The Tao of Starting a Business

Starting a business is a mix of stuff – confusing, revealing, energising (providing you’re not awake at 4am most nights, like I tend to do) and frustrating. Especially when you’re creating a product, rather than offering a service. I mean, there’s no income yet, so it’s rapidly draining the resources – sped up by the fact that I hate working at home, especially in the study. I’m keeping the local cafes in business at least.

And the product keeps changing… I keep finding out stuff I didn’t know and I thought I knew masses about paper. For example, it never occurred to me that my favourite 100% recycled paper couldn’t get archival certification, because the pulp might have been contaminated by newsprint and therefore could yellow… aaaargh!

So I thought I’d take a break and look at the spiritual journey of starting a business. Which has got me wondering if I can somehow find some more Tao, Zen or whatever along those lines, that mean I can slow down and enjoy life for a while.

For example, accepting that hubby will be resentful that I’m having good coffee at his favourite café while he has the commute from hell, and using it as a lesson in tolerance… or unwinding enough to be comfortable with getting munchkin to daycare at 9.30am after months of screaming at him every morning to ensure I’m at the office by 8.30… or accepting that getting lost in the forest and therefore going on a 1½ hour walk is actually a fruitful use of my time… must get back to work…

Yep, getting my head out of the “madness” of corporate life is going to take some time.