As has been a tradition, these last days of the year I come to share some reflections and learning of this 2024 that I personally take me and we take ourselves as a team. In addition, I love to see how my thoughts are evolving and how I grow together with Pueblos Remotos . I had more or less clear how I wanted to guide this last post of the year, but reading the previous ones that I have written on these dates, I have inspired much more and I have decided to focus on the need to stop, that I will develop in the following sections.
To have a little context and know where I child, I leave you here first the reflections of the previous years, so that you can follow my reasoning and my evolution as a person:
- Year 2021 (remote villages is born as a project) - And you, do you put passion to life?
- Year 2022 (We continue to bet on rurality connected) - And you, do you live with purpose?
- Year 2023 (we founded remote villages SL) - And you, how much do you plan?
You will be wondering why I want to talk this year to stop when you have surely seen our networks, and if you follow us closely in our Newsletter , which we have literally stopped. Well, because, because we do not stop and if we do not stop, we have no perspective, we cannot inspire again, but we drown, we lack the air. I tell you, then, the three moments in these last weeks that inspired me to write this post.
Polarities management, do nothing and change of ¨Mindset¨
1) María Guerrero Workshop in the Getler Forum
On November 7, during the 9th edition of the Gameseser Forum I participated in a workshop taught by María Guerrero entitled ¨Encrees: Management of Polarities for Change ” . We were just working the polarity between profitability vs. sustainability and I realized many things that we were ignoring for trying to continue paddling. I needed this exercise as May water, to open my eyes and realize that we were running out of air. My own conclusion was:
"We need to stop to inhale again"
Here I leave you a post -written blog by the same Maria where he explains better than me, and with more details, what we cover during the workshop. In his own words: "This dynamic forced diversification is frequent in social ventures. We live between values of values. However, tensions are not problems to solve: they are dynamics to manage.
2) Podcast with psychologist Patricia Ramírez
Realfooding podcast , directed by Carlos Ríos, and I found the conversation he had with the psychologist Patricia Ramírez . They talked about many interesting topics, such as the difference between stress and anxiety, the importance of keeping calm, occupied life syndrome, productivity, values and love in parallel. Perhaps, with what I stay, because it was what resonated me the most, it was when he said:
¨ The brain needs a break. We have to give the brain 15 minutes a day of doing nothing. We do not know how to simply observing, without doing anything ”
And what reason is, it seems that if we do not produce we are wasting time, but it is the other way around, how much more rest we give to our brain, more creativity we will have, we will be able to find solutions more quickly and we will not end up mentally exhausted making scroll in social networks .
I leave you here the chapter in case you want to listen to it.
3) Coaching session with Miguel Quintana
With the closing of the year and with the amount of important decisions we had to take this December 2024, we asked our Advisor , Miguel Quintana , to make a session with him to update him and help us out of our loop. As entrepreneurs, our mind does two things: (i) Always keep in mind all the things that have gone badly and (ii) see constant opportunities to set up another business line, change a process or get another client. Literally our mind does not stop.
¨ For a change of mindset we have to stop, stop thinking as entrepreneurs and focus on achieving financial stability answering this question: what would we do if remote peoples did not exist? ¨ ¨
Therefore, the first thing Miguel did was invite us to thank everything we have today and aim at a paper. Subsequently, we jointly analyze the scenarios that are presented as possibilities by 2025 and we decide what is most adjusted to our reality today. Without wanting to go into many details, very summary: if we have no profitability, Pueblos Remotos cannot exist.
When is the time to oxygenate?
When you are involved in the career of the rat, in the madness of everyday life, in the implementation of projects while trying to get new new ones writing proposals and managing a team, you do not have time to breathe. And this is serious, because nothing is more urgent than breathing and drinking water.
Just when I was halfway in the writing of this post reflective blog, I was having breakfast with my dear David Alayón , colleague of the school and entrepreneur I admire a lot. I see it at most once or twice a year, but the conversations with him go beyond mere superficiality and I always take new learning or concepts to think about.
Reflecting with him on this issue of not stopping, he told me a word that I liked much more and with his permission, I will steal it and I will use it too: oxygenate. It is no longer worth stopping or disconnecting, we have to oxygenate.
As social entrepreneurs, we are always more concerned with the beneficiaries of our projects, customers or team, than for ourselves. We load it on the shoulder and many times at the expense of our own health. So much so that in many occasions we are the last to collect (or do not charge directly), but then where is the limit? How long are we going to continue paddling against the countercurrent? How many remads do we have?
David also told me about the writer Byung-Chul Han and his books: the society of tiredness and contemplative life. From the latter, I keep the following sentence:
"There is no one more active than when you do nothing, it is ever less only than when you are yourself"
Sometimes life stops even if you don't want
If we ignore all the signs that our body sends us, around us and we silence our instinct, life itself will stop us. On some occasions, we have to fall into the Burnout to say: So far! I can't anymore! Other times it is a disease that forces you to get off the roller coaster even if you don't want. The sad thing is that this happens every time at earlier ages.
If we start talking about misfortunes, we have for a few books, especially when the media strive because we are well present. The fact is that I want to finish this post blog in a cheerful and illusion tone because I feel like that right now, although it has been a second half of the complicated year.
Many times, we ourselves make the decision to give ourselves a break, to change the air, to dedicate ourselves to our hobbies or to simply live with fewer things, less pressure, less exposure and quieter. Less is more and it is not necessary to continue running without oxygen.
In my case, this year ends with a gift from life that will force me to stop and dedicate myself to other things that will be much more priority. I want to share with you that I am creating life! I am pregnant! For me it is a blessing, they say that babies come with a bread under the arm and that they arrive at the moment we need them because I am sure that I will learn much more from her than her. I don't know how much I will be able to do anything, "but my working life will have to stop for a while and I am going to focus on oxygenating for her and me.
Finally, I tell you that during our feedback session with the team, we always dedicate a little while to reflect on the piggy bank and the things we could have done better. Knowing the changes that awaited us and seeing how several projects were falling ... we raised ourselves, did we have to have stopped before? Just yes, but we can't go back in time. The important thing is that we do it, even if we take a bit to make the decision, but that we get out of the wheel and that we stop. Better late than allowing the ship to sink. This does not mean that remote peoples stop dry, but we are going to lower our rhythm, we are going to focus on the profitability of what we do and we are going to oxygenate everything that is needed so that we can continue to float many more years.
¨And you, what are you going to do to oxygenate for 2025? ¨
