Stories rarely remain unchanged, the context in which they’re told matters just as much as the context referred to by the story. I wrote this sequence of 21 stories about 15 months ago. You may have read some or all of them in their earlier form. Reading it now, we perhaps see something different, especially as we consider the role of Solvitur Ambulando, solving by walking, after the lockdown.
As I republish these stories, I revise and polish them. Some need little change, for others the changes are extensive. At the end of each story, I add reflections based on where my thinking has moved onto, especially in the context of the Lockdown.
Solvitur Ambulando
I was made redundant in 2011 and for a couple of years applied for work. I did some part-time work but my heart wasn’t in it. Way back in 1980, I left scientific research for community development. I never achieved the independence I dreamed of at that time. Like most other people, I experienced over my career employers with varying degrees of competence in the employment of staff. Whilst I had more freedom than many employed people, I found I was not free to journey solely by my own light.
I’m grateful for the experiences I had over 30 years’ employment. I have a wealth of experience to draw upon. Community, contrary to the impression many people have, is highly conflictual but once you pass through the pain barrier, it’s great fun and rewarding. It was in 2011, hard to see what exactly I had that was worth sharing!
In time I found my way onto courses about self-employment put on by Business Sheffield. They explained the legal technicalities but what grabbed me was lifestyle. This was how I wanted to live, finding my own way.
My Own Business!
I took the plunge in May 2013 and truth be told I’d no idea what my business would be. I had two guidelines.
First, I knew my “business why”. I reflected on my time in community development, my work and the work of my peers. Almost everything we’d achieved, I mean the successful work, no longer existed. Even worse the communities we worked in were no better off, or even worse off. The reason for this is the work was unsustainable because of dependency on grants. More affluent neighbourhoods had strong communities of traders. I wanted to encourage businesses to understand their role, providing infrastructure for community.
My other insight dawned when I offered website design during the early months of my business. I had difficulties with clients because I knew that a successful website depends on the health of the organisation that owns it. Several pointed out to me they’d asked me to design a website and not change their organisational structure! I saw my approach must somehow combine online and real life approaches to business. This led me to marketing and much of what I did as a development worker was very similar. I became a local marketing coach.
My next challenge was positioning. It’s common to be one of 3 or more marketing businesses at business network meetings. The high powered marketing businesses do not offer what I offer. But it’s hard to explain the difference.
Storytelling kept coming up and soon I saw it as a real gap in the market. My task is to make it pay.
A Failure and Proud if it!
I’m enjoying myself immensely. I do lots of writing and getting ideas into words is a pleasure. I’ve made new friends and learned new skills, such as public speaking. I set aside time every day to walk around the city, a great opportunity to stay healthy and think through new ideas. Solvitur ambulando, solve it by walking, is an ancient discovery and it works.
They say the road to success is paved with failure. Successful business owners know failure from the inside. Success depends on patience and persistence in the face of failure, as well as taking pleasure in the work for now. To walk, to Solvitur ambulando, is the foundation of my business, it builds stamina and insights.
LOCKDOWN POSTSCRIPT
I’ve walked throughout the lockdown. Maybe not quite as much as I did before but not far off. But a few weeks into the lockdown, I noticed Solvitur ambulando no longer worked for me. I no longer solved problems or worked through ideas I walked. It must have worked at some level because I noticed I was getting stale.
It took me several weeks to work out what was happening. One evening I spoke to an old friend on Skype. I mentioned my walking seemed sterile and William said he knew why.
He said he does the weekly shop at the supermarket and he’d noticed he was returning far more tired than he did before lockdown. He’d asked himself why and concluded it was stress. Now he had to be alert about social distancing, what he touched and all the other things. It takes it out of you!
That made sense to me, these days I’m constantly alert to people ahead of me and working out how to get past them. It’s not that I fear the disease but I’m preoccupied with not catching it or passing it on.
Mooching Around
Now that I’m aware of this, things have eased somewhat and I’m sure I’ll relax some more. But here’s the problem. Walking, dropping in somewhere for a coffee, sitting and reading – all these are not conventionally seen as working. And yet at some level, they were essential because without them my work is impoverished.
We’re brought up to believe that work is solely what we do that’s directly productive. We don’t see the mooching around as productive but in fact it’s highly productive. This lifestyle freedom is essential to successful business. It’s too easy to lose sight of why we’re self-employed because the day to day business of running a business tends to consume all of our time.
And yet, for many business owners mooching about is essential because it’s how we solve problems, reflect on what we’re doing, pay attention, see things in a new light. It’s what makes businesses successful. Mostly this reflection leads nowhere or to yet another idea that does not work out. But each failure leads us to new ideas and occasionally we arrive somewhere we would never have reached otherwise. A place that brings benefits to others and is really worth doing and worth paying for.
The self-employed are the brains of the economy. Lockdown has been an opportunity to do more reflection. It’s also threatened our ability to reflect. Anyone who feels this way needs to work out how they mooched around pre-lockdown and then, more difficult, work out how to find space to relax and think.
This is story 8/21. Last Story: Planning: Muddling Through! Next Story: Business and Community: The Demon King?