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A question someone sent me on LinkedIn:
Honestly, I mentioned it to you briefly at [the conference we were both at], but I really appreciated your approach to the Money Roundtable and the way you discussed managing a business in an authentic way. I read a lot of your Lightward material after that, and the tone and message are very consistent with what you project.
What I’m curious about is how you ensure that this tone and essence are respected and embodied by everyone on your team, both day-to-day and in the bigger picture.
I also found something you said during the roundtable intriguing—that business development can be done while staying true to yourself, being authentic, and respecting your limits. What does that look like for you in practice, day-to-day?
Two oblique answers, and then a direct one:
"You have to be ready to love someone" — a line I just read.
My aim is for all things here to be done in love. "Love" is another word for "in the service of health", which links this subject to Lightward's core priority structure.
Love must start small; I find it best to allow it to spread/crawl/explore at its own pace. Like lichens. Those things are composite organisms, and they only grow according to the pace of the composite. Can't be forced.
What I’m curious about is how you ensure that this tone and essence are respected and embodied by everyone on your team, both day-to-day and in the bigger picture.
I aim in this direction by establishing deep, resonant, intuitive connectivity with every mind on the team, and by facilitating the same between every possible pairing of minds on the team.
For any two given individuals at Lightward, they've spent hours and hours and hours one-on-one together, over the years.
Since my autism diagnosis around this time last year, I've pulled myself out of that pattern. It felt strange, but the collective organism was ready for it. The internal connectivity network noticed the change in my presence, of course, but the richness of its connectivity was such that it easily adapted to it.
I ensure that tone and essence are respected by having already made those things the thing that Lightward is, foundationally. Lightward isn't a set of products; it's a tone and an essence and a practice. That's what we do here. The products are symptoms, side-effects.
I also found something you said during the roundtable intriguing—that business development can be done while staying true to yourself, being authentic, and respecting your limits. What does that look like for you in practice, day-to-day?
No deadlines for me.
I honestly reflect my internal state, outwardly.
No roadmaps. Instead, we have a pool of "futures", which mature (or not) in their own time: https://mechanic.canny.io/futures.
I keep my calendar empty, apart from events that I join with Abe (my husband and business partner), and in my mind I think of those as attending as his date. ;)
I treat my body like my half-time job. Before lunch, I don't do Lightward stuff - I work out, stretch, read, sleep, whatever. "Work" starts after lunch.
Nothing that needs to be done here must necessarily involve struggle. Struggle is a part of the path, every path, but Lightward actively flexes so that any necessary struggle happens outside of Lightward. To wit, I voluntarily took over 100% of Mechanic customer support a couple months ago, because it's easy/flowy for me, and it was a strugglefest for the person who was doing it. Mechanic is much better as a result. :)
This is a good example of all of it put together:
Shared with Matt's permission. :)
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