches the easiest possible opportunity to get in on the gardening game. I want to see churches become community leaders again, where they start using their space and their infrastructure to feed people high quality food and bring the community together. I have no idea how receptive my area will be to all this, but I’m happy to try because it’s an ethical endeavor. And that’s what really makes this the best time for business: the moral side of commerce is making a resurgence.
This is a sample from the flyer that I’m sending to churches:
Even if you put aside the health benefits, the financial return, and the unmatched quality, growing your own food still brings an aspect of biblical wonder. Churches are meant to be community leaders. And what better way to lead a community than to take tangible steps towards biblical living? With my faith, I believe that what the bible says is true: We are meant to toil in the field, and see our own food grow. We are meant to share in the great bounty and abundance that springs forth from rich soil and caring hands. We are meant to have a close connection with the glory of seeing creation do its work. It is the way of the honest Christian (and I’m sure many other religions as well) to build what is good, true, and beautiful. As a Christian, I hope to help others pursue this goal. As the owner of Backyard Eden, I’ve put together a garden program specifically with churches in mind. My offer is to install an effective, beautiful, bountiful garden for your church along with a customizable seed kit and planting schedule to take out all of the guesswork. It’d be an honor to help you lead the community by building your very own Backyard Eden.
I guess that’s what happens when a philosophising author takes a crack at designing a poster – it turns into something that more closely resembles a motivational speech… But I can’t help it! It’s in my passionate nature to get to the heart of the issue. I’ve noticed that this can get lost in translation. For example, sometimes when I say that this has been a great year, my enthusiasm gets internalized as a kind of forced idealism. People hear my passion as an optimistic half-truth… but this isn’t the case. I’m speaking right down to the core. I fully believe it when I say it; what’s been happening lately is a blessing. We’re learning from stressors, and waking up to the authentic, transparent version of reality. What follows is a more honorable existence. For our diligence in pursuing the truth, what a breath of fresh air this whole process has been. Now, the authenticity is exhaling out into all sorts of realms. On the financial side, since marketplaces are driven by demand, the moral fabric of the vendor is woven by the thread of the vendee: with enough authenticity, moral buyers make for moral sellers. The two are inherently connected. Since a core part of the Beartarian ethic is to aim for moral truth, and since the world is waking up to the reality that moral living is important, right now we have the best opportunity to enjoy the process of building an honorable business. And what other kind of business would you want to be apart of anyhow? Given everything that’s gone on, we have a wonderful opportunity to weave communities, infrastructure, and supply chains together with integrity. So forget the popular opinion of the mainstream. Forget financial naysayers. And especially forget about all the spiraling despair people have expressed about economics… because right now really is the best time for business.
Much love everybody,
Jacob Telling
Website: JacobTelling.com
Beartaria Times handle: @Runnerbear
How Dare You is available on my website, online, or at your local bookstore if you phone in and order.
