Earth Day comes once a year, but every day should be seen as a celebration of this amazing planet we call home. Storytelling is an age-old way of celebrating, and the story of Earth is a creation story -- no matter what your beliefs.
And, living in the U.S., we are fortunate to be able to make our own creation stories as well... with some ingenuity and hard work, of course! For me, I think it's vital that the stories of creation we forge ourselves in some way ensure that we are creating a kinder Earth for ourselves and our communities.
My story of creating a kinder Earth goes back a few generations. I come from a family of entrepreneurs and visionaries, dating back to John Hancock, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Like him, I believe freedom is the bedrock of positive change.
Love, freedom and security -- not fear or oppression -- create an environment that fosters a desire in people to create a better environment for their children. While my ancestor's story was about escaping a tyrannical government to create a better way for people to self-govern, my story -- and my passion -- is about removing poisons and plastics from households and daily life.
Following our collective passions in creating a kinder Earth, there are three things my employees and I focus on at earthkind. I ask you consider making them part of your life this Earth Day.
Opportunity
Creating an environment that breeds opportunity has been one of my objectives at earthkind. As an emoter, my real work is growing our people. After all, people -- not ideas -- make things happen. Treating people like spirits on a journey rather than cogs in a machine makes every day a new creation story, and, personally, it makes every day's work with my team more enjoyable and fulfilling.
Constantly growing and moving through different seasons reminds us all of natural cycles and enriches our appreciation of Mother Earth. Whether you are a seed about to sprout, a growing medium or a farmer of the future, how can you create opportunity?
Responsibility
At our company, we live by the core values "lean, mean and green." This allows us to continue to develop and manufacture the best products and the best price with the best possible service. It is not easy, but, as a team, it is doable and sustainable.
Fulfilling our mission to preserve the good and prevent the rest by offering natural products that perform better than chemical options and cost less is what gets poisons out of people's homes. People must choose our products over chemical based options. We take responsibility to help a customer solve their pest problem naturally by providing support through checklists, tips, assistance and much more. Can you find a way to take responsibility for your passions while helping the environment and others?
Changeability
Changing the way people solve pest problems is a small step with a big impact. Face it: do we really need or even want to kill pests? Or just never see them in our homes again? Do we want to continue teaching our kids to kill things that are just looking for a home, things that we can keep out with the right knowledge and effective deterrents?
I look at my customers as collaborators on a mission to help change the way things have been and create a new story for our Earth. It's my job to provide them with the tools to do that -- including a new line of pest prevention pouches we are in the final stages of developing that will offer our customers more first-of-their-kind alternatives that work much better than the old standard and that are all aimed at creating a kinder Earth at the same time.
Whatever your passion and whatever your contribution to making our planet a kinder place, think about how you show people viable and effective reasons and alternatives for changing their behavior. And, think about how you can, through your everyday practices, support the efforts of others to improve our planet -- through the causes you support, the initiatives you help publicize and the products you buy.
If we all make that sort of contemplation our mission this Earth Day, we can write the next chapter in how humans can collaborate to improve our planet.