On the eve of our second birthday I have been thinking a lot about what I want this business to be. To be fair this is something I think about A LOT. The challenge to be the person I want to be and run the kind of business I want to have is a constant companion.
It is easier when I just think about me, the human. I try to be calm and kind, collaborative and compassionate, fair and fun, ethical and inclusive. At The Bamboo Manager Project we have worked hard to consider what our ‘words’ are and unsurprisingly many of them are the same but I have recently added a new word which I think works brilliantly for us and that is ‘thriving’.
If you follow me on Instagram you will know I am a massive fan of the brand expert Mary Portas. I have long been an admirer of her work and her book ‘Work Like a Woman’ literally changed my entire perspective on my work life (maybe I will tell you about that another time!). Her latest book is a passion project entitled ‘How to thrive in the new kindness economy’ and it is a fascinating read. However one of the parts that resonated the most with me was on the topic of ‘growth’ Now growth is a word I have used a lot - to describe me, to describe The Bamboo Manager Project, to describe our students. If you are not growing, you are not evolving. You get the idea.
But Mary suggests we look beyond growth and into ‘thriving’ which is something beyond growth, which let’s face it in business terms tends to mean profit. She says
Thriving means healthy, balanced, resilient, regenerative
and that means looking all around you in your work, rather than just going in a straight, vertical, blinkered, often upwards line.
This now collides nicely with a thought from another of my favourite people, Amy Cuddy. In an Instagram post Amy talks about how we aim to get to the top of the ladder and when we get there we realise we had our ladder up against that wrong building. That happened to me certainly. I was so fixated with climbing the ladder I was only looking in one direction and it was the wrong one. Fortunately I was able to start over, putting my own moral compass at the centre of my practice.
Which brings me neatly back to my new word of choice ‘thriving’. I am so fortunate that as a practitioner I am able to take control of my own life and my own business. The only thing I have ever wanted is to make sure that everyone who wants to be a stage manager, can be a stage manager. That no one is excluded. We still have a long way to go but through The Bamboo Manager Project I am thrilled to be able to offer training to people who wouldn’t always be able to access it.
So to celebrate our second birthday I am going to say that we and our students are thriving. We are healthy and balanced. Resilient and regenerative. I am so proud of what we have achieved in these last two years and the many wonderful students we have been able to connect with.
We are thriving and I hope you are as well.
xox