5 Reasons Why Nature Is Beneficial To Your Entrepreneurial Mindset By Shann Jones

In these crazy times, resilience is key. As the landscape shifts and buckles dramatically underfoot, the ability to rapidly adapt and respond becomes ever more critical. Luckily, nature provides the questioning entrepreneur with a magnificent example of adaptation: trees. They’ve been around forever and survived everything – without hands, feet or the ability to run away from predators, disease or changing environment. 

Shann Jones, founder of successful kefir business Chuckling Goat, is a nutritional advisor and the UK’s go-to gut health expert. Given Shann’s expertise, we asked her to cover 5 Reasons Why Nature Is Beneficial To Your Entrepreneurial Mindset.

So what can trees teach an entrepreneur?

Trees are rooted

In times of pressure and crisis, deeply rooted values will provide a moral compass and a way to move forward. A heart-centred business is good from the ground up – good for the microbes in the soil, the plants, the animals, the humans, the team, the customers and ultimately the planet.

Trees are flexible

While rooted at the base, trees are flexible at the top. That’s why they don’t snap in a storm. A successful entrepreneur will flex and change, to meet the altered environment.

Trees work best in a group

Trees like to grow in groups. They can pass information to one another through complex underground intelligence systems called “mycelium.” Similarly, a business entrepreneur should actively seek out businesses partners that share values and provide strong synergy. Businesses are stronger together.

Trees perform stackable functions

Stackable function is an idea that comes from the study of permaculture. In a natural ecosystem, every element performs more than one function. A tree, for example, doesn’t just turn sunlight into energy. It can also provide shade, shelter wildlife, produce mulch, act as a windbreak, raise the water table, fertilize the soil, prevent erosion, purify the air, and so on. Every element in a busy entrepreneur’s schedule needs to serve more than one function.

Trees observe succession

Success is the first word in succession. In nature, to succeed doesn’t mean to make a lot of money. One thing follows another, in its appointed time. Autumn succeeds summer, and winter succeeds autumn. In business, the right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. An entrepreneur is super-sensitive to the current environment. What’s happening in the world today? The pace of change is accelerating all the time – to keep up, the successful entrepreneur needs to move with the changing seasons of the larger environment.