On Generosity and Business

Abundance is a tricky thing. When we are desperate for something, we don't normally attract it to us.

The thing is, I learned, even as a small business owner, that it isn't all about money.

First, a variety of disclaimers: I"m not actually a successful small business owner. I haven't been doing this for more than three years and not even for one year for a full-time living. I have certainly fallen prey to the general epidemic of undercutting, as a fitness teacher. And I've actually turned down bellydance performance gigs or they've turned me down because I wasn't the lowest bidder. I've gotten myself into trouble because I wanted to make more money given all the time and energy invested. Also, this might not work for you. It just might not. At all.

There's a weird balance with this, though. I noticed that as long as my items at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy were taken care of, I was able to be freer about some other things. A prime example is the fact that after teaching a private student for over six months, she lost her job and became unemployed. I didn't feel right revoking my involvement in teaching her yoga classes. So I requested that we make the venue permanently at my home studio and I subsequently didn't teach her for monetary compensation apart from her costs in getting to me.

On the other side of the coin, we all have the penny-pinching friend to whom time is not just money. Money is money and money reflects in everything. They weigh the finances of everything obsessively, calculating gas costs from the store to the apartment to the event  and thinking of ways to write it off. These people are usually constantly feeling impoverished, or constantly anxious about the basics being met. They are scraping and sampling and extreme couponing into oblivion. I've pretty much been there, too, and it's a miserable existence for me personally, anyway.

There's another part of this spectrum, where that dumb saying "fake it til' you make it" lies. I don't really buy into this. I'm not going to dress up in a suit to go meet a yoga student (though I have done it as a tarot reader and noticed that I made hella money that night). I'm not going to pretend to be some high roller in a town full of wannabe high rollers and 30K millionaires, choking on credit card debt. I'm not going to "fake it" when I know taxes are coming up due and I need to make sure the numbers are all there. But I'm also going to calm the hell down. I am not going to mow down others for gigs. I'm not going to self-talk into getting angry that someone else got a better opportunity. If they did, they were the best fit at the time and in most situations I'll be idealistic and trust that. I'm also not going to begrudge a $5 outing to a coffee shop. Expenses can add up, but I'm not going to hamster hoard them like 1up mushrooms and use them as excuses to say no to everything when I need to be letting opportunities in.

Business is about relationships, too. Be open to trades for a while if someone has been loyal or been a regular. Obviously, you can't permit the whole world to do this. You can't give freebies until you go blind or broke in two weeks flat. But think about the dynamics of your relationships with customers/clients on a long-term level, and think about how, maybe at that moment, it might be so much more valuable to be generous or to offer them a number of options.