photo credit: The Wine Cellar Insider
A lot of times our big focus is all about us, our businesses, our lives, but then, what happens when there's a disaster around us that we really need to show up for?
Most of you probably know we have some really horrible fires happening in California really close by in our beautiful Sonoma and Napa Counties, Sausalito and Santa Cruz. So many of our friends and families have lost their homes or have been displaced, were evacuated, and still are.
I was catching this press conference last night, the last press conference that the district spokeswoman was holding in Napa. She was talking about, "It's really serious still. Some people are still not in their homes. Many are still evacuated." And it's easy for us to support and it's wonderful that we're all supporting, but what happens afterwards? I spent this last weekend in Petaluma at the fairgrounds helping with whatever needed to be done. They needed volunteers all over the place. And there was an incredible outpouring of generosity. People were donating truckload after truckload after truckload of stuff. Pretty awesome what was happening. We just spent the day basically hauling trash. Not the most glamorous of things, but that's what was needed, so that's what we did.
The whole point is all this is coming in right now. People are donating. People are volunteering, but this is only the beginning. All these people, when they're going home, well there's no home anymore for many. Then shit gets real. That's when the serious stuff happens. And a lot of times, the community is disappearing because, out of sight, out of mind. The smoke, well today it's still pretty smoky but it's going to disappear soon, but all this impact will not disappear for a really long time.
So as we go along and do everything that's so important in our lives, our businesses, all, it's important that we stick with our community and keep reaching out.
The district supervisor was saying, "Pace yourselves. Pace yourselves with your generosity. Pace yourselves with your giving because this is a long haul. This is a long time of people needing us and people needing us to show up for them."
We need our community for our businesses and our lives. We also need to build the community around us, just in our towns. Think globally, act locally!
Make sure that you find, if you can, find a place you can volunteer. A lot of the places have lists where you can sign up for weeks in advance, or you can just show up to any of these county fairgrounds right now, where a lot of people are housed, where a lot of animals are housed. They need help. You can just show up and help because there's always something that needs to be done. Then, of course, you can give. You can donate and I will include some links for everybody to keep donating.
It's something to think about, this idea of always being present and being in community because there's some really crazy research that when you are part of a community, your success rate goes up dramatically. If you're really trying to change something daring, your success rate is only about 8%, but if you join a community of like-minded individuals, your success rate goes up dramatically, to 72%.
You can practice that in your business. Find a community you want to be with, who you want to hang with, who you want to support and be supported by. And the same thing in your town. Just make sure that you're always looking for what you can do. How you can be engaged. How you can act, so that you can be a valuable member of your community.
In that spirit, I just created a new Facebook group that I'm hoping all the women are going to join me because it is women-supporting-women. The Fearless Women Entrepreneur Network. I'll include a link for that, too. Hope to see you guys there.
And please give. Please donate to the Sonoma and Napa fires.
Donation links:
http://sonomahumane.org/
https://www.gofundme.com/napa-sonoma-fires
Join our new FB group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fearlesswomenentrepreneurs/