Over the past few years, as team members travel, we listen to our customers, fellow marketers, retailers, and people we run into. This is what we hear. People are feeling unsettled, if not downright afraid, for their future. With the amount and rapidity of global change and the ensuing chaos, traditional structures are crumbling. Almost no one trusts political, cultural, social, and religious leaders to have strategies that will ease, comfort, and sustain people during this time of transition.

How does this look locally? Farmers Market vendors, one of the major sources for real food in our area, talk to us about the viability of remaining at markets. We see good real food producers stop coming to the markets because they can’t financially sustain participation. We see some local farmers markets reducing in size and scope. Even some farms go under. Too, the number of alternative wellness and environmentally aware bookstores, workshops, and expos that used to help people through steep change are dwindling. Insurance won’t pay for most holistic care, so most doctors don’t recommend healthy alternatives. Attendance at events designed to be helpful are declining. It seems like everyone is so focused, with their noses to the grindstone, on keeping what they have – because they fear they can’t replace it – that they no longer participate in planning a sustainable future for themselves and their families.

That’s when I got to thinking about the foundation for sustainability. After all, businesses are really reflections of who we are, how we live our life, how we fix our attitudes, and how we make decisions.They are just an outpicturing of what we are passionate about, what we stand for.

The same thing is true about Bee Wild. Our home team has been into holistic wellness for decades. We’ve used and shared holistic wellness products and our love of seasonal, local, organic (“real”) food with each other, family, friends, and everyone we meet. Being “real” foodies is a passion for us. We’re as likely to phone a  team member and talk about the latest clean food restaurant we found, as we are to talk about the bottom line. It’s just a part of who we are, and we bring that to Bee Wild.

Too, every one of us has been involved in the helping fields – we’ve contributed to sustaining people through leading in personal development groups and teams of entrepreneurs; coaching others professionally, personally, and spiritually; writing curriculum for social worker training; developing and creating training ebooks, audios, and videos; and teaching living and communication skills to the blind and the deaf.  So, we love to share what we’ve learned, what’s helped us, and we’ve had the blessing to be able to help others both personally and professionally. We’re like a group of pathfinders – as we walk on the path, following in the footsteps of the giants who journeyed before us, we also reach behind us and bring people who want to join us in creating a more sustainable lifestyle and world.

We all have a niche interest in the sustainability field that we passionately follow. (NOTE: Since John doesn’t like to talk about himself, I’m going to say a few words about him. QueenBee) John Wright, Bee Wild’s owner, is known for encouraging authenticity and true expression. This is not just something he talks about. It’s how he lives, and it’s how he runs our team. His care and concern for the bees, other pollinators, Nature, and the Planet ground every decision he makes. John continues putting action under his viewpoint and recently was certified, after going through a year long program, as a professional personal coach. That shows real commitment, with a business schedule as busy as the one he normally runs.

Our graphics and web guy is a graduate of Prescott College’s Sustainable Community Development Program, with an emphasis in Sustainable Technology. Instead of judging technology as bad and wrong, he finds tools that will help sustain all of us, as our world changes very rapidly. With this viewpoint, he spent many years as a technology manager in the convention field. He’s also been a successful entrepreneur and has coached his teams to adopt best practice behaviors that are transferable to any business or life situation. In addition, his concept graphics share a powerful message, with humor and light.

Our QueenBee has been a spiritual coach and healer for over 30 years and is an experienced and passionate blogger and social media enthusiast. She understands how connection to each other, the planet, everyone that lives here, and our higher power will sustain us, no matter what occurs around us. She is not afraid to be on the cutting edge of spiritual growth and development and has coached, taught, lectured, presented, written, and blogged about transcending conditioning to bring more authenticity and resilience to a changing world.

In the future, we will be introducing other members of Bee Wild’s team, but we wanted you to know a bit about the home team. This information will help you understand why we are about to contribute even more to sustaining us all.

The meetings we have as a home team certainly have changed in character over the last year. What we’ve been talking about is continuing to share our family’s raw, wild-crafted honeys and honey body products while we expand our offerings into the area of supporting sustainability. We believe that for people and their businesses to become sustainable during rapid change, they need more support. We want to give that support.

One of our mentors says:

If the sky is falling, it doesn’t have to fall on me.

How can the sky fall everywhere but not on all of us? We see ourselves creating an island of sustainable authenticity, creativity, ease, comfort, calm, joy, and abundant goodness in a world filled with turmoil and chaos. We intend to help others create their own islands. When the world is filled with many islands of sustainability – where people who care about supporting the human family, Nature, the Planet and all her children and see the connectedness of everyone and everything – then resilience through change will be a fact. We’re committed to actualizing this vision for ourselves and anyone who will join us in any way that they are inspired.

We invite you to join us in creating islands of sustainability, beginning with your own. Come to our blog, our social media sites, events, farmers markets, and shows. Join the conversation. If you are inspired to do so, ask for help. Then, we’ll let you know what we can offer.