Learning to properly trust myself, my intuition, those inner nudges. Soaking myself in my own wisdom and knowing, whether right or wrong there’ll always be lessons. You are your own North Star.
Thank you for sharing this, Beth — so many thoughtful insights. It inspired me to journal about your question, and I realized that one of my biggest lessons over the last 15 years has been the importance of resilience. Creative resilience, life resilience — learning to honor the seasons, to not take things so personally, and to simply come back again and again. That practice has opened the door to so many blooming successes.
Your boundaries lesson got me (which is why I re-stacked it with this essay) but this one is helpful too: 32. If you don’t like something, change it, or change the way you are looking at it.
I really struggle with this -- a feeling of being trapped and powerless. Right now my mom is going through health issues and I'm still figuring things out career-wise. But I'm trying to remind myself that I can change things or at least learn how to accept them while trying to make them better. Thanks for this.
To answer the question, "What is the most important life, business or career lesson you have learnt in the past fifteen years?" - I would say my answer is a toss up between 'Life is short, make sure you are actually living and not just existing' and 'Joy comes in the little things, look for them and be grateful for them every day'
My lesson is nothing is permanent. Many difficulties with dyslexia over the years and then a difficult decade with an autistic child and divorce but now I am moving into a calm period of time. A reminder the earth keeps turning and every day is a little step sometimes sideways sometimes backwards but always moving x
I believe that an ability to adapt to change is the best lesson you can give yourself.
Everything changes in life, sometimes it is forced on you, sometimes you need to choose it.
I think this is true for life and career. As a nurse and midwife of over 30 years I learnt so much didn't go to plan and I had to change either in an immediate situation, or longer term (NHS has changed a lot over my career).
In life I have so often had something happen that was not in the plan and you have to allow yourself time to adjust, but adjust you must. I.e.my first husband left me with 2 kids, I was devastated - I decided to become a nurse and he did me a favour.
Plan but be prepared that God may laugh at that plan, the strength comes in using the change to your advantage.
Just one? 😉 Over the last 15 years I have learned that giving myself permission to make space and time for creativity keeps me sane.
Realized pondering this question that I am not ‘spending’ time writing, painting, Art Journalling - I am actually investing time since the return from my creative practice is far beyond the time spent. My creative practice makes me a comfortable, engaged presence in other people’s lives.
Thank you, Beth, for compiling great lessons, some new to me and others that I have also experienced.
So appreciate learning what has been your biggest lessons Beth! As well as all the lessons shared here in this comment thread! So much wisdom from this amazing community!
If I could add my insights to the mix, I would say this:
To savor this evolutionary journey that you are on. It's the journey that counts. Hold your journey with as much tenderness and gentleness as you can because being on this human path holds so many inherent challenges for our growth and transformation.
When my internal worldview changed to acknowledging and embracing each struggle with loving kindness and acceptance, my body relaxed into the integration of the lessons so much more. It rippled out to my thoughts, the decisions I made, the actions I took and created the relationships that supported me every step of the way.
This is a glorious journey to be on when we can hold it all with more softness and love.
Well kind of. Maybe it's systemic listening? It's easy to feel, tough to put into words.
Listening as a stance, a way of being and knowing, of being with and knowing with from the inside out; not an action of hearing sounds across distance from the outside in.
Listen with, not listen for or listen to.
Listen to what is really said, even if it doesn't fit the shape of what was asked. Listen between the lines.
Listen *with* all senses and qualities and beingness of what actually is here with you, not listen *for* a preconceived pattern that meets your professionally and emotionally narrowed expectations, nor listen *to* a sound or message transmitted at a distance from a separate individual or being.
Listen with your whole body and soul, and let the mundane and the music move through you, with you, as you. It sounds big and over the top, but it's also tiny.
Listening with and tending the spaces between us is actually the most natural thing in the world. In Samoa it's called Teu Le Vā. Crude and common translation is to cultivate relationships, but the essence is to tend the Vā, tend the unseen unspoken timeless spaces between us, tend the field and the nourishment comes back tenfold. Build the capacity to tend-listen until it transcends habit, until it is just how you are, it's just the weave of your being, you in the world, of the world, interwoven with the world.
Doctors genuinely think they listen, listen and reassure. But their patients feel dismissed and gaslit, not attuned to. Parents and teachers think they listen. But their students and children feel unheard.
When we say "listen" -- the listening that we're doing doesn't mean the same thing as the listening the other isn't feeling.
Fully embodied multi-sensorial listening... Stepping into the being, the field, the moment, the wholeness of essence-presence with whatever you're attuned to -- with the words, the dishes, the trees, the stars, child, pet, ocean, fabric, the smell of morning, the carpet or grass or mud underfoot -- that kind of listening is an embodied form of thinking, embodied attuned knowing through embodied attuned being. English language with its fine-tuned nouns and quantities jargon fails to categorise qualities and felt essences of beingness in these universal experiences. I've felt this my whole life with no name for it, but recently turned to relational-embodied-attuned essence-speak words in other languages. Many other languages have a better grasp of emobidied-attuned-knowing-through-being-with listening. Whakaaro and Rongo in Te Reo Māori resonates the most strongly for me.
Whakaaro is roughly commonly translated to "thinking" -- but the essence is *listening with* fully embodied knowing of a living being or word or system or waterway through Rongo -- which is listening with all physical and non-physical senses except for sight.
Listen to the unseen and unspoken, it is always here, always guiding, always.
Listen to land and stars, listen to dreams in dreamtime, follow your feet in wake time. Feet and dreams always know the way.
Whakaaro. Rongo.
Listen with all you turn towards and turn away from. Listen in all directions and realms. Listen with the curiosity that calls you forth. Listen with your own rhythms, attuned to the times and spaces and essences that sing to you.
Listening as the rhythm of unity as embodied undifferentiated wholeness is the first thing we sense in the dark of the womb, and the hearing is the last sense to leave as we pass into the dark beyond this body.
Thank you for sharing these valuable lessons from your 15-year experience in running your business!
Here is my answer for the giveaway:
The most transformative lesson I've learned is that failure isn't the opposite of success but its foundation. Each setback has been a masterclass in disguise, teaching me what textbooks never could. Through these experiences, I shifted from a paralyzing "I don't know enough" to an empowering "If not now, when?"
This wasn't just a mindset change. It was a liberation. It freed me to act despite uncertainty, to start before I felt ready, and to understand that growth happens in the messy middle, not in the perfect beginning. Resilience isn't about bouncing back unchanged. It's about evolving forward, carrying the lessons but leaving the fear behind. 🙏💗
In something that looked more like an impulse than a plan (although in reality it was the reverse), I traded the work suit and heels for a bicycle, a tent, and riding sandals, and headed off to Oceania. After pedaling for so long, the road delivered me to the gates of a Zen monastery in Japan —a journey that altered the course of this life.
This wasn’t necessarily “play,” but it was a dream (one I did not know I had) and a really “difficult and lonely at times” adventure that I said yes to over a job I wasn’t fulfilled by. In fact, I was attached to the role and my worth to it.
It is a practice, a daily one at times, to learn to separate who I am from what I do, and know that my worth doesn’t come from what I do for a living or any of the stories I tell myself about it (especially the last bit!)
Thank you for this wonderful and insightful essay Beth. With so many excellent business tips too. Your success, teaching, advice and consistency in my life over the last 6 years has so often been a life buoy 🙏
The last 15 years have been a whirlwind of high, lows and lower than lows but has especially been learning about people, my soul, my business and importantly love. From teaching to a joint business venture in 2010, to emigration in 2015, into forced administration by 2017. To rock bottom by 2019. The lesson I have finally learned the hard way is to truly trust and really listen to My gut. And only mine. Especially not anyone else’s gut. Don’t allow Love to blur and overrule what you know in your true heart of hearts is wrong. And, see that the people you finally realise have your back and know much more than they let on, are those you least expect. Because ‘they’ truly do love you despite the deep trust you had in others.They say your 2nd Saturn return is a bitch, well I can certainly vouch for that!! Now at 67 it is my time to start again. Here’s to the next 15 years. 💜 Especially for you Beth. x
Biggest life lesson: acceptance is an art that needs gentle nurturing.
Learning to properly trust myself, my intuition, those inner nudges. Soaking myself in my own wisdom and knowing, whether right or wrong there’ll always be lessons. You are your own North Star.
The only thing we can rely on is change. This is my biggest lesson learnt in the past fifteen years.
Thank you for sharing this, Beth — so many thoughtful insights. It inspired me to journal about your question, and I realized that one of my biggest lessons over the last 15 years has been the importance of resilience. Creative resilience, life resilience — learning to honor the seasons, to not take things so personally, and to simply come back again and again. That practice has opened the door to so many blooming successes.
Your boundaries lesson got me (which is why I re-stacked it with this essay) but this one is helpful too: 32. If you don’t like something, change it, or change the way you are looking at it.
I really struggle with this -- a feeling of being trapped and powerless. Right now my mom is going through health issues and I'm still figuring things out career-wise. But I'm trying to remind myself that I can change things or at least learn how to accept them while trying to make them better. Thanks for this.
To answer the question, "What is the most important life, business or career lesson you have learnt in the past fifteen years?" - I would say my answer is a toss up between 'Life is short, make sure you are actually living and not just existing' and 'Joy comes in the little things, look for them and be grateful for them every day'
Trust your heart, tread softly and be kind - to yourself as well as others 💕
My lesson is nothing is permanent. Many difficulties with dyslexia over the years and then a difficult decade with an autistic child and divorce but now I am moving into a calm period of time. A reminder the earth keeps turning and every day is a little step sometimes sideways sometimes backwards but always moving x
I believe that an ability to adapt to change is the best lesson you can give yourself.
Everything changes in life, sometimes it is forced on you, sometimes you need to choose it.
I think this is true for life and career. As a nurse and midwife of over 30 years I learnt so much didn't go to plan and I had to change either in an immediate situation, or longer term (NHS has changed a lot over my career).
In life I have so often had something happen that was not in the plan and you have to allow yourself time to adjust, but adjust you must. I.e.my first husband left me with 2 kids, I was devastated - I decided to become a nurse and he did me a favour.
Plan but be prepared that God may laugh at that plan, the strength comes in using the change to your advantage.
Just one? 😉 Over the last 15 years I have learned that giving myself permission to make space and time for creativity keeps me sane.
Realized pondering this question that I am not ‘spending’ time writing, painting, Art Journalling - I am actually investing time since the return from my creative practice is far beyond the time spent. My creative practice makes me a comfortable, engaged presence in other people’s lives.
Thank you, Beth, for compiling great lessons, some new to me and others that I have also experienced.
So appreciate learning what has been your biggest lessons Beth! As well as all the lessons shared here in this comment thread! So much wisdom from this amazing community!
If I could add my insights to the mix, I would say this:
To savor this evolutionary journey that you are on. It's the journey that counts. Hold your journey with as much tenderness and gentleness as you can because being on this human path holds so many inherent challenges for our growth and transformation.
When my internal worldview changed to acknowledging and embracing each struggle with loving kindness and acceptance, my body relaxed into the integration of the lessons so much more. It rippled out to my thoughts, the decisions I made, the actions I took and created the relationships that supported me every step of the way.
This is a glorious journey to be on when we can hold it all with more softness and love.
Such an exhale for me. Thank you Beth for all you do! 🥰
Listen.
The biggest lesson is Listen.
Listen more, think less.
Listen across discomfort.
Listen across difference.
Listen across systems and fields.
Listen with wholeness.
Well kind of. Maybe it's systemic listening? It's easy to feel, tough to put into words.
Listening as a stance, a way of being and knowing, of being with and knowing with from the inside out; not an action of hearing sounds across distance from the outside in.
Listen with, not listen for or listen to.
Listen to what is really said, even if it doesn't fit the shape of what was asked. Listen between the lines.
Listen *with* all senses and qualities and beingness of what actually is here with you, not listen *for* a preconceived pattern that meets your professionally and emotionally narrowed expectations, nor listen *to* a sound or message transmitted at a distance from a separate individual or being.
Listen with your whole body and soul, and let the mundane and the music move through you, with you, as you. It sounds big and over the top, but it's also tiny.
Listening with and tending the spaces between us is actually the most natural thing in the world. In Samoa it's called Teu Le Vā. Crude and common translation is to cultivate relationships, but the essence is to tend the Vā, tend the unseen unspoken timeless spaces between us, tend the field and the nourishment comes back tenfold. Build the capacity to tend-listen until it transcends habit, until it is just how you are, it's just the weave of your being, you in the world, of the world, interwoven with the world.
Doctors genuinely think they listen, listen and reassure. But their patients feel dismissed and gaslit, not attuned to. Parents and teachers think they listen. But their students and children feel unheard.
When we say "listen" -- the listening that we're doing doesn't mean the same thing as the listening the other isn't feeling.
Fully embodied multi-sensorial listening... Stepping into the being, the field, the moment, the wholeness of essence-presence with whatever you're attuned to -- with the words, the dishes, the trees, the stars, child, pet, ocean, fabric, the smell of morning, the carpet or grass or mud underfoot -- that kind of listening is an embodied form of thinking, embodied attuned knowing through embodied attuned being. English language with its fine-tuned nouns and quantities jargon fails to categorise qualities and felt essences of beingness in these universal experiences. I've felt this my whole life with no name for it, but recently turned to relational-embodied-attuned essence-speak words in other languages. Many other languages have a better grasp of emobidied-attuned-knowing-through-being-with listening. Whakaaro and Rongo in Te Reo Māori resonates the most strongly for me.
Whakaaro is roughly commonly translated to "thinking" -- but the essence is *listening with* fully embodied knowing of a living being or word or system or waterway through Rongo -- which is listening with all physical and non-physical senses except for sight.
Listen to the unseen and unspoken, it is always here, always guiding, always.
Listen to land and stars, listen to dreams in dreamtime, follow your feet in wake time. Feet and dreams always know the way.
Whakaaro. Rongo.
Listen with all you turn towards and turn away from. Listen in all directions and realms. Listen with the curiosity that calls you forth. Listen with your own rhythms, attuned to the times and spaces and essences that sing to you.
Listening as the rhythm of unity as embodied undifferentiated wholeness is the first thing we sense in the dark of the womb, and the hearing is the last sense to leave as we pass into the dark beyond this body.
Start with listening.
Start with tending.
Start with wholeness.
Whakaaro. Rongo.
Teu Le Vā.
Thank you for sharing these valuable lessons from your 15-year experience in running your business!
Here is my answer for the giveaway:
The most transformative lesson I've learned is that failure isn't the opposite of success but its foundation. Each setback has been a masterclass in disguise, teaching me what textbooks never could. Through these experiences, I shifted from a paralyzing "I don't know enough" to an empowering "If not now, when?"
This wasn't just a mindset change. It was a liberation. It freed me to act despite uncertainty, to start before I felt ready, and to understand that growth happens in the messy middle, not in the perfect beginning. Resilience isn't about bouncing back unchanged. It's about evolving forward, carrying the lessons but leaving the fear behind. 🙏💗
In something that looked more like an impulse than a plan (although in reality it was the reverse), I traded the work suit and heels for a bicycle, a tent, and riding sandals, and headed off to Oceania. After pedaling for so long, the road delivered me to the gates of a Zen monastery in Japan —a journey that altered the course of this life.
This wasn’t necessarily “play,” but it was a dream (one I did not know I had) and a really “difficult and lonely at times” adventure that I said yes to over a job I wasn’t fulfilled by. In fact, I was attached to the role and my worth to it.
It is a practice, a daily one at times, to learn to separate who I am from what I do, and know that my worth doesn’t come from what I do for a living or any of the stories I tell myself about it (especially the last bit!)
Thank you for this wonderful and insightful essay Beth. With so many excellent business tips too. Your success, teaching, advice and consistency in my life over the last 6 years has so often been a life buoy 🙏
The last 15 years have been a whirlwind of high, lows and lower than lows but has especially been learning about people, my soul, my business and importantly love. From teaching to a joint business venture in 2010, to emigration in 2015, into forced administration by 2017. To rock bottom by 2019. The lesson I have finally learned the hard way is to truly trust and really listen to My gut. And only mine. Especially not anyone else’s gut. Don’t allow Love to blur and overrule what you know in your true heart of hearts is wrong. And, see that the people you finally realise have your back and know much more than they let on, are those you least expect. Because ‘they’ truly do love you despite the deep trust you had in others.They say your 2nd Saturn return is a bitch, well I can certainly vouch for that!! Now at 67 it is my time to start again. Here’s to the next 15 years. 💜 Especially for you Beth. x