Our obsession with size has left us mindless.
It is in our smallest gestures that we create the most sustainable positive energy. The kind of energy that puts a smile in your heart or a lightness in your step. The same energy that restrains your palm from repeatedly punching the center of your steering wheel as the car in front of you is slow starting off the light.
Small allows for moments of appreciation that demand full mindfulness to experience.
All Japanese teas have the same genetic make up, yet here are tiny nuances that require mindful awareness to denote. By contrast to the overwhelming artificial flavorings offered by large footprint merchants, the subtlety of Japanese teas takes time to learn and actually discern. Yet it is in the patience that we find the simple beauty revealed.
Depending on the tea hints of salty sweet marine notes define one end of the Japanese tea tasting experience while at the other we find the notes of spinach and roasted vegetables. The joy is found not in the rapid consumption, rather in the curious pursuit of f the countless iterations between those two, that can be found in the different cups offered from smaller gardens perched on in the hills.
The thing about working a small business is not about the number of locations, the efficiency of the service or even the volume of sales, what comes first to the mindful owners of small businesses is the experience for the individual client in front of the merchant.
Howard Shultz, former CEO of Starbucks noted one day that as Starbucks struggled to return to it’s original customer experience, the company was considered every strategic decision it made in the context of thousands of stores instead of one individual customer experience.
Of course, just like big business, to be sustainable a small business must concern itself with volume, efficiency and profitability, its just that the same person responsible for that is also likely to be responsible for writing the weekly blog.
Small business owners have few resources to delegate to and as such they remain close to their clients, they get the news of the community firsthand, and they rarely need a committee to establish the best course of action in response.
Small business has downsides: you may be dragged into social interaction with people in your neighbourhood, in line. You may actually have to go beyond the threshold of your door to go to a location, you may pay a little more or wait a little longer for an out-of-stock item, or you may just be delayed by the absence of parking.
In the end however, the beauty of small business is they don’t bite, you can walk right by them everyday, on your way to a big box, homogenous, industrial experience unharmed. Yet if you seek a variety, if curiosity drives you and if you want to make an economic impact for yourself, a business and your community, wander into a local shop, try their Chai Latte and be the difference you seek.