The Soulful Enterprise (Reimagining Business Through the Art of Living)
The Soulpreneur Series Free Issue No. 12
Does your ‘work’ feed your Soul or just your bank account?
Are you actively shaping your professional identities or passively letting industries or employers define it?
Is your business model sustainable for your well-being and growth?
The Craft of Life?
Plato referred to care of the soul with the phrase techne tou biou meaning “The craft of life” or “The art and craft of your everyday life”. In this sense, techne means craft, art, or skill.
Techne is also at the root of technique and technology.
If you follow the history of this word back even further — the word ‘techne’ evolved some 6,000 to 8,000 years ago from Proto-Indo-Europan languages and the root word *teks- "to weave," also "to fabricate."
Weaving and fabricating textiles requires a balancing of many forces. The art of weaving (techne) relies on an interplay of forces like push and pull, as well as tight and loose (tension adjustments).
Too much of one throws the alignment of the other out of whack.
Not all that different than the ‘craft of life’, is it?
Imaginary Boundaries and the Power They Can Hold
In the image at the top of this issue, imagine for a moment that there was no red line around ‘inside’. The two words just sat there: 👇
Inside Outside
The meaning of this would be rather ambiguous. Or, maybe there would be no meaning?
The meaning of inside and outside is created by drawing a line… drawing a boundary. And, often, this type of boundary (almost always conceptual, not actual) can hold immense power.
Consider, for example, the various wars and geopolitical conflicts currently underway.
Or, of trying to cross an international border without a passport.
External boundaries carry power and meaning.
The boundaries we create for our Self are also massively influential. They largely dictate how we organize our thoughts, actions, and lives.
(*Ken Wilber highlighted this in his late 1970s book No Boundaries: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth.)
The Spaces and Places of Soul
Over the eons, many have pondered the mysteries of the soul and spirit and mind and body. Ideas and notions of soulfulness and spirituality permeate oral histories, literature, songs, poems, prayers, and more.
Soul and spirit can also be discovered in all sorts of spaces and places. It’s not all miracles and epiphanies and joyful fireworks of happiness and glee.
A life lived soul-fully is not without darkness or foolishness or deep challenges and potentially bouncing off the bottom of the barrel, or knocking one’s head off the ground or a nearby tree.
In my various experiences over time, it can be vastly helpful to get rid of the "fru-fru" "woo-woo" connotations of Soul and Spirit. And, when we do this, we can create an opening for building or repairing our foundations for recognizing soul and spirit in the everyday.
And… our fluid, flexible relationships with these fleeting beings.
This can be a flowing (sometimes awkward) dance of building self-knowledge, self-reflection, and self-acceptance — along with navigating our sometimes clunky and strained relationships with Others (families, communities, and beyond).
A life imbued with soul (and spirit) isn't free from challenges—it's about navigating through them with some level of authenticity and purpose.
A life imbued with soul (and spirit) can also be found and created in the mundane. For example, creative work (art, writing, painting, etc.) isn't all glorious bouts of inspiration and flourish.
Mastery often comes after some drudgery. Levelling-up can require some shouting out (in frustration and pain). Every critter meant to walk that learns to walk endures teetering and crashing and bruising.
Operating a 'creative' business can have moments and times of deep connection, joy, and soul-feeding satisfaction. However, it also comes with bookkeeping, frustrations and anxieties. It's not all unicorns, rainbows and butterflies.
However, creativity can be — and usually is — a supporter of soul and spirit. And... it can be present and manifest in all sorts of situations — including in a mundane job.
Thomas Moore suggested "The ultimate work, then, is an engagement with soul, responding to the demands of fate and tending the details of life as it presents itself."
Seeing Soul and Spirit in the Grind
In my 20s, I did one of the most physically demanding jobs I’ve ever taken on. I planted trees in the interior of British Columbia, Canada. This type of work is almost all piece work — meaning one gets paid by production (e.g., number of trees planted).
The price per tree (usually in cents) is determined by the company one works for — based largely on terrain (flat or mountainous), access, and the type of ‘ground’ — meaning rocky, soily, covered in logging debris or not, and so on.
Treeplanters venture into areas a few years after it has been logged of trees — or after forest fires — or a combination of both. The planters and the company are paid by the tree. This means it’s a heavy-duty production (quantity) environment.
However, there is also a quality component, as the logging companies (or government ministries) must make sure the trees planted will be able to grow. Thus, tree planters go for daily quantity, but still must maintain a level of quality (e.g. trees planted straight up and down, at appropriate depth, and so on).
The trees planted are usually 1-2 years old. Seedlings. A relatively fit planter can carry anywhere from 150 to 400 or so trees in a set of bags worn almost like a backpack — straps over the shoulders and a sturdy waist belt — with large pouches hanging below the waist.
The lowest I was ever paid per tree was 8 cents. The most I was paid was $1.20 (incredibly steep and challenging coastal terrain). On the $0.08 terrain, I planted over 4,000 trees in a day. On the coastal terrain less than 500.
In my planting career, a good daily average was about $250. Some days could be much more, some days much less. My best day was over $1200 and some of my worst barely covered camp costs ($20-25/day).
For very rough calculations… it was standard for each tree to be planted 3 metres apart. So with 4,000 trees, at a bare minimum, that was 12 km covered, although probably over double that.
Some research suggests that an average treeplanter burns anywhere between 4,000 - 7,000 calories per day.
Most workdays were 9-10 hours.
Most treeplanting camps were in remote backroads locations. Each treeplanter brought their own tent, and the company set up a series of large canvas tents (mess tents) and cook shacks, plus provided vehicles, showers (sometimes) and water.
Breakfast was usually at 6 a.m., leaving camp by 7 a.m. Dinner usually 6 p.m. The sheer quantities of food consumed are staggering. Camp cooks worth their weight in diamonds. Some much better than others.
It is astoundingly gruelling, dirty, sweaty, competitive, grinding, injury-prone work. Planting seasons are short. Usually May until July, with some limited mid-summer contracts.
To make money, one must plant trees. Simple equation.
This means, rain, snow, sleet, wind, 35C, aches, pains, hunger, thirst and so on. About the only thing that can halt planting is lightning and fires — and exhaustion, dehydration and mechanical breakdowns.
Almost everyone pushing to get trees in the ground, in a few short months. It’s immensely strong camaraderie, but also very competitive. It’s the tragedy of the commons in a sense. “If I don’t plant them, someone else will”.
Dinners were often spent talking about how many trees, and who “highballed” in camp.
Who was a “pounder” and who was a “lowballer.” A lot of exhausted joking and teasing and complaints of sore body parts.
Plus, who had to re-plant because of shitty quality, and who got screwed over because the price per tree was too low. Or a crew that felt another crew was getting favored by a supervisor.
Whispers of who was sleeping with whom, and who ‘hooked up’ on the last days off — or would on the next days off.
After a few seasons as a planter, I became a foreman. A foreman (crew boss) usually gets paid a percentage of the production of their crew. In the era I planted, it was 10%. I still planted most days that I was a foreman. This meant I earned 10% commission on top of the price per tree I was making.
It made for very intense days. Planning the logistics to ensure a crew could be the most productive as possible. Keeping each crew member planting, motivated and supplied with trees and ground to plant them.
Then zipping out to ‘pound’ in some trees. Rinse and repeat across the day.
I was in the treeplanting business for over 10 seasons. Not all consecutive, but it was a lot of years. I still have the scars and aches to prove it. I’m bound to get early arthritis in my right hand, the one I carried my planting shovel in.
Day in and day out, I would stab the shovel into the ground, often thousands of times.
Never have I done anything as gruelling over such a long period — other than solo bicycling north from Los Angeles in the spring of 2022 (30+ days straight into stiff headwinds).
(Someone didn’t do their research on prevailing wind direction — stories for another day).
By the end of every planting season, I was lean, sinewy, tanned, and feeling flush with cash.
There were some days of tears mid-day in the middle of a cutblock. Alone, exhausted, soaked, frustrated, shivering, and absolutely fed up with a week of rain, mud, stuck vehicles, and wet tents and camp to return to.
Simply to collapse into my sleeping bag by 9 pm and sleep like a log until 5:30 a.m. the next day. Get up, rinse and repeat as necessary.
Yet, there were other days of feeling on top of the world, which in some cases we may have been. Standing high up on the top of a logging cutblock, with views of mountains spread far around us. The sun shining down. Hawks and eagles calling in the sky. (Something right out of a truck commercial).
Gruelling, exhausting, yet absolutely and completely soul-filling years those were.
And, yes, after every season, as the long (but short) season was wrapping up, I would swear to never return. The permanent tendonitis in my right arm flaring. My back aching, but muscles lean and primed.
And then a winter season to do whatever came next.
Hearing Spirit and Soul (in the work)
Finding (or hearing) spirit and soul in work is possible in so many places and circumstances. It doesn’t have to be all art, and creation, and creativity, and religious overtones (cue pipe organ and epic symphony music in the background).
My wife Lisa, who grew up on an industrial farm in north-central Alberta talks of a deep mindfulness that comes when she is running heavy equipment. Days of running combines and tractors and other machinery — up and down rows. Back and forth across flat prairie landscapes.
The “Craft of Life” — techne tou biou — can be found in the most fascinating places — and mundane, maybe even painful.
I feel fortunate to have heard soul and spirit growing up. I spent a lot of time on my own alongside a river or walking the forest to a fishing hole, or imagining and playing out the world on a beach near where we grew up.
Similarly, I could do little more than hear soul and spirit in the summer of 2001 as I rode my bicycle solo across the tundra of the western Arctic (Inuvik to Dawson City, Yukon). And then into the astounding mountains of central Alaska.
Gruelling days, some with intense knee pain which made me have to walk my loaded bike up the slightest hill. And nights of waking up to crashing in the woods around my tent, or of wolf packs calling out across river valleys.
Soul and spirit are sometimes tingling on the hairs standing alert on the back of your neck. Ancient signals buried in the brain.
Caring for well-being
Linguist, poet, and writer Robert Bringhurst has an awesome passage in his book “The Tree of Meaning: Thirteen Talks” — and the essay of the same name (Tree of Meaning). Excuse my quoting at length, but it’s a passage that has sat with me for years:
People often notice that language helps them think — and then they sometimes ask, Are there other ways to think besides in language?
Doubtless a good question; but that, I think, is not the way to ask it. What the question means is, Are there languages to think in other than the ones in which we talk?
And the answer is, Of course! There are the languages of mathematics, the languages of music, languages of color, shape, and gesture.
Language is what something becomes when you think in it.
Life as we know it thinks, it seems, in nucleic acids. The forest thinks in trees and their associated life forms: asters, grasses, mosses, fungi, and the creatures who move through them, from annelids and arthropods to thrushes, jays, and deer.
Humans often, but not always, think in words and sentences…
…where there are ideas, there is language. Mythtellers, however, are prone to remember (and writers to forget) that the language of words are not the only kind of human language, and that the languages spoken by humans are only a small subset of language as a whole.
Some deeply human stories tell us this is so.
Linking this to the idea of caring for the soul, of engaging in the spirit of life, of weaving the crafts of life… Greek philosopher Epicurus was a proponent of the simple.
He suggested, “It is never too early or too late to care for the well-being of the soul.”
Indeed, and there is no finding or creating an understanding of the soul. Caring for the soul is not about fixing — it’s more simply about attending to everyday life. It’s not a ‘problem’ to be solved or a ‘product’ to be created.
It’s a ‘process’ that begins with a breath and ends with our last breath — and in some cases lives well beyond that last breath (like Epicurus and Plato, for example).
Thomas Moore says:
“Soul” is not a thing, but a quality or dimension of experiencing life and ourselves… When we say that someone or something has soul, we know what we mean, but it is difficult to specify exactly what that meaning is.”
Exactly. Because it is a separate language (if it’s a language at all).
Where is Soul and What is it Saying?
Some say our Soul is inside us. Some say we are inside of a Soul.
When we take on work that is not really a reflection of our Self, we can become more concerned with how our work reflects on our reputation, on our earnings, or our progress up the invisible ladder.
The Product of…
Similarly, though, it may not be the work (or occupation) itself — it can be our approach to it. If we go to a job moaning and groaning, then that’s what will most likely become the focus (and product) of our attention (I’ve been there, done that).
If we can lean into the process of it — rather than just what it produces (the product) — then there may be some space for soul and spirit to reveal their stories.
Similarly, in the creative work of The Creator Economy, pitfalls lurk. For example, so much talk of “products” and not so much of “process”.
Of productivity, but not of rest.
So much talk of “followers” and not much of how that sounds cult-like.
Of “impressions” rather than being “impressive”
In April, I’ll be two years into designing and living a different life — or at least living this life in a different way than before.
3 principles guiding this work at the moment:
👉 Authentic Work by Engaging in Soul-preneurship
Letting work (and the work) be a truer reflection of my inner values, not just a means to an end (e.g., wage labour). For example, writing, researching and synthesizing is often soul-fulfilling work for me. Certain projects are too.
👉 Meaningful Connections
Working on being a Soul Proprietor by building businesses, and being part of a community. Forging relationships that matter and sustain (not just ambitions, but spirit too).
👉 Inner Strength
I have lived a purpose-full adult life. In my 20s I committed to live life on purpose. Not in some fru-fru or religious sense, but in a way that I choose and continue to choose.
Drawing upon personal power and experiences to steer life with some level of conviction and a deeper commitment to Self.
The narratives we tell ourselves are powerful critters. They can be oppressive, or impressive. They can be confining and confounding, but they can also be freeing and fulfilling with the mysteries of life (and death).
And in narratives, are often mental (conceptual) boundaries we have drawn around things — not all that different than national borders.
And like national borders, we can create our own internal (and external) war zones over those conceptual borders.
That way of living (gainful employment) is the ‘right’ way to live and support a family (they will say). That other way of living (cutting ties to a 6 figure salary and becoming a Solopreneur) is “not the right way” (they will say).
Between ideas of “right” and “wrong” living is a conceptual line — a mental boundary — a created and imagined narrative. And (more often than not) only we our Self put them there.
One may want to be cautious about — or self-reflect on — which they want to live by (and die by) — especially, as life and reality are often the paradoxical tensions between opposites.
Light and Dark. Up and Down. In and Out.
I’m still in this process of re-imagining business and life. I don’t see them as separate entities.
How about you?
What boundaries could you potentially redraw or dissolve to align your work more closely with your soul?
Or, maybe you already are — how have you done this?
Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or otherwise. Please drop a like, a comment, or re-post on channels you navigate.
The next Free issue of Box Cutter Co. will be out shortly.