I've been seeing a lot of themes popping up for me in my business lately. One of those themes centers around the thought that good things take time. As a small, bootstrapped, one-woman business, it's hard not to compare yourself to older brands or brands with large investors.
I think social media has given us the visual that brands launch and then all of a sudden they are overnight successes, seemingly selling out overnight. The truth is that many times those brands have been around for many years or they're a startup that had a large investor that was able to dump money into PR, marketing and brand influencer deals.
I often find Mother Nature to be a great teacher and this proved true the other weekend as I was getting ready to head upstate one morning for Field + Supply. My husband was outside watering our garden and he pointed out some wildflowers he noticed growing in the brush of our yard. You see, a large portion of our property is wetlands and the border of our yard aligns with them. It's not exactly a garden showpiece (think random bushes, poison ivy, and what I've now learned is called skunk cabbage), so I've tried a few times to put down wildflower seeds with little success. The area is just too wet for most things to take hold.
Last summer I dumped a bunch of wildflower seeds in varying types on part of the border behind our raised garden beds. Excited about the types I'd chosen, I was left disappointed when nothing took except for one measly stalk of Foxgloves. The blooms came and went pretty quickly and that was it for the entire summer. This year, I thought about trying again but didn't want to waste my time or money on my experiment.
However, this particular morning as I was leaving for Field + Supply, it was different. My husband pointed out some large flowers along the border. I rushed over to take a look and lo and behold were five big stalks of Foxglove FULL of blooms! They are stunning and make me so happy - a gentle reminder from Mother Nature that good things take time. Sometimes things need to marinate in the universe for a while and then come out in a spectacular show.
This is something I have to keep reminding myself of, especially in the age of social media and AI. All progress is good. You can't skip straight to the bloom without first putting in the roots. And sometimes that one small flower is quietly seeding the ground for a dozen more next season. That's easy to forget when you have a clear vision for where you want to go but can't yet see the road that gets you there.
For now, I'll be enjoying every bloom on my Foxglove stalks until Mother Nature tells me it's time to move on to something else.