It's a cold, grey day. Cold enough that the rain is sometimes snow but warm enough that nothing sticks. It's the kind of chill damp that gets into your bones. Days like this call for more tea, more blankets, and more compassion. Days like this call for reflection... The truth is, it has been a lot. The last 3 weeks, months, years, more. As previously reliable structures crumble. As you're asked to find new solutions,...

You know, the beautiful thing about permaculture is that it can apply to any ecosystem. In one of our most recent certificate classes here on the farm, the students were talking about edges vs. boundaries. When you’re speaking about land, this is very easy to recognize. Edges you can stretch, manipulate, tend, and shape. Think meandering pathways through gardens. Edges. Boundaries however are strict. They’re lines that can’t be crossed - or at the very...

I signed up for TikTok.  The truth is, I’ve been sitting on this decision for a long time. When TikTok first made its appearance, I thought “I’m glad the kids have a place to hang out but it isn’t where my people are” and for a while, that was true. Until it wasn’t.  In the last couple years, I started noticing some of my business friends and clients were spending more time over there.  Ultimately,...

This morning, before coming into the office, I took advantage of the nice weather to clean out the chicken coop. Do you know how long I’ve been putting this off? Weeks. Maybe 6, maybe 8. If this was a procrastination race, I was definitely going to win. The thing is, cleaning out the coop isn’t actually very hard. It’s messy. It takes a couple of hours (at most). But it isn’t actually difficult. It’s just...

I LOVE Halloween. I love the fanfare, the costumes, the pretending. I love free candy day. I love the annual discussion of whether Rocky Horror is a Halloween movie or the ultimate Valentine story. But if Halloween were every day, I probably wouldn’t feel the same way. There would be so much pressure to get the outfit right, the makeup perfect, to stay on trend (or at least retro enough to be cool). Now here’s...

Have you ever met up with someone you knew a long time ago and realized that even though things have changed so much for you, very little has changed at all? I had this exact feeling this week when I connected with a client I worked with over a decade ago. I noticed that even though our businesses (and personal lives) have changed and iterated over time, the work we were doing was more focused...

A very very long time ago — decades before I started doing this incredible work — I was interviewing for a position in a company that I thought “meh” about. A job is a job when you need to pay the bills. What they didn’t tell me was it was to be a group interview. Picture this:I’m dressed up in fancy interview clothes. I’m nervous and clammy. I’m clutching my resume too tightly. I pause...

The other day, I received a message from my team member, Mackenzie, asking about a comment I had made in a newsletter draft. She didn’t know which particular article I wanted her to link to. Is it this one about growth or that one? As is the way of life, the correct answer was actually a third article altogether. The point is: I write about growth…a lot. Personal growth, business growth, growth strategy, plant growth, relationship growth, occasionally even my kid’s...

Fairly shortly (if it hasn’t started already), your inboxes and social feeds are going to be saturated with free webinars, launch series, teasers, and affiliate links. Even online, you can recognize the elbowing to the front, jostling for position, sneaky manipulative behaviour : this isn’t Grade 5 or a federal election; it’s Launch Season.  Launch season is the time when entrepreneurs work to meet their revenue targets, leveraging the opportunity that comes with Black Friday/SBSaturday/CyberMonday,...

This year I became a beekeeper. It wasn't intentional but when our farm intern's hive swarmed, we were able to catch it into a new hive with a new queen. Both colonies survived and when our intern left, she gave me the new hive as a parting gift.  Suffice it to say that I am brand spankin' new at this. Given my high self-expectation barometer, I think I've done fairly well: I've spotted the queen...

The first call for the fall cohort of Foundations is next Tuesday and I have to say I am so excited about the group who have chosen to join us this round. This work is introspective, it's worthwhile, and it's not for the faint of heart. But one of the things I love most about the folks who come into this work is that they're not afraid to work toward positive change : in their...

Last week I told you to “plan for chaos” and if you were reading that thinking, sure Helen, but how about in real life? I wouldn’t blame you. Because it’s one thing to plan and a whole other thing to put that plan into action. Luckily, that’s my sweet spot: moving big ideas into the real world. Helping you make the extraordinary happen. The thing about chaos is that it’s always unexpected. Rather, I’m using the...

Recently I was having a conversation with my friend, Nikki Groom (stay tuned for that podcast episode) and we were talking about planning for chaos. If that sounds super nerdy, you’re absolutely right & I love that about us. Essentially, most of the planning apps/agendas/courses out there will have you plan for a best case scenario. They assume that you won’t have unexpected “unproductive” (aka rest) days. They assume that you’ll be consistently producing. They assume that you...

Can we all agree by now that growth for growth’s sake is a garbage idea? Our news feeds are filled with examples of how it breaks economies, destroys ecosystems, and damages communities. Growth for growth’s sake is a revenue-focused mandate, reaping wealth for shareholders while workers require food stamps to get by. And this is exactly why we as entrepreneurs and CEOs, as people who are modeling a new status quo, need to redefine growth,...

Last week I wrote to you about marketing (or rather, marketing in a way that isn’t an example of the sleazy, slimy, manipulative tactics we see all over our feeds). But something came up in the most recent Motorcycle Club call so important to this marketing conversation that I had to share it with you…and that’s GROWTH. There are 2 types of growth: expansive and deepening. As the CEO of your rising business, you absolutely must be discerning about...

Something that comes up a lot in the Love & Badassery Motorcycle Club is the topic that marketing feels icky, slimy, manipulative (see last week’s post), and downright tiring. This makes sense. The Motorcycle Club attracts people with high-standards of integrity. So I’d like to share with you what I shared with them, hopefully offering a mindset shift around marketing your business in a way that feels good (or at least, not so icky). First, separate yourself...

Is it just me or are you feeling tired of takedown culture as well? For clarity, I’m not speaking about accountability. I’m speaking about our particular brand of pitchforks and torches when someone screws up…or as mentor Tanya Geisler refers to it, “canonization/demonization”. We place online entrepreneurs up on pedestals where they can do no wrong (canonization) until they make a mistake, at which point we collectively attack and take them down (demonization). The very...

Last week when I was talking about being an artisanal business owner (and neither Gucci nor Walmart — ICYMI you can read that post here), I asked you about your goals. What do you want from your business? What do you want in your life? But when we’re speaking about designing regenerative businesses, we want to go deeper than your next goal. We want to consider the ripple of your work. I recently saw a post...

I’ve been chewing on something since I listened to a podcast snippet the other day. This person was talking about being very happy setting their business up as a “Walmart” model instead of a “Gucci” model — aka high volume vs high ticket. I love this for them: they’ve realized they want to be affordable for almost anyone and they feel quite successful with this model. AND It got me thinking: I don’t want to...

As much as I like to break the rules, there’s one I try very hard to abide by and it’s this: the 90 Day Marketing Rule. This rule says that what you do today, you will see the result in 90 days. Of course, life and business have flex and some things happen faster than others but, if you look back to the end of March and what you were doing then…chances are you can...