Hello, Positive Lifers! Today, we wanted to share this throwback to our Autumn 2018 issue, featuring personal development coach Lloyd Chambers’ remarkable story of freedom, and what one of his products, Organo Gold, has meant to him.
positive business
We Recommend: The Pendulum Summit, 9-10 January 2019
If you’re looking for some truly high-octane inspiration and insight this New Year, you need to check out the Pendulum Summit, taking place on the 9th and 10th of January 2019 in the Convention Centre Dublin. It is the world’s leading business and self-empowerment summit, offering a life-altering experience to all who attend. Read on to learn all about it! And make sure you check out our competition on Facebook, where we are giving away a ticket to one lucky reader.
If you have a sweet tooth, Wild Sage Bakery is a business you need to know about, right now … and if you have a savoury tooth, the same advice applies. We take a look at this fantastic business below!
Wild Sage Bakery specialises in making natural, plant-based, scrumptious cakes and treats – both sweet and savoury. Owner Selena specialises in making customised, bespoke cakes for any special event you may be celebrating: birthdays, weddings, naming ceremonies, or any other joyful occasion. She is happy to accommodate people with food intolerances or allergies and most of her creations can be made free from refined sugar. Guilt-free, mouth-watering indulgence: it doesn’t get much better than that!
Everything Selena makes is 100% plant-based and created using the finest natural ingredients. Her wish is to produce food that nourishes your mind, your body, your soul and the earth itself. She feels that this is best done by baking her amazing food with love and kindness, while following the principles of non-violence.
Wild Sage has just recently expanded and is now based out of a kitchen in Dublin city centre. You can find
Selena’s treats in a variety of cafés and health food stores. She also caters for private and corporate events or retreats.
Email wildsagebakery@gmail.com for more information.
Nature’s Answer
Chlorella’s age-defying magic
by Kumiko Kumagai
However hard we try, we’ll never be able to turn back the clock and get back the looks and figure we had when we were younger. However, nature may have the ability to slow things down as we move forward in life, though this help might come in a rather unusual form…
Chlorella is a type of green algae that grows in fresh water. This can be harvested and dried to create a superfood. Those in the know have been taking chlorella for a number of years for its reputed health benefits. Recent scientific research has helped to back up these claims. It appears nature really has provided us with a means to help us look and feel at least a little bit younger.
Scientists have found that chlorella may have an ability to prevent the breakdown of a substance in skin called elastin. As its name suggests, ‘elastin’ is what gives our skin its elasticity. As we get older we begin to lose elastin, which is what causes wrinkles to form. By helping to prevent the breakdown of elastin, it is believed that chlorella may have the ability to keep wrinkles at bay.
Research has also shown that chlorella could have a role to play in helping to reduce weight gain. A protein found in the algae appears able to reduce the increase in size of the body’s fat cells, which is normally seen when eating a diet high in fat.
If you’re looking for a lift to your home, make sure you check out up-and-coming Irish company, The Cosy Nook Feng Shui. The business is the brainchild of Feng Shui consultant Rachelle Hicks, who is passionate about helping people to maximise the potential of their homes, which can in turn help them to find abundance, joy and serenity.
When you book a session with Rachelle, you are taught how to understand the energy of your home or workplace using the ancient science of Feng Shui. She will help you to nurture your space so that it, in turn, can support you.
A number of consultation options are available through Cosy Nook Feng Shui. The One Nook option consists of a one-room or one-hour chat, covering basic Feng Shui principles and how you can begin to live clutter-free. The Two Nook option covers two rooms or a two-hour chat, which includes basic Feng Shui principles, how to live clutter free, and an energetic space clearing. Super Nook includes a ‘Feng Shui check up’ of your home or business, plus all of the above perks.
The Cosy Nook Detox is a consultation in which you get to explore Feng Shui concepts in great depth, create an energetic chart of your home, and discover which elements you can bring in to balance your space. This package is a combination of astrology, acupuncture and Reiki – for your home. It includes everything available in the Super Nook option, plus much more. To view all options, click here.
Rachelle says, ‘home is savouring simple pleasures. It’s finding intimate, magical moments in the every day. Taking the time to make a cup of coffee; saying thank you to your clothes as you fold your laundry; enjoying the look of well-stacked blankets, and even more the unravelling of them as you cuddle up with your favourite person on the bed.’
‘My greatest happiness with The Cosy Nook is helping people become aware of how their home or workspace is a reflection of their inner world,’ she explains. ‘With this awareness, anyone can transform their environment into a space that supports their own greatest happiness in life.’
Learn How to Create a Conscious Workplace With This Amazing Free Online Summit
The Conscious Business World Summit is a free online event, running from January the 8th to the 12th, that aims to teach business people how to create open, inclusive, empathetic and mindful environments in their workplaces. With a host of international experts on board, ready to offer their experiences and insights free of charge, it is sure to be a highly valuable experience for budding entrepreneurs. Just go to consciousbusinessworldsummit.com to register.
We live in a world that is hungering for a new form of leadership to be brought into being: one that embraces creativity, co-operation, and an awareness of the need for mutual respect and inclusivity. Businesses around the globe are recognising this and starting to incorporate environmental sustainability and mindfulness practices into their everyday routines. This marks a welcome change from outdated corporate business models that have tended to prioritise the pursuit of profit above all else, to the detriment of worker satisfaction, social consciousness, or the health of our environment.
If you are a budding entrepreneur – or a leader within an existing business – who wants some advice on how to create a more conscious culture within your workplace, look no further than the Conscious Business World Summit. This five-day summit is a free online event, running from Monday, January 8th to Friday, January 12th. All you have to do is sign up for the summit online, where you will be granted access to a wide range of inspirational talks on subjects such as how to bring presence and emotional connection into your work, leading through connection, and blending mindfulness, science and humour.
Each day has its own subject “track” which focuses on one specific area of conscious business. For example, Monday’s lessons are based on Conscious Leadership, Tuesday’s talks will focus on Purpose and Mission, and Wednesday’s talks will explore the area of Workplace and Culture. Each of these “tracks” include a mixture of best practice presentations, one-to-one interviews with experts, and keynote speeches, all of which aim to give listeners a full set of core principles and practical integration tools that they can apply within their own businesses.
The host speakers of this amazing event are Aaron Kahlo, Emily Lane and Nathan Havey. Guest speakers will include Raj Sisodia, author of ‘Conscious Capitalism’, Maureen Simon, founder and creative director of the Essential Feminine, Bob Willard, founder of Sustainability Advantage, Diana Chapman, co-founder of The Conscious Leadership Group, and many others.
With a host of international experts on board, ready to offer their experiences and insights free of charge, the Conscious Business World Summit is sure to be a highly valuable experience for budding entrepreneurs. Just go to consciousbusinessworldsummit.com to register.
By Davie Philip
How sharing will save the future
“Our wellbeing will depend more and more on what we share with others and create together.” ~ Charles Leadbeater, author of We-Think
These challenging financial times are forcing us to re-evaluate the way we interact with one another, and with the resources and assets we have around us. In this Good Life 2.0 article, I want to explore how we might solve real world problems, change our hyper-consumptive ways and flourish through the act of sharing.
There is a new economic model emerging that is built around the borrowing and sharing of goods and services. As well as reducing the amount of stuff we have, and therefore the waste we produce, this trend could help us to save money, strengthen our communities, promote sustainability and create new livelihoods.
Enabled by the Internet and social networks, new sharing initiatives are springing up that are able to operate at scale and across geographic boundaries. Although they are ancient practices, lending, exchanging and swapping have never been as collaborative as they are today.
This new, potentially game-changing trend has been described in a number of different ways – collaborative consumption, peer-to-peer asset sharing and the sharing economy are all labels used to describe it. Based on access, use and the re-circulation of goods as an alternative to traditional private ownership, it also has the potential to foster increased social connections and therefore strengthen the resilience of our communities.
In “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption”, authors Rachael Botsman and Roo Rogers chart the growth of this system where people pay for the benefit of having access to a product rather than paying more to own it outright.
They describe it as an “emerging socio-economic groundswell”, which they say is driven by the fact that people are increasingly searching for more simplicity in their lives. A few years ago, collaborative consumption was named one of TIME Magazine’s 10 ideas that will change the world.
Will this approach improve the way we interact with one another and contribute to the creation of a more collaborative and caring society? Could this old idea of sharing, revamped by the use of technology, hold the potential to transform our mobility, work practices, and living arrangements?
Our shelves and cupboards are stuffed full of goods that could be passed on to people, and everyone has a talent or skill they could share. We are surrounded by assets that have idling capacity; the untapped social and economic value of underutilised goods, spaces and skills. Taking advantage of this is a new breed of entrepreneurs and self-organised communities who are increasingly connecting these resources with technology and creating new livelihoods and businesses.
The car, which used to be the ultimate status symbol and the provider of freedom and independence, is one of the most expensive and underutilised assets people own today. Having a car is increasingly being viewed as an extra expense, and, in urban areas, having one has become unsustainable. Car sharing or car clubs are becoming a popular alternative to ownership, especially when the costs of filling the tank, maintaining, taxing, insuring and parking your car are rising so dramatically.
GoCar is an Irish car club based in Dublin and Cork that gives you access to a fleet of cars and vans parked around the city. Cars can be used for as little as 15 minutes, and when your trip is finished you just park at a designated parking spot and walk away. At the end of the month you get a bill that includes the cost of fuel and insurance.
Airbnb, the peer-to-peer marketplace that allows people to rent their spare rooms and houses, is the poster child of the sharing economy. Its popularity, with over 10 million nights booked in 192 countries, is evidence that collaborative consumption is becoming a significant business trend. It has been reported that Airbnb hosts in New York City make an average of $21,000 annually, just by renting a room that was previously “idling”.
Sharing economy systems don’t always need cash. In Clonakilty, the community there has set up a “favour exchange” to share skills and labour. This exchange system is “an economy of goodwill” and does not involve the making or spending of money.
As I live and work in rural Ireland, it is the local application of the sharing economy that most interests me. Cloughjordan, the winner of the national Green Community award and the second best Village to live in in Ireland, according to the Irish Times, makes for a perfect environment to experiment with sharing initiatives. Due to its high level of community spirit, informal car-pooling, tool sharing, a bread club and food exchanges already exist in Cloughjordan, and more collaborative enterprises are popping up.
The Cloughjordan Community Farm is our local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project that now has over 60 member households. By sharing the cost of farm production with others, members can share the yield of the farm collectively. This is an excellent way to secure a supply of healthy and locally grown food. I am also involved in the development of a co-housing project in Cloughjordan. This will be a model of low-debt housing where people will have their own living space but will share common rooms and amenities.
We Create is a co-working space that is about to open in the Ecovillage, which will provide the space and resources needed for small businesses, independent workers, designers, developers, educators and entrepreneurs to work on their own projects. Co-working spaces are a great way to attract talent to the locality, to maintain the energy and motivation of people, and to help share resources. A Food Hub is being developed at We Create, which will provide growers, makers and food producers with space to process, distribute and market their locally or regionally-produced food goods.
This co-working space will also feature a Fablab – a digital fabrication workshop – which is an innovative way to bring prototyping capabilities to communities. Neil Gershenfeld, a professor at MIT, describes Fablabs as “a collection of commercially available machines and parts linked by software and processes developed for making things.” By sharing open-source blue prints and plans across the Internet, Fablabs give us the capacity to be creators rather than just consumers.
This new collaborative way of living and working is a potential economic regeneration strategy for communities, particularly those in rural areas. This approach could activate underutilised spaces and help us to see our unused stuff as a revenue stream, not just matter on its way to the waste stream.
I think this trend will grow to dominate business in the future and, as well as giving us a renewed sense of community, will fundamentally change how we consume. In the new sharing economy, people and communities will have more choices, more tools, more information and more power. Where sharing exists, communities flourish; and these collaborative systems could be good not only for our wallets but for our neighborhoods and our planet.
If you are interested in the We Create Co-Working Spaceand would like to find out how you can get involved, contact Ben Whelan: ben@cultivate.ie
Davie Philip runs the Community Resilience programme at Cultivate. He is a resident of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage, a catalyst for Transition and a board member of GIY Ireland. davie@cultivate.ie