Yesterday was a typical Sunday for me:
6:18 am wake-up after hitting snooze twice,
Rummaging through my closet for pants with no zippers and buttons only to settle on a body suit because at least that means no bra or panties,
Pulling into the farmer’s market promptly at 7 am to set up my space *just right* as Virgos do,
Spending the morning hawking handcrafted African baskets out of the side of a van in a parking lot, and
Discussing late-stage capitalism and the general enshittification of everything with the woman who has the space next to me.
In case you need a refresher, I am Reno's official basket lady, made possible by my absolute delight in sourcing and selling the most beautiful handmade African goods as a way to support Zawadisha, the microlending organization I founded nearly 20 years ago.
I can’t say that selling baskets, textiles, jewelry, and more out of the side of a van in a parking lot is something I aspired to do. I started doing it out of necessity—when the pandemic threw the world into a chaotic shitstorm, Zawadisha lost almost all of our donors. Monica, our COO, called me and said she didn’t want to die, so we closed up our business in Kenya and sent everyone home for who knew how long. I kept paying them because what else would you do? That math—no donor dollars or revenue minus fixed operational costs—simply didn’t add up.
As with most of my good ideas, the solution to this problem hit me hard and randomly. One cold, fall day when I was attempting to fill my empty fridge at the Riverside Farmer’s Market, I looked around and realized I was surrounded by an ideal target market for my garage full of African goods. Within a few weeks, I was joining local farmers who would dedicate their weekends to engaging in a wonderful exchange with people actively investing in their local economy.
At the time, conducting business in a way that was in alignment with my values and my work ethic was tucked away far inside my brain. I was there for the money, and I got what I came for. As I’ve had to grapple with the opening and closing of my brick-and-mortar shop and process the countless conversations with other small business owners about what it takes to keep the wheels turning, I am grateful to be a part of a thriving, generative, and nurturing business community.
It has been challenging to reconcile where I thought I’d be at age 47 and how I actually spend my days. I, like I assume most of you, have been conditioned to believe that if I worked hard throughout my adult life I wouldn’t be bothered by the price of eggs and I would be able to pay a routine medical bill out of my robust savings, but here we are on a Sunday, schlepping baskets at Idlewild Park and all I can do is laugh at the naivete of my younger self.
I certainly could have done it all differently; I imagine there is a large corporation that would have been quite keen to hire me had I chosen not to invest my skills and energy into running my own businesses. But when I speak to people who chose that route, they don’t seem any happier than I do. They feel underpaid, underappreciated, overworked, and angry at the massive pay gap between them and their C-suite. While we expect more out of corporate America, what we forget is the way they operate is by design. Capitalism’s only motivation is to make a profit by any means necessary.
So where do we go from here?
Narrowing the wealth gap, ending the exploitative nature of business as usual, and reimagining a new way forward can be quite overwhelming. It’s not something that will happen quickly, nor will it be simple or straightforward. It’s also not something to wait around for, hoping someone else sorts it out—it starts with us. It starts with how we perceive value, success, and wealth. What can we unlearn and how can we evolve our taken-for-granted assumptions about this thing called life? The next step, which I’m practicing every day, sometimes doing better than others, is what we do with those thoughts that are antithetical to everything we’ve been conditioned to believe.
We can do this alone, or we can do this together.
Today I leave you with an invitation to explore this complexity in community. I’d like to facilitate a conversation with those of you who would benefit from a safe space to discuss how you perceive value, success, and wealth, and what collective action we can take. The goal is for you to leave with tangible next steps that support you personally and/or in your business. This offering is for paid subscribers, not because I necessarily expect the compensation (I realize I need to unpack that), but because I believe in reciprocity. It’s a small thing I can do to say thank you for financially supporting me and my newsletter and to add value to your financial decision.
When: Thursday, September 26th at 5 pm PST
What: Making Sense of the Enshittification of Everything
How: Paid subscribers will receive a Zoom link to join
As always, thanks for reading friends.
xxoo,
Jen