Are You Growing Your Business Organically?

By Sylvia Nibley

Ever feel like you’re “making” your business grow? Striving, pushing, making it all happen at your desk, on your computer, in the meetings. It’s just you, pushing that rock up the mountain where your goals live.

Sometimes we’re so busy pushing for what we want (the traditional business model) we may forget that business, like everything else, is part of nature, so of course the same principles apply. What if you could actually create what you want by working WITH the most powerful forces on the planet instead of pushing against those forces with the power of your will? Wouldn't that be easier?

Lessons about life and business are everywhere in nature. Let’s look at one.

It all starts with the Soil
For most people, organic farming means growing without the use of chemicals. But it’s much more than that. Did you know that organically grown produce can have twice to ten times more nutrition than conventionally grown produce?

The reason organic food has a higher mineral content comes down to the soil it’s grown in. Organic farmers use natural fertilizers that rejuvenate and develop the soil to maintain its fertility. They know that the long-term health of the soil is critical to the health of every living thing.

Faking it
Now, we also know that you can artificially pump up the growth process. I just ate a piece of fruit that looked like an apple and tasted like an apple (well, sort of) but I noticed it just didn’t have the same depth of flavor and vitality that the apples from the tree in my yard have after that first cold snap in September.
I think that’s because it was grown in depleted soil, chemically fertilized to grow fast, harvested before it was ripe, and gassed to retard spoilage. It was also probably hybridized to ship well and look good arranged in a giant, shiny pyramid (oh wait, that’s the wax).

No offense to the apple that’s now in my belly, I’m sure I could survive on it, but you know what I mean. There’s just something--well, artificial about it.

In the drive for profit, we’ve definitely been pushing nature to be more “productive” and we’ve created some hefty imbalances in the process. Faking it depletes something, somewhere, which makes it unsustainable in the long run. Nature will balance itself. That's what it does, and on a much larger scale then we can imagine.

Back to business
So considering that you're part of nature and so is your business, which model for growth are you using?

Organic	Conventional
Work with cycles	Manipulate cycles
Use sustainable resources	Use non-renewable resources
Tastes good (actual quality)	Looks good (perceived quality)
Develop long-term relationships (foundation or building the soil)	Focus on short-term sale (harvest)
More nutrition (the actual benefit, the real, juicy stuff that you promise your customer	Less nutrition (convince them to make up for that empty feeling by buying more stuff)

Composting – or something to try at home
Where is your business depleted? What can you put into it today to build the foundation for growth--your relationships to your clients and potential clients.
From the ground up, how can you make your products/services more real, more authentically satisfying to your customers? More tasty!

And maybe crunch on an organic apple while you’re thinking about all that.

Sylvia Nibley teaches heart-centered entrepreneurs to thrive in business using the power of nature.
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When we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else.
– John Muir