So here we are, the vision has been birthed and shared. Now it’s time to attract the people who fill in those skill-gaps and get to work. Maybe you’re reading this and thinking “Me! Me! I wanna help!” Or maybe you’re reading this thinking, “I’ll wait until it’s all built and I can just show up and be a member.”
It’s all good, we need you all. Wherever you’re at.
I am just over week in since sharing my Part 1 and Part 2 vision for Freestory Village, I have been overwhelmed with an outpouring of support, connections and resources that people are sending my way. I see this as an affirmation that I am on the right path, and that the world desperately needs more solutions for entrepreneurs and alternative home-educators.
As they say, “If you build it, they will come.”
Sometimes ‘building it’ means setting the vision and finding others to come along early and seed something together.
I will have the land, I will have the people. I just have to keep building the vision, letting go, praying with specificity and it will all come together. The exact timing I cannot control, but the inevitability of Freestory Village’s actualization is indeed promised.
But first, its important that any early founders and all future members are aligned on the Vision, Mission, Values, etc that anchor this village together.
I worked in advertising for a long time and consulted many clients on their brand architecture. Many of these clients had lackluster visions. They confused vision with their mission. The Vision has to be big. Grandiose. Even scary.
The Mission, however, What you do, How you do it, etc are where the pragmatic stuff comes in. The clients who had beautiful visions and missions were always the founder-owned & led companies. That’s why I loved consulting start-ups, they had an emotional attachment to their business that was beautiful. It was an extension of their soul.
That’s how Freestory Village feels for me. It’s not just a good business idea…it’s my life’s purpose. What I am about to share with you is a peek inside years of heart & soul work incubating this idea.
So here it goes… Mission, What We Do, Purpose, Values, Vision….boom, bop, bap!
MISSION: We’re on a mission to help live less-hurried lives.
WHAT WE DO: We gather outdoors in beautiful spaces to find our flow. We offer workshops, classes and services to support parents and kids who are pursuing an alternative lifestyle of home-education, entrepreneurship and sustainability.
Kid-based sessions will focus on forest school, Walford inspired educational approaches & socialization. Hiking, Arts & Crafts, Read-Alouds, Gardening, Academic Tutoring hours etc.
Adult-based sessions will focus on anything that helps the individual thrive as a parent and entrepreneur. This can be business or branding workshops, self-care/wellness sessions or personal development and parenting classes.
All community sessions will feature family hike days, gardening/permaculture activities, Construction projects (I.e. erecting a coop), community meal-time (Weston A Price style) and open mic nights where we will read aloud as a community and have great fire-side chats.
WHY (our purpose): To inspire people to live less-hurried lives so that they can create space to use their gifts and live out their purpose on earth.
READ THAT AGAIN.
Now let me elaborate:
“The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. It is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he shall do. It is chosen and foreordained, and he only holds the key to his own secret.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When we fulfill our mission to help people slow down, live more intentional days, we leave space for their gifts and purpose to be emerge and be nurtured. For their unique identity to be honored.
We’re here for just a vapor of time. We need to build in time for rest, to seek God (Divine guidance), find clarity of purpose, then MOVE on some bad-ass-purpose-driven productivity.
Bad-Ass-Purpose-Driven-Productivity.
When we move forward in life on auto-pilot, we’re just checking off boxes of accomplishments and meeting cultural standards of success and we might just miss the entire mark of why we’re here.
I’ve always say… be careful what you’re good at. It might not be what you’re meant to do.
I was good at advertising, but it wasn’t really my purpose, but it helped me used and identify my gifts. I was given ability to lead & collaborate with diverse groups of people, present, write, pitch, and push through hard deliverables with grit and grace. All of those years in advertising prepared me for this time.
I was born for such a time as this. And so were you.
So I will leave you with this… our VISION.
VISION: To usher in a new economy built to support community, sustainability and world-changing business.
That’s right WORLD-changing business. Our economy is changing, new currencies are emerging that will be recognized world-wide. School systems are changing. The future of work is changing. We must help birth new ‘systems’ that honor and catalyze these changes in healthy ways.
The first Freestory Village will be here, in the rural, mountainous back yards of Malibu-Ventura County, but there will be MANY more Freestory Villages across the country and eventually the world. I envision a franchisee model of sorts to grow in a more decentralized fashion and distribute opportunities to as many as possible.
It’s ok to think big when it benefits humankind. I’m doing the inner work to not be afraid of success. The fear of success holds me back more than the fear of failure. Failure just means, you learn, you grow, optimize and move forward. I know how to do that. Success means, you get given more and more responsibility. That can be scary.
But just like raising children, which is a huge responsibility, you just take it on one moment by moment. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
We’re not meant to know the future. We’re just here to help co-create it and let the magic unfold.
Up Next: The Freestory Village approach to ‘education,’ featuring interviews with certified Waldorf educators & Forest School founders.
Cheers & peace!
-Brooke
(P.S. if you’re an alternative educator or provide a service that would be of value to the Village…please get in touch for an interview, I’d love to feature you on a future newsletter).