Think Local First | DC Locals Mean Business!

My First Job…

Management Consultant for JPMorgan, Inc.

A Day in the Life…

That used to be difficult to answer because I didn’t have children. Now, I’m up as soon as my daughter rises for 30-60 minutes of yoga and meditation. Then fuel for the day and, three days of the workweek, parenting my child and making space for my soon-to-be-birthed son. Before I got so tired in late pregnancy, I would spend the time my daughter napped to check emails, make phone calls, and generally delegate. But now, I sleep when she does — no matter when it is!

On the days that I work, I leave the house sometime before noon, teach classes either at the studio or at a couple of our corporate locations, and return around 9 pm. I obviously have the iPhone ear piece in the minute I step foot away from the house, to run the business within a much more compressed time frame than when my husband and I were the only people in the mix.

I spend every minute of my work time trying to balance the many details necessary for running a business, and being available to my students, for whom I opened and continue to run Boundless. I absolutely love what I do, and now that mothering is in the mix, it makes my life all the more ripe for staying precisely in the moment.

When I’m Not Working, I’m…

I’m such a dork but I love reading books about yoga even though that’s my business, so I hope this counts. The only person I really want to be with other than my husband is my daughter, so for fun she and I dance, run, sing, laugh, read books, go to the playgrond, and, of course, negotiate (she may be very good at business some day!).

We also have a rocking yard, so I garden as often as I can. We have tons of vegetables, and I have three flower gardens and an herb garden. I take much better care of them when I’m not pregnant, but so far the blooms, fruits, and vegetables are still flourishing.

DC Residents Should Think Local First Because…

I’m such a zealot about this I have to ask, “Why NOT think Local First”? One of the primary ways we interact with our community is through the shopping we do. Visiting Main Street is something that we’ve done for centuries. It’s wonderful and easy — and cheap — to buy things online, and it’s a total quick fix to buy anything at a big box store — usually things that break quickly afterward and/or that you don’t need anyway. But this is commoditized buying, and as much as we must acknowledge this as a part of the modern economy, we believe sincerely that local business is one of the things that keeps the spirit of connection between people alive.

If a local busines owner is not accountable to her clientele and does not respond to its demands, that business will fail. If a local business treats its customers unfairly or jacks the price just to be greedy, that business will fail. Huge mega businesses can get away with behavior like this because they overwhelm us with marketing messages that tell us we MUST have their stuff, we MUST BUY NOW. And if we don’t, we miss out. We respond to messaging like this, and we allow ourselves — because we are balancing so many other time, work, and family pressures — to be convinced that big box shopping is faster, cheaper, and better.

In the end, however, taking the time to make shopping, and buying, an interpersonal experience, is what nourishes us. I can tell you with 100% certainty that that’s why every one of my colleages and I at TLF went in to business. We wanted to find ways to connect with people more directly, clearly, and humanly. And to sell what we know people who live next door to us would benefit from or actually have said they want overtly. Buying locally is really more simple, and it supports small communities and the globe more. The more positive interactions people have one on one, the more people leave our businesses satisfied and happy, the more the economy will improve. I believe that our threshold for defining buisness is too high now, and we all need to take a step back and pay attention to how communities thrive and grow with local — and usually small — buisnesses at their center.