A few months ago I wrote a blog post about “What Will Your Legacy Be?“ It spoke about what the world will say about you when you have left this earth? Will they say you did something to help mankind or will they say you made a million dollars?
At the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild 2010 Conference in Denver, CO I had the privilege to listen to a few awesome speakers. Two of the speakers message was loud and clear. What are you doing today that will benefit those of tomorrow. Is what you are doing or planning to do going to help someone else which in turn benefits you or will it hurt those down the line?
When in business we mostly think about the almighty dollar. It is true that money answereth all things. Why, because it takes money to pay for things to live. But what it doesn’t mean is that we allow it to govern what we believe and how we live.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am in business to make money so that I can pay those whom I owe for the basic necessities of life such as food, clothes and shelter as well as for some other unsecured debt I got myself into but at the same time I should govern my business practice in a way that will not only benefit me but benefit the consumer and ultimately the world in which I live in.
Ambassador Braun, who served as ambassador of New Zealand spoke about sustainability. (that’s her and I in the picture) She defined what sustainability means. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development, sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future to be able to meet their needs. She challenged us to be careful of one another and our future; for everyone matters.
Well whom might everyone be when it comes to being an entrepreneur? It refers to your customers, your employees and even all the way down to the person who labors on the farms that harvests the herbs or other ingredients you add into your products. Are you purchasing Fair Trade Shea butter from Ghana or Uganda where the woman boil the Shea nuts and press them into butter or don’t you care as long as you get the best price per pound? Begin to ask yourself am I running my business in a sustainable manner that I know I am caring about the world in which I live.
This conference has caused me to take a personal self assessment. What are my core business values, that Alison Covarrubias founder of the Hatch Network helped us identify in her awesome session on Branding Your Products. Am I truly fulfilling those values in my business operations ? If not, what steps am I going to take to get to where I need to be. Am I compromising the compliancy of my business just to be creative as Debbie May, owner of Wholesale Supplies Plus explained in her wonderful session. Make sure you are compliant with the law when manufacturing your beauty and skin care products and using ingredients that are safe for use. Make sure you are properly labeling your products to be compliant with the law as well as to properly inform your consumer as to what you used to make that awesome skin care product. Joshua Osysko owner of Pangea Organics challenged us about sustaining our environment by the decisions we make in business. Instead of continuing to print his product labels that created waste for the environment he began to screen print the label information directly on the packaging.
Personally, this transformation will by no means happen over night. It will happen over time as I set out to operate a sustainable business that I can be proud of and that future generations will know that I cared enough about them way before they even existed.
I encourage you to take a moment for self introspection. See what areas you can improve on in your business that will sustain our universe and its inhabitants for years beyond our existence. Go back to those core values when you first started your business and do a self assessment to see if you are on track. Begin to take steps toward building and operating a sustainable compliant business you and your descendants can be proud of.
Here’s to creating YOUR legacy! TODAY!
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